I ride fairly regularly at Blairadam, I like the natural rooty trails. I like how they vary season to season. I respect the weather and try not to ride there when doing so will damage the fragile trail structure.
I rerode some of the trails a recent race course had followed and was horrified. After two weeks of freezing nights and drying easterly winds, my expectation was that the trails would be in great shape. They were in fact an unrideable quagmire. I doubt they'll recover till late in the summer.
Please race organisers, try to plan race courses with more respect to the seasons and the sustainability of the location's ability to recover. Somewhere with better drainage than Blairadam would be much more suited for a race in February.
I've spent some time as a volunteer maintaining trails at Blairadam. If the trails are going to be used as insensitively as this again, I doubt anyone will volunteer for future trail building days.
