Over the last few days I've been reading letters a few of you have writtenin response to my column regarding the situation in Redwood city (see“ Vaughters' view: Safety first!"). Most of them are positive and complimentary, but a few promoters have expressed concern about my painting the whole group with a very broad brush. Well, not to contradict myself in the same week, but some of these concerns voiced are valid.

I will be the first to admit that I threw all race promoters in thesame bin by suggesting that they had their priorities skewed by not appearingto care about rider safety and trying to please sponsors. I’ll also admitthat was wrong of me. In fact most race promoters in the U.S. run eventsthat are as safe, a remarkable feat considering the small budgets manyof them work with allow.

Still, when it comes to most events in Europe, and a few races herein the USA, I can quite comfortably stand by original assertion: For somepromoters money is king, and riders are simply the entertaining way togenerate that money. For them, safe conditions are an afterthought.

In this case, I think my knee-jerk reaction came from spending a fewtoo many years as something of a trained monkey in the old country. However,for the most part, here in the U.S. riders’ safety does reflect the generallysafety conscious attitude of the rest of our society.

That is no small task considering that U.S. motorists are much lessaware of how to react to a cycling event. Some of my best friends are racepromoters and, some day, I hope to try my hand at it as well. (That way,I can get my own bunch of grief about course design.) So, I do at leasttry and sympathize with how difficult a job these guys take on.

All said, the situation in Redwood City deserved the seemingly extremereaction that it got. This is the first time I've ever ridden a race neutralized by the riders. This out of perhaps over 1000 races I've done over the span of my career.

For one in 1000 races to draw the riders’ nearly unanimous wrath mustmean something was seriously amiss. I would gladly spend time to help thepromoter of this event talk to his sponsors, and the City of Redwood toexplain what happened… and why. More importantly, we all need to sit downand see how the situation can be avoided in the future. Perhaps a groupof experienced pros can offer a perspective only direct experience can provide. Sometimes only those in the thick of it can see problems others might not.

I still say that Redwood City was a beautiful course. I, for one, hope that, some day, the organizers of the Sea Otter can run a race on it and if there's anything I can ever do to make it happen, I invite them to give me a call.