The Manx 100 was set to go ahead last weekend. The event, scheduled for Sunday 25 July is a single lap mountain bike ultra-marathon that takes place on the Isle of Man. On Saturday, an announcement was made on the Manx 100 Facebook that the race was cancelled due to route sabotage.
Yes, the event has been cancelled due to ROUTE SABOTAGE. I guess most of you know how much time and effort goes into creating this event, but the events over the last 48 hours have meant that we have no choice but to fully cancel the event. We are way beyond sorry.
Manx 100
Event Cancellation
With little time to inform people, the organisers had no choice but to make this difficult decision. Sending an email out to riders that said:
Sorry to have to report that the event has been cancelled. This is due to Route sabotage and therefore no idea if the route will be there. This has meant for safety reasons we can not run the event. I rode the full 100km route on Thursday and there were only arrows missing from 3 areas – two on the road and one in Cringle just up from the reservoir. These were easily fixable and that was planned for Friday.
Later that evening we began to get reports that the route was missing from Arrasey and Earystane with an eye witness seeing a mountain biker in black lycra grabbing an arrow off a post and throwing it over a hedge. We then decided, hey ho, we can fix that and then on Friday went out and discovered that as well as missing arrows, others had been left but twisted to send you the wrong way (eg down the enduro track in Arrasey)…Ultimately EVERY ARROW HAD BEEN MESSED WITH, either thrown away or turned to point in the wrong direction.
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Earystane the same, every arrow either missing or turned. We fixed all these, and then we checked Cringle car park to Car Park 1. All arrows there. However, after work, David checked from car park 1 to Renshent where he discovered lots and lots of arrows missing/ turned as before. This morning we made the call to cancel the event for everyone’s safety. We are still getting reports that arrows are missing/turned etc (top of Arrasey). This means that whoever this is, is not giving up. I am way beyond sorry to have to give you this news. We have your goodie bags at the grandstand so if you want to turn up as planned and get those that would be ace, but clearly, if you can’t make it, or don’t want to then that is also fine. I have messaged and or talked to all riders from the UK.
Manx 100 Will Return in 2022
It appears the trouble had started from 22 July, when the Manx 100 informed people out riding to use the GPX route, as someone had started altering the arrows then. Posting on their Facebook page, Nigel Morris, the event organiser shared a message from his wife.
To the person/s that decided to sabotage the event you are obviously not mentally mature enough to process the potential end result of your actions, DEATH of the competitors. If you are and that was your intention how you sleep is beyond me…What it has also created is an inbox full of help and suggestions, so now there is a bigger pool of helpers and the Manx 100 miles, 100km and the 50km will all be back next year…we love nothing more than seeing the elation on the rider’s faces when they finish. However, for the riders who have trained and come across for this they have been left with uncertainty for future events.
Lisa Morris (Manx 100 Organiser’s Wife).
Related Content:
Classic Rides: The Isle of Man.
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