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Cycling & running events banned in world's hottest place, California's Death Valley

Furnace Creek 508 ultracycle race among events rerouted after National Park imposes ban on safety grounds

Cycling and running events in the world’s hottest place, Death Valley in California, have been temporarily banned on safety grounds – not because of the potential effects of the searing heat on competitors, but due to traffic congestion caused by support crews and spectators.

Races including ultrarunning event the Badwater Ultramarathon, held every year since 1987 and covering 135 miles, won’t take place in the National Park next year, and the ban, which is unlikely to be lifted by October at the earliest, will also affect the Furnace Creek 508 bike race, established in 1983.

Both those events are organised by AdventureCorps, which has already said that it plans to re-route the Badwater Ultramarathon, scheduled for June, which requires competitors to run 135 miles from the lowest point in North America – Badwater Basin, 228 feet below sea level – to a height of 8,360 feet, taking them close to the peak of the highest mountain in the lower 48 states, Mount Whitney.

The Furnace Creek 508 – the number denotes the distance in miles – was scheduled to take place from 2-4 October 2014 with up to 250 participants with solo, two-person relay, and four-person relay divisions, alongside sub-categories for tandem, fixed gear, recumbent, and classic bikes.

This year’s edition of the ultracycling race was affected by the US Government shutdown and had to be held on a truncated, 308-mile route, with the route set to be used in a new event from Adventure Corps in 2014, the Trona 308.

The company has said that with it being impossible to book accommodation for October 2014 due to uncertainty over whether the ban will be lifted by then, next year’s 31st edition of the Furnace Creek 508, which it bills as “the toughest 48 hours in sport" will take place “in a dramatic new venue with a world-class route.”

Five-time Badwater Ultramarathon finisher Shannon Farar-Griefer, who has the distinction of being the first woman to complete the race back to back – running from the start to finish then back again, equivalent to the distance of more than ten marathons – said that holding the race on a different route is “like taking Wimbledon away from a tennis player,” reports the Washington Post.

Chris Kostman of AdventureCorps pointed out that his company has staged 89 events in Death Valley since 1990, none of which has involved a serious incident, saying: "There have been no deaths, no car crashes, no citations issued, and only a few evacuations by ambulance after literally millions of miles covered on foot or by bike by event participants."

Referring to the altered route for the Badwater 135 next year, he continued: “Nothing beats running the original route from the bottom of Death Valley to the end of the road on Mount Whitney."

In a blog post on the AdventureCorps website, he maintained that the ban has not come about as a result of any specific incident, is unprecedented among National Parks, expressed concerns about its open-ended nature and said that events should be allowed to continue while the safety review takes place.

In reply to comments made by Death Valley National Park Staff at a recent meeting that “other Parks are watching us" and "we might be setting a national precedent," he said: “Even a one-year ban on events is NOT a precedent that anybody who enjoys cycling or running events within National Parks would support.

“There are successful and popular cycling and running events held within National Parks across America; they could all be in jeopardy now.”

However, Death Valley National Park spokeswoman Cheryl Chipman insisted: "We don't want to have to wait for an accident to happen to do this safety review. We want to be proactive and create the conditions that we think are the safest allowable for these kinds of events."

The highest temperature ever recorded on earth of 134 degrees Fahrenheit (56.7 degrees Celsius) was registered there on 10 July 1913, although it was only officially reinstalled as the record last year following analysis of a higher reading taken in Libya in 1922, now deemed to be inaccurate.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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6 comments

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kie7077 | 10 years ago
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Had to check  26

Dasht-e Lut, Iran

Too hot to go there!

Satellite Finds Highest Land Skin Temperatures on Earth (pdf with world map hottest places pic)

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jarredscycling | 10 years ago
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I don't get why this would happen. Clearly if these events have been going on for that long it hasn't been a huge issue. If other events are the problem the US Gov. should just create a more stringent permit process with more stringent requirements Badwater and other events that have been running for 25 years will not have a problem meeting

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Guyz2010 | 10 years ago
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Seems a shame but hey it happens, least there is an alternative route. I can see this sort of thing happening more frequently all over as roads are for cars and not cyclist! Or so many authorities seem.

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Gkam84 | 10 years ago
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Oh, I thought RAAM went through Death Valley  17

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themartincox | 10 years ago
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RAAM doesn't go through there (unless I was asleep at that point) but certainly the furnace creek 508 was hugely affected, and certainly will be for the foreseeable future.

silly rules seem to exist on both sides of the atlantic!

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Gkam84 | 10 years ago
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That's going to affect RAAM then and a couple of other Ultramarathon cycling events

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