It was the worst mud section, but not the only mud section. Anyone who wasn’t aware/prepared for a muddy day had their head in the sand or just made the decision not to prepare. There was always going to be mud on the course and there was a high likelyhood of thunderstorms during the race (which happened). Blaming a 3 mile section of mud for a dnf on a 205 mile race where you know there will be some mud is just silly. If they had a major mechanical to end their day, that’s on them for not dealing with the mud (and/or some bad luck). If they were too tired to finish after walking for 90 minutes, then they weren’t fit enough to finish the race. More people certainly would have finished if they had re-routed. More people would always finish if they made the course easier. They specifically added some new hard sections this year to make the course harder than last year, their goal is not to minimize DNF’s. Again, I totally get that people didn’t like the re-route being dangled at the rider meeting, but everyone had to be prepared for mud with our without that early section.
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