I was riding in the Wenatchee rotary apple century yesterday and I noticed, during the climb before the halfway point, that I was playing "leap-frog" with a man and his young son. I would estimate the young man was under the age of 10, and he and his father seemed on the well fed side. now, the first 25 miles had been relatively flat, but then the route became gradually steeper, climbing from around 600 feet to somewhere over 2400 over 25 miles. Add to that the fact that it was raining rather persistently and several riders were carted away for hypothermia, and this seemed like a very dangerous and unreasonable experience to put a child through. I did notice that the boy's mother was providing personal SAG services in the family van. We passed their van, pulled off to the side of the road several times, and witnessed what seemed like an awful lot of cajoling and earnest,fast talking during these frequent stops. It seemed to me that they would pull off in such a way as to sheild the boy from the view of passing cyclists. I had the distinct impression that the boy was exhausted and wanted to quit. I was exhausted and wanted to quit at that point, and I was trying to imagine how that would have felt at the age of 10. a nightmare! We took off from the halfway point and didn't see them riding after that. The little family did show up for the spagetti feed after we were almost done eathing, so I'm presuming that boy was forced to ride every mile of the 100 and finished some time after we did. I'm still convinced that was something that a child should not have been put through. Am I wrong? Should I have said something?