The 1-Day ride this year had 35 people split into 5 groups, sharing 9 SAG vehicles. This ride had lots of problems, which I am recording here, so that hopefully this won't happen again. Here's a list of what went wrong and how I plan to fix things.

• 3 people did not show up that morning -
  • Having 3 people cancel meant that I needed to do some last-minute changing of the groups and drivers. This then made all of the handouts (35 copies) slightly obsolete. Having to take the time to make these changes that morning was time that I did not have to spare.
  • Having 3 people cancel also meant that the group had too many Sag vehicles. Instead of having 2 people per Sag, most of them were now 1 person per Sag. Therefore, this ended up being much less of a social ride, as people couldn't talk to each other during their Sag sections.
  • Having 3 people cancel meant that I would be short on the gas money, as the amount that I collect and then give out to the Sag owners is determined on the number of people who signed up. If anyone doesn't show then that money is directly a loss out of my own pocket.

• People feeling free to drop out has made much more work for me. During that last week before the ride, things were changing every day, and so every day I would need to revise the assignments. This year I had a total of 12 people drop out, plus 3 more who were no shows. Every one of these caused me more work (and more stress). To fix this, I now plan to collect money ($10) at the time that people sign up for this ride. Then I will have a cutoff date about 2 weeks before the ride. Anybody that drops out after that date does not get their money back. Anybody that wants to sign up after that date will pay extra ($15). This way I hope to change the group and sag assignments less often, and when it does become necessary to change things, then it is the person either dropping out or joining late who gets to pay extra.

• Too many people to look out for caused me some more stress. Many people did not fully study (or even look at) all of the information that I had made available on the website. Therefore, I was being asked what I thought were some dumb questions. Because of these questions, I knew right away that the person did not study the information available. To fix this, I am seriously thinking of making up a short test, and then requiring people to take and pass this test before I put them on my list. The ride will go much smoother if everyone knew how the ride was supposed to work.

• The groups became un-syncronized during the ride. This was partly due to people not understanding how the ride was supposed to be. They thought that they only had to look out for themselves, and so would try to get an early start, but in reality, each person needs to be aware of the other persons in their group and to help each other along.

• Our new breakfast place was overwelmed by our group. They thought that they could handle us, but they had some trouble. The food was good, and they were trying, so we will give them another chance next year. Things to suggest are them providing a buffet and charging us each the same price. I will also try to stagger our arrival times a bit more to help spread the group out. Also, I will adjust the time allotted to be a bit longer. The big problem here was that 2 groups got through on schedule, while the other 3 were delayed at least another half hour more than was scheduled.

• The un-syncronization of the groups caused one group to mistakenly drive ahead with the Sags, leaving another group behind with no source of food or water. More education is needed here so that people will know when it is ok to drive ahead and when it is necessary for them to wait for the following groups.

• Some riders needed Sag help during the later sections. It became necessary for a sag to travel backwards along the course to help these people out. For next year Anita and Duncan have said that they are willing to provide roving Sag service for the whole ride. This would be in addition to the regular Sags that people share.

• Having too much to try to organize caused me to run out of time and to over stress. Lack of sleep didn't help me either. On Thursday, I worked on preparing for this ride from when I got home at 5:30 until midnight. Then on Friday morning I was up at 4:30 to continue getting ready. During all of this I completely forgot to check my bicycle to see if it was ready for a long weekend of riding. Because "check my bicycle" was not on my list, I ended up getting a tire blowout on the road. I found that my tire was badly worn all around. I ended up with 3 flats in this one section. When I got to the Sag stop, I found that the Sags were not there. This was my last straw. I threw my bicycle to the ground. I gave up on riding any more that day.

So, for future rides, anything that makes it less stress for me is what I'm going to do. Have people pay in advance. No refunds for late cancelations. Make sure that people read the rules. All of these will result in less work and less stress for me.

-Donny