I thought that I would wait until all was said and done, but that could be a long time. There are still loose ends out there from my perspective and for some of the riders -- jerseys on order and vendors that haven’t submitted the final bill, but we’re getting close.
Genesis of the ride
I had it in my mind that it would be neat to have a 1200k at home. Having been the main organizer of the Granite Anvil 1200k in Ontario, I had experience, knew what I’d want as a rider and knew what could reasonably be achieved. Key West was also part of my thinking, although I really didn’t want to ride the keys twice on the ride, just uses up too many miles, and running a true point-to-point would be really difficult for me and the riders.
After one of the early season Brevets, I was chatting with Paul Rozelle. One or the other of us, forget which, brought up the notion of a Florida 1200k and we were both thinking of the Keys. In fact, Paul had had a conversation with fellow Randonneurs after the last PBP about just such a ride. Key West in particular, is probably the only “draw” for international riders, other than just-another-1200k. If Key West were to be involved, I wanted the ride to start in KW, rather than end, since many riders might opt to ride through the last night and see the Keys totally in the dark, and be along that busy roadway totally in the dark. The difficulty, of course, is that starting Key West means ending where ? How do riders get back to the start ? Should we worry about that ? Yes, I worry about things like that.
Then Paul mentioned that he’d heard of a ferry. I did some checking and found The Key West Express … ok, game on. This is possible. Riders can do a loop even if the ride itself is a horseshoe shape. Since the Key West Express runs from Key West to/from Fort Myers Beach, that defines the end points.
The overall ride concept started taking shape.
Volunteers
From running the Granite Anvil and from riding so many of these rides myself, I knew that they were most successful if there were sufficient volunteers. I also knew that organizational volunteers were key, not just day-of-ride execution volunteers. Being a PBP year, volunteers could be a problem but I had commitment from Paul to do the route, John Preston to help on the volunteer side, Ruth D’Aiuto wherever possible, so we had a core team. Paul and John were both swamped running brevets for the hordes who want to go to PBP, so I knew that I’d be taking on more than a non-PBP year. That’s ok, I said to myself, I’ve done this before … piece of cake ! Ha.
Very early in the game we had others on board, people who I could count on for the execution side. Dick Felton committed from Day 1, so I knew that I had a partner in crime to manage execution. I figured that one way or another we could find about 20 volunteers to help as Florida is pretty well covered with Randonneurs.
We can thank Mark Campbell for the design of the logo and kicking off the work with JEK Sports, the jersey supplier and another vendor for the medals. Ruth came up with the t-shirt supplier and 1200k stickers and I found the company to do the mugs.
Once submitted and approved by RUSA, Alain Abbate, Ed Bennett, Chris Benkley, Shab Memarbashi, Rorie Anderson, Art Fuocco, Tim Bol and Dan Wallace signed on along with others who I could count on as needed. I knew that I had my overnights and transportation covered. I didn’t want to overwork the volunteers, really wanted each team to only work one aspect of the event. That way, in a pinch, I could ask them to double up. Not killing the volunteers is key if you ever want to do it again !
The Route and Timing
We had two major possibilities for the route. One was through Miami, the other was west of Miami, up by Lake Okeechobee, before heading to the coast. We knew that Miami would be tough, from a riding standpoint, either way we went. If we were going to start in Key West and go anywhere but around in circles, we needed to get through or around Miami. We notionally picked Key West, Jupiter, Daytona, Lake Wales and Fort Myers Beach as the major points on the route. Paul did a routing for the RUSA submission, I did the paperwork and threw it into the hopper. Being a PBP year, we knew that there wouldn’t be very many U.S. rides approved and being Florida, early season or late season were the only choices. A 1200k after PBP would be difficult to run, for anyone also doing PBP, so we chose May. It had to be after the Florida 600k’s, which are in April and we had to leave time for a pre-ride. Not wanting to conflict with Memorial Day weekend narrowed it down to the only logical choice.
The RUSA submission went west of Miami. John drove the route west of Miami at the time of day that we’d be riding. That was a no-go. High speed traffic, no shoulder, anxious drivers, too many lights to see bicycle lights … for all those reasons, we were back to the original concept … South Beach Here We Come !!
Dan Driscoll was also part of this process. To me it didn’t make sense to run two South US 1200k’s in May. We’d be drawing from the same ridership. I knew that there was a potential that he would run the Stampede in 2015, so I contacted him before putting in the route submission. He graciously agreed to coordinate and in fact, provided lots of helpful suggestions as the ride was organized.
Accommodations
I like using motels for overnights. Community Centers are fine in some circumstances and I’ve done that as a rider, but I love a semi-private room with a hot shower. A couple of hours of good sleep is better than an entire night of broken sleep. I learned that in my first year of Randonneuring at the Granite Anvil 2009 with cold showers and fire alarms going off. I got involved with the second running in 2013 and the entire organizing team was in synch – we wanted motels. It worked out well. I was pretty confident that we could find motels to accommodate us although that does put a limit on the number of riders.
So … it started. Using Dan Driscoll’s terminology, I wanted this to be easy for the riders. I wanted to make all the hotel bookings; that would facilitate room sharing and keep the riders’ cost down. I wanted to arrange the Ferry as well, for the same reason.
Jupiter was easy. South Florida uses La Quinta a lot. There are probably other choices, but they are used to us. This would be different though, since it wasn’t a self-book-group-rate, it was organizer book and pay for the entire block. Edgewater, south of Daytona, was likely going to be the second spot but I ended up using a service that asked multiple hotels for quotes on the room block and I found the Oceanside in Daytona Beach. The World’s Most Famous Beach might also be a draw, who knows. The sales guy from the Key West Express pointed me at the Hampton in Fort Myers Beach, so I started that discussion. He, in turn pointed me to the Hampton in Lake Wales.
Although it seems that these hotels are all large, in fact there are limitations on the number of two-bed rooms in each hotel. They also don’t want to give up too many rooms at a reduced rate as that pulls their overall profit (average paid rate) for that night down. Surprisingly, they aren’t very keen on block paid either, perhaps that puts them more at risk of the entire block cancelling ? I don’t know.
Working with the hotels, I signed contracts with each for 25 rooms with various cancellation provisions. That took care of five nights – pre and post in Fort Myers Beach and the three ride hotels. I knew that pre and post in FMB would be a variable depending on rider travel plans.
The sticking point became Key West. First off the rooms are expensive, more than double the price of the other hotels. Secondly, they were not willing to give me that many rooms for one night. In fact, many of them won’t take one night bookings that far in advance, wanting instead to hold them for weekly bookings. Key West, after all, is a resort, not a drive-through town.
I managed to find two hotels in Key West that could together provide enough rooms for us. The rates were as reasonable as I could negotiate. Sandy (my wife) and I drove to Key West in November to check them out. I would also pre-ride that first part of the ride into Miami, not wanting to send riders somewhere that I’d never been.
The Key West hotels would not hold rooms without payment and in fact, wouldn’t guarantee much. That drove a December 1, 2014 registration date. We needed to commit to those rooms as early as possible. The web site with CCN was setup so that people would pay for all this in one fell swoop. Part of the problem with Key West was that a number of hotels were in the midst of renovation, due to open in the Spring, so hotel rooms were at a premium, believe it or not. Demand was outstripping supply.
Two days before registration was due to open, the Key West hotels in question bailed. They wouldn’t stick to their commitment. One wouldn’t give me enough rooms and the other increased their price, significantly. Sorry, was all that one could offer; the other had changed hands. They too were sorry. I had to re-think any possibility of group book of those rooms and quickly scouted around for traditional group rates and took the group pay option out of the website. It was a mad scramble.
Like the ride hotels, it would have been much cleaner to have people all at one hotel. It was the best that we could do under the circumstances. If we do this again, the Key West hotel arrangements will be different, guaranteed.
Transportation and Ride Logistics
For most 1200k’s, transportation isn’t really an issue. Drop bags yes, bicycles no. Time and time again I pressed the Ferry to see if they could take bicycles inside, since they didn’t have outside space, and the answer was no. That meant truck rental, which concerned me – taking responsibility for all these expensive, customized, bikes. In fact renting two trucks worked out very well. We had ample space, Alain and Ed did a great job handling that aspect. Hand-off in Key West to the riders wasn’t clean but that had more to do with the Key West Hotel arrangements than with the trucks.
In fact, given our experience on the pre-ride, with the four of us taking the ferry and having our bikes bathed in salt water spray, trucking was much, much better.
With the ride being a loop, we could move drop bags with us. That meant that Alain and Ed could then ride together on the drop bag truck, which was rented in Key West when they dropped off the bicycle trucks. The drop bags would move with the riders and get to the motels in advance of the motel check-in times. That would work for everyone but someone who opted to ride through. It also meant that people could work with one drop bag, which is better for everyone. We had a system of checking off the drop bags as they were loaded, so that we knew we had everyone’s. That worked for all but the first day – three riders didn’t leave bags with us. One we guessed that his spouse had the bag, the other two we were left guessing. We chased down the riders in the Keys and verified that we had all the bags. Whew !
The drop bag truck gave us the capacity to carry a few bikes as well, but no riders. That turned out to be a problem a couple of times as my SUV was pretty full of provisions and we could only pick up one rider. On the first day we sagged one rider who decided to DNF and then we couldn’t pick up another who was off course. We had to send the truck back for him. The moral of that story was leave more space for passengers next time !
The Pre-Ride
Setting up the pre-ride was like running a mini 1200k. Separate contracts with the hotels were required and, in fact, a different hotel in Lake Wales. It seems that a wedding had booked the entire hotel for the weekend. However, two weeks before our pre-ride, I checked with the Hampton and the wedding had freed up a few rooms so I grabbed them and cancelled the other arrangements.
Transportation for the pre-ride was a mixed bag with some of us taking the ferry and some driving directly. John Preston had to change his arrangements at the last minute and drive rather than take the ferry so he had his own scrambling to do.
The pre-ride had a separate brevet card print, as we knew that there would be changes to the cue sheet. Is that gas station a Hess or Shell ? Only being there will tell the tale ! Where shall we put the Walk-in Water Control ? We’ll figure that out on the road.
Other than the number of flats, the pre-ride went well. Being two weeks earlier does make a difference temperature-wise and we lucked out with the wind through the Keys, having a tail-wind for most of the way East. After that first long day, we mostly rode in daylight, which was quite a new experience for me. I got more sleep on this 1200k than I’d had on any other. We mostly rode Audax style but did split up a few times.
When our group arrived on the Ferry in Key West it was pouring, the kind of rain that anywhere else not already at sea level would produce flooding. We ducked into a restaurant and spent a couple of hours waiting it out, then headed to our hotel, The Gates. Because the Marriott wasn’t ready yet, the owner had booked us into a better hotel. Well, as it turned out, those booked into the Marriott for the “main event” were also switched to The Gates and got the benefit of the nicer accommodations.
Food
The commitment to riders was a pre-ride get-together and food at the overnights, essentially nothing else. That changed, partly driven by how the ride unfolded.
First off, food in Key West wasn’t as easy as I’d hoped. The hotels wouldn’t let us serve our own beer etc. because they were licensed to sell. I managed to get a reasonable deal from The Gates on bar service; they would charge a setup fee (for what, indeed ?), and we would provide soft drinks and food. We probably could have done a little better in the food department as we ran low at the end.
That food arrangement drove where we would do the registration activities, not where we happened to be staying. Again, this is something that would have been cleaner if we were all in one hotel.
Chris and Shab volunteered to handle food for Jupiter; Lynn Daniels pitched in as well; I would handle it for Daytona Beach; Rorie for Lake Wales. Anything else would be execution driven.
As the ride unfolded and it was clear that it was going to hotter than the pre-ride and we adapted. John Preston setup the Control along Cardsound Road, providing drinks. Dick and I loaded up with supplies and were everywhere possible, supplementing what could be found along the road. Marion, Terry and Andy, signed up as “floating” support, were scheduled to be inland, where it would be hotter; Marion on top of Sugarloaf and Terry at Paisley and then the Van Fleet trailhead. Andy made arrangements for dry ice and ice cream along that long stretch of 31 where I knew from the pre-ride, I’d have loved to have ice cream.
Since most people weren’t riding through, it made sense to do something at Fort Myers Beach at the end as well. Larry Grabiak picked up beer and made arrangements for pizza. The drop bag truck would beat most people there and have soft drinks to supplement what Larry had in stock.
The first day was so long and hot that no-one wanted to eat much at Jupiter. We had way too much food. That’s a little hard to predict. Doing this again we would make some adjustments in the food department.
Rider Tracking
Because we wouldn’t have staffed intermediate Controls, I was reluctant to only post progress at overnight points. I had talked to Trackleaders on and off, finally deciding to go ahead with them. We did some testing during the pre-ride with device placement and with batteries – lithium vs alkaline. The lithium batteries are a lot more expensive but I knew from my own use of a SPOT that alkaline should last for the duration of a 1200k. The TRACE device gave us the ability to turn it on once and leave it on. There were a few snafu’s – one TRACE is still on the ground somewhere in Ft. Lauderdale – the one in the Velomobile had to be relocated – one was turned off by a rider not aware that it wouldn’t flash.
I opted to supply all the devices, with brackets, rather than utilizing some personally-owned devices where available. That made it easier for me as I could dictate usage, didn’t have to worry about resetting devices daily, etc. All in all the logistics part of using these devices worked out well.
Attaching the devices slowed down registration. I’d have more people doing that next time.
The riders and their families and friends loved it ! We could see where the riders were; we could plan food supplies; families could see (and laugh at) riders off track (yes, that happened) and/or they could message a rider that they were off track (yes, that happened too).
Communications
Ok, I admit that I over-use email, however that’s my medium of choice. I got lots of questions about information on the website which people didn’t have time to find, so I chose to push a lot of information out. Facebook had its place too, mostly rah, rah, rah, perfect for social media. Paul reviewed a few emails and cut out some of my overblown writing … anything that was overdone, blame on me.
There were LOTS of emails. My email saved folder of ride emails just went over 3,000. I suppose I didn’t send out half that many again, but there were quite a few – riders, vendors and suppliers, interested parties …
There was drama !
Heading to Fort Myers Beach, it started and continued !
1) One rider was without wheels. We arranged to equip his bike with spare wheels while he had his shipped to Key West. That problem was solved.
2) Another rider had his wife crash in Key West, breaking her ankle, and wasn’t sure that he’d be able to do the ride. She was able to drive home, thankfully.
3) A rider lost his wallet and brevet card; he dealt with the wallet, we dealt with the brevet card.
4) Two DNF’s on the first day, one way behind the group and one off track both opted to DNF. Dick and I picked up one; the drop bag truck the other.
5) Oh yes, a funny moment on the off-track rider was this bimbo with a beer in hand who wanted to get in the car with us … nope !
6) Trying to track down one rider who was about to DNF, we called a 7-11 expecting to find a different rider, but found him. He’d arranged for a taxi ride forward.
7) At least four wheel problems were solved, two by riders at bike shops, one by us supplying a spare, another in “watch and see” mode since a spare wouldn’t have been the best solution.
8) I had a bolt at my house to supply to a rider with a saddle rail attachment problem; luckily I live close to Daytona Beach and had the 5mm bolt in stock.
9) A similar bolt was also retrieved from my house to help a rider with a seatpost binder bolt problem.
10) We moved a rider from where his crankset broke to a bike shop for a replacement and then back to where he left the route.
11) One rider re-hydrated by IV having had an ambulance called on his behalf. He not only finished the ride but in the interim also had a wheel replaced. That’s dedication !!
Once everything is in place, the organizer’s key concern is rider safety. We had two significant issues on this ride – John Smith who crashed, suffering a concussion, and Rus Hamilton who succumbed to Hyponatremia. It looks like both will have no long term effects but both have suffered some degree of short-term memory loss. John still has some vertigo keeping him off the bike and Rus may never do another ride this long, wondering if he is now susceptible.
John was moved by helicopter to hospital and pronounced clear of any significant issues; Rus, on the other hand, spent several days in hospital before he could return to Australia. I arranged to get his bike and gear to him in Broward from Fort Myers Beach.
Did we meet our objectives ?
Our objective was to put on a ride that people would enjoy, and I believe that we were mostly successful. There are always some areas for improvement of course, some lessons learned.
I wanted this to be what I would consider a “world class” event, and I believe that we were successful. We attracted some international riders and they seemed pretty satisfied with the experience. There’s no specific yardstick for measurement, but overall the blogs, Facebook posts and direct feedback have been good.
Five degrees cooler would have been nice ! A few very experienced Randonneurs DNF’d due to the heat, including Rus.
We had a large number of riders doing their first 1200k, the last time I did a rough count, probably over a dozen. We did our utmost to help people make THEIR ride a success, through encouragement and on-the-ride support. We, as volunteers, are all proud of being part of that achievement.
And Finally, Thanks !
I can’t thank the volunteers enough. All the planning, all the email communications etc. would have come to naught without their help.
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