ridecamp@endurance.net: ride manager stuff

ride manager stuff

Stephanie Teeter (step@fsr.com)
Wed, 30 Jul 1997 14:25:47 -0700

I was recently asked for tips and ideas on managing a ride... I've
got a couple things here that made our ride go much smoother
this year and thought I'd share them.

btw these are ideas that were borrowed from other rides - in particular
Sue Summers' Animal House ride - she always does such a great job
and constantly comes up with new and better ways.

1. A large ride board - I built two big boards out of 2x4's and plywood and
covered them with whiteboard (the shower-stall stuff, also used instead
of chalkboards for meetings). The boards are on legs, so they stand about
5 ft high - and are quite visible. I pounded two metal posts into the ground
and leaned the boards up against them. These boards are where all of
the time info is recorded - for each distance, for each rider - in time and
out time is recorded. Then riders need only come up to the board to see
their out-time and to see where they are relative to other riders. The boards
were near the camp area where all of the trails went out, so everyone came
by each time they left camp. I used permanent markers to write on them.
The permanent markers are supposed to come off with Naptha (a nasty
solvent) but didn't completely erase from last year, so I just covered over
the old stuff with white contact paper and drew new grid lines.

2. Rider cheat-sheets. In addition to maps with each distance's trails marked
and colored, I made little cheat sheets and glued them to index cards. On one
side was a reduced version of the trail map, on the other side of the card was
all of the necesarry rider info - start time, loops, hold times, etc. People
stuck
these in their card bag. At Sue's ride, she actually punched a hole in the card
and tied on a loop of baling twine for riders to put around their next. This
really
cut down on the confusion of which loop next? Hold time? etc.

3. Having a well defined P&R and vet station - I flagged off a large area of the
meadow with a 125' long (for CRI's) section solely dedicated to vetting -
and had
an adjacent area where riders entered and formed a line for the vet. This really
cut down on milling and confusion, plus created a good traffic flow from the
water and P&R area. I put up pie plates with directional information such as
P&R Here. Enter Here for Vet.... that kind of stuff. It really cuts down on the
confusion and makes the vetting go more smoothly.

There are lots more little things that make a big difference - maybe
others that have managed rides can volunteer a few ideas? If so, I'll
collect them and put them on the web page - would be a good resource.

Steph Teeter
http://www.endurance.net
http://www.horse-shop.com

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