Pelotonia Bike Tour - Event Complete
I have to say that the Pelotonia Bike Tour last weekend (August 29-30) was a pretty neat event. There were over 2,000 riders that started. Lance Armstrong was along for the first day only, but he was there (I didn't get any pictures, unfortunately). The best part about the event was providing necessary support for the thousands of riders. The worst part was the time, effort, and lack of organization involved.
Here is our first post - right past OSU's medical center about 2 miles after the start of the ride. Lots of riders! They were released in groups, for some reason this one just happened to have a ton of riders in it - unless it is a combination of a few groups.
My role was to provide communications for one of the Support And Gear (or SAG) vehicles. Each one (and I believe there were eight total) was equipped with a medical person, a communications person, and the necessary gear for both. COARES installed an APRS system in each vehicle as well in order to keep track of all the vehicles in real time on a map. It was really a big event.
Here I am in the SAG vehicle running the radio. We were in downtown Logan at the time.
The next shots are of one of the rest stops on day 1. I forget what was going on, but just about the entire crew - sweep, SAG's, etc - were told to hold up at this stop. The mini vans are the SAG's. Med Corps, Highway Patrol, and the black car were the Sweep at the time. We were close to the end, though, so maybe they had all the coverage they needed. Our only assignment from here was to do a check sweep back about 4 miles along the course to see if anyone was left out there. Then we were done for the day.
Most of our time was spent monitoring the riders. We were dispatched to points along the route. Some units were dispatched to points way out front so they could monitor the whole length of riders while others were re-dispatched further in to the pack to wait for the last riders. Others were sent on calls to pick up riders who had mechanical problems and some were sent on medical runs - bad knees, crashes, etc. Out of the 2,000+ riders I believe I only heard three or four people were sent to the hospital. That is pretty good! It isn't good for anyone to go to the hospital, but if you consider the numbers in the event it is only a matter of time before someone will get hurt - which is a big reason why we (the SAG vehicles and other crews) were there in the first place. Having as few as we did was really great.
Considering that I have not operated in any big public service/support operations until this one I didn't find the operations difficult. I just listened for a while and got the hang of the traffic handling system. Once I got a few calls it really was straight forward. The only hang-up I had was that any direct calls to our medical support personnel from medical control were to be relayed back to our NCS (net control station) as "priority traffic". It was pretty obvious that medical traffic (injured riders) was the highest priority, so that wasn't bad. However, we got a couple calls from medical control and I didn't relay them ahead of the current traffic at the time until that traffic was cleared - which I was corrected on at a rest stop later on the first day. There were, however, some problems I'll get in to later on about the communications support, and event support, as a whole.
Back to the bike ride itself for a minute. I am a backpacker. I usually go out for three day trips. So far they have been between 10 and 20 miles with a pack weight of 50+lbs and rugged terrain through hills and mountains (not walking along flat, even terrain). So I have an understanding of the "mind game" in play. I get sore and worn out. When I get to camp I am ready to relax and eat some food - but of course camp has to be set up before that to happen! So I can pretty well relate to the effort these riders were putting in on this ride. The full length of the course was 180 miles - 100 on day 1 and 80 on day 2. The course was very hilly - down in to southern Ohio. It was a very good workout for the riders - and some found it to be a little too much.
This was one of our stations. We stopped here both days. These shots were taken on day two so the riders are going away from us.
This is the same road, just with 12x zoom. It looks pretty scary!
Being able to watch the riders was really neat. Towards day's end the riders left on the course were the ones that had struggled. As we were riding along the course from assignment to assignment we would always slow down and stop to see if any of the riders walking or sitting and taking a break needed any assistance. Most of the time we were just waved on. A couple times we stopped at the top of large hills just in case any of the riders we passed going up needed anything. Most of the time we just re-supplied their water, if anything. Sometimes we felt bad for the stragglers and wanted to help a few of them. There were a couple of calls on the radio back to NCS on riders that were struggling, far behind, etc. The majority of them had the determination to keep on going. Unless a rider has a bike problem, a health problem, or the event officials determine the lag of the last rider will push the event over a certain time frame there isn't a whole lot the "sweep" (tail end caravan - medical support, state highway patrol, and Pelatonia staff) can do except have a lot of patience.
Here is a shot of the "sweep" crew as we were coming in to the finish line on the second day. I believe we had another SAG vehicle behind us. The black vehicle in front is the Pelatonia staff with a trailer that can hold 4 riders. The SAG's can only take two (two bikes on the rack on top).
The amount of determination, elation, and defeat I saw was something else. When I am on my backpacking trips it is just whoever else goes and myself that bear witness to our efforts and struggles. The same people are the only ones we rely on when the going gets tough or we get stuck in a bad position - whether it is any one of our conditions, the weather, the terrain, what have you. Perhaps that personalizes, and even isolates, what we go through. In contrast, this bike ride had a ton of support. The riders knew we were there and pushed themselves as hard as they could. Some riders were ecstatic, some were mad at themselves, and yet others weren't phased much. We pretty much saw the whole spectrum of human emotion - from having conquered to being defeated, and every reaction to them in between.
The ride is a "fun" ride - it isn't a race, it is a found raiser for cancer research and the form that it is in just happens to be a very large bike ride. There are people of all ages and abilities and the support for the event must account for everyone.
With all the good that our support was doing for the event there were a few drawbacks to the event that I think should be addressed. Apparently this is the first event of its kind here so the organizations and the planning committee had not worked together before. Though, I think the saying "you can try to plan for everything but something will inevitably be over-looked" holds true here - and considering the size of the event I am sure there is a lot more that could have not gone right.
______________________________________________________
So here is my list of notes of what I believe can be improved upon - and maybe, for those of you reading, if you participate in similar events can keep in mind to make yours go more smoothly.
1. The support staff for these events are there to support the whole event. This means that no matter how fast riders ride and what lead anyone has on anyone else the support for the event is there for the last person. Because of this the event coordinators need to plan accordingly and make sure that their staff (who are largely volunteers, maybe entirely volunteers) are covered - not just the participants and whoever else wants to "party" - with FOOD.
We arrived in Athens, the flip over point and night stop, to find that the caterers were pretty much out of food. We are volunteering our time and expertise for these events and we got to Athens to find there was hardly anything to eat. Not fun.
2. I believe there should be a time set up for the day BEFORE an event to meet with the whole support crew to get things together - meet everyone, get gear ready, go over procedures, etc. The only procedure review any of us had was in our specific organizations on how we were to operate.
There was no coverage of operating with the other organizations. Such an example is knowing who we are communicating for and for what purpose, outside of dispatching and relaying event-pertinent information (in this case - medical info, mechanical problems, moving riders, etc). Who is the head of operations for the event? This didn't prove to be that big of an issue, but it would have been a benefit and would have helped the smoothness of the event.
3. For radio communications - EVERYONE should follow the SAME procedure. There was no uniformity for operators operations. Everyone used different terms, called NCS differently, identified differently, etc. Communication should be uniform so that NCS is able to keep track of everything easier as well as the stations participating. If any of you have operated MARS (Military Affiliate Radio System) you know how traffic handling SHOULD be. If you don't follow standard operating procedure you don't make it through. Period. More on this issue in number 4.
Along with radio operating procedures I believe that, as per FCC regulations, we have to identify with our call signs. In this event everyone seemed to identify with their location or their unit - very rarely were call signs used. For this event only it is fine - it helps the flow of traffic. However, anyone can be listening. Therefore call signs should be used in conjunction with the unit or location of an operator.
4. Event information - Maps should be clear and readable for the entirety of a course. Locations along the course should be uniformly labeled and referred to. All event staff should have the SAME information.
The maps we were given for this event were terrible. We could not read any of the roads or course markers on the map and I consistently had to ask for NCS to give directions where to go rather than a single point. This was not good from the standpoint that it tied up net operations with directions more often. It just slows everything down and makes everyone work harder.
Volunteer assignments should be well planned. In that I don't mean all of our dispatched assignments, but rather the role of the volunteers and any assignments aside from the role the volunteers have.
For example - I was there to provide communications support. I ended up putting a few chains back on, fixed a few flat tires, etc. I don't mind either one - I was glad to do it. However, someone who doesn't have the same knowledge base on doing it or doesn't want to, for what ever reason, shouldn't have to. That needs to be figured out in advance.
Another example - several of out SAG crews were dispatched to the finish line and operations terminated as day 2 progressed and less coverage was needed. There were shuttle buses back to the start (day 1 was 100 miles and day 2 was 80, the start point wasn't the end point) for riders and crew. Several crew members went back to the start to get their vehicles and go home WITHOUT anyone knowing what the procedure was to be. As a result, the official SAG crews (the medical personnel) were short-handed in returning the rental vans. The only way some of us radio operators had to get back to our vehicles was to ride along with the crew to return the vehicles - on the other end of town. It added nearly two hours to our day after our volunteered services had expired.
5. Any course proposed for such an event should have all details planned out. For example - several of our intersections along the route were VERY dangerous. Can I make that any more clear? We had riders crossing major intersections and divided state routes - most with traffic lights, though. The safety part is many of the riders use clip-in shoes/pedals on their bikes. They are great for pedaling over long distances because they keep your feet in place, however they pose a challenge when you have to stop. The faster you stop the more of a problem it is. In one specific instance where there was no police officer directing traffic through such an intersection the riders all had to stop and half of them fell over trying to get their feet off the petals. I don't think having hundreds of riders falling over at heavy-traffic state route intersections is very safe.
We requested police and other event crews to cover certain intersections that were discovered to be unsafe. One of them was a local K9 unit and was only able to provide short-term coverage. That meant there were a significant amount of riders that were in the same safety boat as what prompted the officer to be there in the first place.
The same course safety information needs to be passed on to the organization in charge of communications support. In two specific instances my unit was dispatched by NCS to cover a specific part of the course on which we had to drive on a one lane road navigating hills through dense park forest - AND share that one lane road with riders. That was very unsafe.
This is the same road before it narrowed. We passed through an intersection and the road got even more narrow than this - we followed that road all the way to Rest Stop 3 at a park. The same park where the ranger, mentioned below in the second instance, wouldn't let us through.
We were yelled at by riders in the first instance because we couldn't keep pace with everyone. There was no room for us to pass the slower riders and the faster riders behind us could not pass. We pulled over and let the riders go by about 4 times. This significantly delayed us in reaching our assigned destination - one of the rest stops to provide rider transport and medical support if the need arose.
The second instance was NCS told us to to an upstream rider count and look for any riders in distress - along the same road. I questioned NCS's directions and informed him that the assignment was not a good idea. Upon entering the road at the rest stop there was a park ranger directing traffic. Even if we were told by NCS to go along with the assignment the park ranger wouldn't let us through anyway and told us to follow a secondary route. NCS scratched the assignment and relied on the sweep to cover any distressed riders.
___________________________________________________
The support we were doing for the event was great. It gave people more confidence, and they knew that there were people out there to help and take care of them. That is a totally different experience - even seeing it from the perspective of a support crew - than what I go through in backpacking where help is mostly up to the immediate group involved. I think the support for the Pelatonia Bike Tour could have been laid out better to better protect and support, not only the riders, but the staff. Lastly, even though there were some problems, the whole reason for the support was to provide help to those who needed it - and to that point we were very siccessful. We were also lucky in that few people were hurt and bike problems were minimal.
I guess a big question is would I consider volunteering for another event like this?
I think if I had more control over my volunteering circumstances I would. Throwing myself in this event like I did brought with it a few headaches - partly because of the scale of the event, partly because of the organization of the event, and partly because I didn't know what to expect. Going in to another event with this background will be good, though. Now I have a base to gauge others off of and one to learn from.
Here is our first post - right past OSU's medical center about 2 miles after the start of the ride. Lots of riders! They were released in groups, for some reason this one just happened to have a ton of riders in it - unless it is a combination of a few groups.
My role was to provide communications for one of the Support And Gear (or SAG) vehicles. Each one (and I believe there were eight total) was equipped with a medical person, a communications person, and the necessary gear for both. COARES installed an APRS system in each vehicle as well in order to keep track of all the vehicles in real time on a map. It was really a big event.
Here I am in the SAG vehicle running the radio. We were in downtown Logan at the time.
The next shots are of one of the rest stops on day 1. I forget what was going on, but just about the entire crew - sweep, SAG's, etc - were told to hold up at this stop. The mini vans are the SAG's. Med Corps, Highway Patrol, and the black car were the Sweep at the time. We were close to the end, though, so maybe they had all the coverage they needed. Our only assignment from here was to do a check sweep back about 4 miles along the course to see if anyone was left out there. Then we were done for the day.
Most of our time was spent monitoring the riders. We were dispatched to points along the route. Some units were dispatched to points way out front so they could monitor the whole length of riders while others were re-dispatched further in to the pack to wait for the last riders. Others were sent on calls to pick up riders who had mechanical problems and some were sent on medical runs - bad knees, crashes, etc. Out of the 2,000+ riders I believe I only heard three or four people were sent to the hospital. That is pretty good! It isn't good for anyone to go to the hospital, but if you consider the numbers in the event it is only a matter of time before someone will get hurt - which is a big reason why we (the SAG vehicles and other crews) were there in the first place. Having as few as we did was really great.
Considering that I have not operated in any big public service/support operations until this one I didn't find the operations difficult. I just listened for a while and got the hang of the traffic handling system. Once I got a few calls it really was straight forward. The only hang-up I had was that any direct calls to our medical support personnel from medical control were to be relayed back to our NCS (net control station) as "priority traffic". It was pretty obvious that medical traffic (injured riders) was the highest priority, so that wasn't bad. However, we got a couple calls from medical control and I didn't relay them ahead of the current traffic at the time until that traffic was cleared - which I was corrected on at a rest stop later on the first day. There were, however, some problems I'll get in to later on about the communications support, and event support, as a whole.
Back to the bike ride itself for a minute. I am a backpacker. I usually go out for three day trips. So far they have been between 10 and 20 miles with a pack weight of 50+lbs and rugged terrain through hills and mountains (not walking along flat, even terrain). So I have an understanding of the "mind game" in play. I get sore and worn out. When I get to camp I am ready to relax and eat some food - but of course camp has to be set up before that to happen! So I can pretty well relate to the effort these riders were putting in on this ride. The full length of the course was 180 miles - 100 on day 1 and 80 on day 2. The course was very hilly - down in to southern Ohio. It was a very good workout for the riders - and some found it to be a little too much.
This was one of our stations. We stopped here both days. These shots were taken on day two so the riders are going away from us.
This is the same road, just with 12x zoom. It looks pretty scary!
Being able to watch the riders was really neat. Towards day's end the riders left on the course were the ones that had struggled. As we were riding along the course from assignment to assignment we would always slow down and stop to see if any of the riders walking or sitting and taking a break needed any assistance. Most of the time we were just waved on. A couple times we stopped at the top of large hills just in case any of the riders we passed going up needed anything. Most of the time we just re-supplied their water, if anything. Sometimes we felt bad for the stragglers and wanted to help a few of them. There were a couple of calls on the radio back to NCS on riders that were struggling, far behind, etc. The majority of them had the determination to keep on going. Unless a rider has a bike problem, a health problem, or the event officials determine the lag of the last rider will push the event over a certain time frame there isn't a whole lot the "sweep" (tail end caravan - medical support, state highway patrol, and Pelatonia staff) can do except have a lot of patience.
Here is a shot of the "sweep" crew as we were coming in to the finish line on the second day. I believe we had another SAG vehicle behind us. The black vehicle in front is the Pelatonia staff with a trailer that can hold 4 riders. The SAG's can only take two (two bikes on the rack on top).
The amount of determination, elation, and defeat I saw was something else. When I am on my backpacking trips it is just whoever else goes and myself that bear witness to our efforts and struggles. The same people are the only ones we rely on when the going gets tough or we get stuck in a bad position - whether it is any one of our conditions, the weather, the terrain, what have you. Perhaps that personalizes, and even isolates, what we go through. In contrast, this bike ride had a ton of support. The riders knew we were there and pushed themselves as hard as they could. Some riders were ecstatic, some were mad at themselves, and yet others weren't phased much. We pretty much saw the whole spectrum of human emotion - from having conquered to being defeated, and every reaction to them in between.
The ride is a "fun" ride - it isn't a race, it is a found raiser for cancer research and the form that it is in just happens to be a very large bike ride. There are people of all ages and abilities and the support for the event must account for everyone.
With all the good that our support was doing for the event there were a few drawbacks to the event that I think should be addressed. Apparently this is the first event of its kind here so the organizations and the planning committee had not worked together before. Though, I think the saying "you can try to plan for everything but something will inevitably be over-looked" holds true here - and considering the size of the event I am sure there is a lot more that could have not gone right.
______________________________________________________
So here is my list of notes of what I believe can be improved upon - and maybe, for those of you reading, if you participate in similar events can keep in mind to make yours go more smoothly.
1. The support staff for these events are there to support the whole event. This means that no matter how fast riders ride and what lead anyone has on anyone else the support for the event is there for the last person. Because of this the event coordinators need to plan accordingly and make sure that their staff (who are largely volunteers, maybe entirely volunteers) are covered - not just the participants and whoever else wants to "party" - with FOOD.
We arrived in Athens, the flip over point and night stop, to find that the caterers were pretty much out of food. We are volunteering our time and expertise for these events and we got to Athens to find there was hardly anything to eat. Not fun.
2. I believe there should be a time set up for the day BEFORE an event to meet with the whole support crew to get things together - meet everyone, get gear ready, go over procedures, etc. The only procedure review any of us had was in our specific organizations on how we were to operate.
There was no coverage of operating with the other organizations. Such an example is knowing who we are communicating for and for what purpose, outside of dispatching and relaying event-pertinent information (in this case - medical info, mechanical problems, moving riders, etc). Who is the head of operations for the event? This didn't prove to be that big of an issue, but it would have been a benefit and would have helped the smoothness of the event.
3. For radio communications - EVERYONE should follow the SAME procedure. There was no uniformity for operators operations. Everyone used different terms, called NCS differently, identified differently, etc. Communication should be uniform so that NCS is able to keep track of everything easier as well as the stations participating. If any of you have operated MARS (Military Affiliate Radio System) you know how traffic handling SHOULD be. If you don't follow standard operating procedure you don't make it through. Period. More on this issue in number 4.
Along with radio operating procedures I believe that, as per FCC regulations, we have to identify with our call signs. In this event everyone seemed to identify with their location or their unit - very rarely were call signs used. For this event only it is fine - it helps the flow of traffic. However, anyone can be listening. Therefore call signs should be used in conjunction with the unit or location of an operator.
4. Event information - Maps should be clear and readable for the entirety of a course. Locations along the course should be uniformly labeled and referred to. All event staff should have the SAME information.
The maps we were given for this event were terrible. We could not read any of the roads or course markers on the map and I consistently had to ask for NCS to give directions where to go rather than a single point. This was not good from the standpoint that it tied up net operations with directions more often. It just slows everything down and makes everyone work harder.
Volunteer assignments should be well planned. In that I don't mean all of our dispatched assignments, but rather the role of the volunteers and any assignments aside from the role the volunteers have.
For example - I was there to provide communications support. I ended up putting a few chains back on, fixed a few flat tires, etc. I don't mind either one - I was glad to do it. However, someone who doesn't have the same knowledge base on doing it or doesn't want to, for what ever reason, shouldn't have to. That needs to be figured out in advance.
Another example - several of out SAG crews were dispatched to the finish line and operations terminated as day 2 progressed and less coverage was needed. There were shuttle buses back to the start (day 1 was 100 miles and day 2 was 80, the start point wasn't the end point) for riders and crew. Several crew members went back to the start to get their vehicles and go home WITHOUT anyone knowing what the procedure was to be. As a result, the official SAG crews (the medical personnel) were short-handed in returning the rental vans. The only way some of us radio operators had to get back to our vehicles was to ride along with the crew to return the vehicles - on the other end of town. It added nearly two hours to our day after our volunteered services had expired.
5. Any course proposed for such an event should have all details planned out. For example - several of our intersections along the route were VERY dangerous. Can I make that any more clear? We had riders crossing major intersections and divided state routes - most with traffic lights, though. The safety part is many of the riders use clip-in shoes/pedals on their bikes. They are great for pedaling over long distances because they keep your feet in place, however they pose a challenge when you have to stop. The faster you stop the more of a problem it is. In one specific instance where there was no police officer directing traffic through such an intersection the riders all had to stop and half of them fell over trying to get their feet off the petals. I don't think having hundreds of riders falling over at heavy-traffic state route intersections is very safe.
We requested police and other event crews to cover certain intersections that were discovered to be unsafe. One of them was a local K9 unit and was only able to provide short-term coverage. That meant there were a significant amount of riders that were in the same safety boat as what prompted the officer to be there in the first place.
The same course safety information needs to be passed on to the organization in charge of communications support. In two specific instances my unit was dispatched by NCS to cover a specific part of the course on which we had to drive on a one lane road navigating hills through dense park forest - AND share that one lane road with riders. That was very unsafe.
This is the same road before it narrowed. We passed through an intersection and the road got even more narrow than this - we followed that road all the way to Rest Stop 3 at a park. The same park where the ranger, mentioned below in the second instance, wouldn't let us through.
We were yelled at by riders in the first instance because we couldn't keep pace with everyone. There was no room for us to pass the slower riders and the faster riders behind us could not pass. We pulled over and let the riders go by about 4 times. This significantly delayed us in reaching our assigned destination - one of the rest stops to provide rider transport and medical support if the need arose.
The second instance was NCS told us to to an upstream rider count and look for any riders in distress - along the same road. I questioned NCS's directions and informed him that the assignment was not a good idea. Upon entering the road at the rest stop there was a park ranger directing traffic. Even if we were told by NCS to go along with the assignment the park ranger wouldn't let us through anyway and told us to follow a secondary route. NCS scratched the assignment and relied on the sweep to cover any distressed riders.
___________________________________________________
The support we were doing for the event was great. It gave people more confidence, and they knew that there were people out there to help and take care of them. That is a totally different experience - even seeing it from the perspective of a support crew - than what I go through in backpacking where help is mostly up to the immediate group involved. I think the support for the Pelatonia Bike Tour could have been laid out better to better protect and support, not only the riders, but the staff. Lastly, even though there were some problems, the whole reason for the support was to provide help to those who needed it - and to that point we were very siccessful. We were also lucky in that few people were hurt and bike problems were minimal.
I guess a big question is would I consider volunteering for another event like this?
I think if I had more control over my volunteering circumstances I would. Throwing myself in this event like I did brought with it a few headaches - partly because of the scale of the event, partly because of the organization of the event, and partly because I didn't know what to expect. Going in to another event with this background will be good, though. Now I have a base to gauge others off of and one to learn from.
posted by Steve at
7:57 PM
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