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If Carlsberg did transition areas....
Looks like there's a lot of solos entered for this year's Glentress Seven. The course is looking great and we want to make the transition area as good as possible for everyone. Solos sometimes say they want specific things at a transition area - to make their visit to base as efficient as possible etc. So, any ideas/suggestions/thoughts? What would make it work best for you?
Cheers, TweedLove/GT7 team
Toilets in the solo area is a great help, especially for the ladies. Unlike team riders, soloists don't have the luxury of queueing while a team-mate is doing a lap.
What works for me is plenty of trackside frontage where you can set up a table, literally roll in, swap bottles/bars/etc, then roll off again. But it's all personal preference I guess and I'd view myself as more of a sluggish bimbler than a 'racer'.
To be honest, I don't want a transition area, I want to be able pull up track side and be serviced on the course. I think having a big chunk of the start finish straight reserved for soloists would be better.
Events like Bristol Bike Fest are generally pretty good at letting soloist just line big chunks of the start finish straight although still offer a soloist tent all the same.
EDIT: what BWD said...
Cheerleaders please.
Solo only area at start finish trackside. Toilets + water + enough area to drop kit and quickly pick it up. No trackside solo area? Then I set my own up on the course because its quicker than traveling to transition.
Keep the solo area well away from the team transition area.
That used to be a big problem at Bristol, coming in for a quick bottle change, only to have to push my way through a crowd and find all my kit kicked out of the way and trampled.
I find just being allowed to set up independently anywhere trackside near the start works best. In fact, at MM, I wasn't anywhere near the start, I was about half way round as the course came back through the arena. Worked fine for me.
MM, I wasn't anywhere near the start
Same at 24/12, course goes through the arean at the beginning and half way stages of the lap. I was about 400m before the actual start finish line, quite nice on the last lap to blast straight through to cheers from the crew before finishing the race.
Solo only area at start finish trackside. Toilets + water + enough area to drop kit and quickly pick it up. No trackside solo area? Then I set my own up on the course because its quicker than traveling to transition.
+1
Last year at GT7, I (and another solo racer) just left boxes of kit after transition at the top of the road into the car park. Worked okay as I could pull into the side of the course and stop to grab some food etc out of my box. Only downside was that my stuff got wet when it started raining when I was half way round a lap, so one of the covered tables would have been nice. More space the better to save tripping over other riders and their kit please.
No difficulty with the toilets last year - I nipped into the portaloos in the start/finish area once or twice. Would be good to ensure that there are some similarly accessible ones this year.
To be honest, I don't want a transition area, I want to be able pull up track side and be serviced on the course.
Once I'd gotten over my fnarr fnarr moment, this ^^^^
And the bit about toilets.
well organised place to drop food here as well. Last year there wasn't really anywhere so I just left a small box near the start finish. Didn't have problem but there didn't seem that many.
Long section with a row of tables on either side with some sort of zoning so ou can find stuff. I'd let people know if you will supply boxes/bags or ith they need to bring their own as a table full of bottles would be a nightmare. Might also be worth limiting size.
I went to loo somewhere on the course so didn't queue. Not sure how well this would work if 100's of people did the same!
Try and make the music heard over more of the course. We lost a lot of the atmosphere as we weren't around the busy bit for long.
Keep teams out of the way, don't have the transition area somewhere where they will faff changing timing chips, maybe a slight diversion off the main track.
More obvious numbers so you can work out whos solo and who you are actually racing.
Get the guys back who were marshalling at the broken wall and chearing everyone on. Also the really cheerful woman somewhere near the top of the suffering road who was far to enthusiastic for someone standing in the rain for hours. After 6 hours I was getting cold and tired and as I had no support/team this was quite motivating.
Thanks folks we'll see what we can do! Some good ideas there.
Bike stands, like simple wheel ones?
The first thing I look at when I get on site for a solo event is a spot to put up my awning/tent along the track. What usually works is a reasonably long "straight" or a decent loop around the event arena where we can pitch up either side of the track. Easily accessible toilets is usually a bonus but not essential, even during a 24.
Having one central "transition" area isn't really necessary for soloists in my opinion, although some do turn up with literally a box and bike so an area for such people would be welcomed I'm sure.
Having loads of teams/tents/people trackside can help create a much better event atmosphere as well - certainly helps for soloists to have people cheering and heckling on each lap. It's a huge boost to morale.