A few quick things.
It’s all sorted after a long evening of intensive planning at the finish line location.
I have spent all the money
A pig will be killed
The event souvenir is not a t-shirt, but is very nice and worth almost £20. And I don’t have to dick around with “how medium is a medium shirt, I normally take medium, but I am very anxious that it might be a bit too big, or even a bit small, I lost some weight last year, but it’s been so wet this winter that I hardly ride…..”
However shirts may become available to buy in advance.
There have been a few concerns raised, probably by people who are not attending, but I don’t want anyone to lose sleep or have to spend extra money with their therapist:
I have been making this up as I go along. Busking my pants off, and now everything important is in place.
What has been said earlier, may not be the case on the weekend. Many details have changed: the date, there is a fee, the Dorset rough riders MTB club are marshalling the iffy road crossing, the bit where it’s easy to get lost, and anywhere that the risk assessment rides showed as iffy. We are an actual affiliated proper club.
It’s not a race,It’s a reliability trial, at 25 miles per lap and the keen guys going for 2 laps, it won’t be flat out. There may well be a tattooist at the finish. There might be racing, but that is something else, not the main event, and it may involve a wall of death pursuit race or beach racing (not all details are nailed down) .
It’s on my local trails, all bridle paths and this is a small community, and people know who i am and where to find me, I don’t want to fight off angry farmers throwing dead burning sheep through my door., so everyone will be told not to be a dick, slow for walkers, don’t skid, be nice, only crash into yourself, stay classy. Break any one of those rules and I will wee in your helmet, break more than one rule and it will be whilst you are still wearing your helmet.
The format is no different to the 1000 people wiggle sportive, or the Sunday morning dual carriageway TT. On a local level our 150 ish riders is a drop in the pond. The sandbanks ferry will be conveying 50 cyclists, three times an hour, all day, everyday… out of Poole and into the neighbourhood.
I attended wiggles impressively organised event, and the 1000 people were so spread out it was barely noticeable. Just like any other Sunday really. I think they missed some excellent trails (shame) and went down a very fast wide descent (not challenging but risky), but we will be pushing our bikes up that one. Our route takes in the best bits, but where it can get busy, we are climbing, or avoiding in favour of the legal singletrack nearby.
What may appear as a cheeky thrown together drunken shambles is in fact a well planned cheeky thrown together drunken shambles (refering to the whole weekend). I’ve done the whole lot by myself, a team of one, testing a theory that we can have an event without debt and hassles, and the hurdles that have stopped events previously. What started out as an informal gathering has evolved into a cycling club doing an off road sportive( with a roasted pig ) . The money is all spent now, but I hope there is a legacy for 2014. Someone can pick up this model and do the same next year, and the year after. If we go back to full on closed circuit XC racing, that is ace, but we also have this option, so never again will the proud and honourable one speed gentlemen of Great Britain have to go without a good knees up.