First time for that trail to have an organized
competition type of ride.
First time for the basecamp facility to host that
type of event.
As near as I can tell, the first time for a ride
on a rails-to- trails trail.
There are at least two "rails to trails"
endurance rides in the NW, Milwaukee Road Rail Trail near Ellensberg
Washington and the Weiser river Rail Trail between Weiser and New Meadows,
Idaho.
Both have been going some years
now.
The logistics of vet checks for all
distances can be a little tricky, but measuring, clearing, and marking
are pretty easy. (;>)
Two first time Endurance Vets.
About a dozen first time riders.
Two different state bureaucracies to deal with.
(One of which insisted that I was to somehow hand remove all the horse manure
from the 25 miles of trail)
Given all that it went great. No wrecks. No
horses treated. The Riders seemed to enjoy it.. We introduced a lot of
new people to our sport. We received good publicity from the local newspapers
and made a good impression in the communities we passed through. They have all
asked us to please come back again. We gave a good impression of our sport to
all whose paths we crossed. Those were my goals for the ride, and they were
all accomplished. Anything else was gravy.
As for the number of vets, I agree we could have
used more. When we were deciding back in January how many Vets to hire, we had
to look at ride attendance for spring Rides in our area, and then decide how
many Vets we needed. Over the past two years, our area spring rides have had
between 13 and 63 riders show up. The average turnout is in the mid 40's total
for all distances. I was told a new ride could take a while to get
established, and that attendance might be lower than average. There was
also concern that $4.00 fuel might cut into ride attendance. I bit the
bullet anyways and signed up three vets plus four vet students due to
graduate next month. That should have easily covered the normal amount of
entries we get this time of year.... Or not as it turned out.....
I personally thought we would get more riders
than average as my master plan was to promote the ride to non-traditional
Endurance Riders. The plan worked. We did get good attendance . We got
about a dozen first time riders. The New Rider meeting was huge.
We got four or fivenew AERC Members.
We had 52 LD riders and 23 start the 50, for a grand total of 75
starters.
As all Vet checks were out of camp, and the 50's
and 25's had a different vet check location, we got slammed. At the finish, we
had some traffic jams as the BC judging for the LD riders was going
on, more 25's were still finishing, the first 50's were coming in, while
the slower 50's were still coming into their last vet check 18 miles
away. We were spread out over a lot of territory. The new vets did good,
but tried to be careful and conservative. That caused them to take a little
more time. That is not necessarily a bad thing this early in the year and with
so many newbie's. The Head Vet, Dr Jeanie Hauser did great keeping it going as
well as possible.
The Riders had good attitudes and were patient
with the delays. It went fine. The general impression I got was that we
had a higher smile ratio than the normal ride.
The ride times were interesting as the Head Vet
had some concerns that the ease of the trail might lead some riders to go too
fast. Finish time for the fastest 25 was 2:27.. The fastest finish
for the 50 was 5:13. This was on a cool day, on a perfect surface, over a
basically level and straight trail. Decent times but not blazing
fast.
I do have one question for other Ride
Managers. I was amazed about how little I knew about what was going on,
while it was going on... I had no idea of the exact number of starters (we had
8-10 entries show up the morning of the ride).. I missed the finishes and had
no idea who finished 1-2-3 etc, and the ride times...It seemed all I did
was run around in circles like a chicken with its head cut off trying to
prevent little glitches turning into big disasters.. Here is my question to
you: "Is this normal or does it get better the next
time?".... Being a RM wore me out more than riding the OD 100 and
Tevis...
This is perfectly normal. It may,
or maybe not, get better, but it will be different next
time.
