LEL debrief

[phil d]

While it is all fresh in our minds it would be a good idea to record a few things that would be useful for next time.  Things that went particularly well at one or more controls, and things that could have been better.  There have been lots of positive comments in other threads here (and for those we thank you), but in common with a number of other controls, Eskdalemuir was manned by people who had no previous experience of running such a control (the nearest was one of our number who had ridden the event) and there is no doubt at all that some things could have been better.

So let's hear it here, please, so we can make 2013 an even better experience, whatever weather is thrown at the riders.  If you'd prefer not to go public, please PM me - we need all the input that is out there.

[phil d]

And I'll start it off.  We had no showers at EDM, so we did not provide towels other than the paper towels in the toilets.  I think this was a mistake, and will be investigating what other controls did and see how we can provide towels next time (yes, there will be a next time for us - Mrs D and I so enjoyed the experience that we are already discussing logistics!  We should be retired by then)

[DanialW]

It would also be useful to hear people's thoughts about the trajectory of the event. The entry was double the 2005 event, and a lot more international.

Do you like the fact that LEL is getting bigger, or would you prefer something smaller and more self-sufficient? Perhaps you'd like to see both?

[border-rider]

Fidgetbuzz makes a very good point here:

i am certain that I would not want to put on public record harsh criticism
Constructive comment - of course - but the criticism altho intended to be helpful has to be confidential

A dedicated account has been set up to allow people to voice any specific (constructive) criticisms by PM.

Comments on  & suggestions for LEL



 

[L Hedley]

It was my first ever control at Coxwold too! Have learnt alot, about running a control and about myself!  
I totally enjoyed the event, although totally knackered still.  I had an amazing team and spent months organising things.  Most of which I will keep on record and that will save time next time round.
Towels...we had no showers, but I bought 30 cheap small ones from Ikea, they came in really useful when it was very wet. A few small things I would change to make 2013 better.  But for now, I need to digest all, send out some thank yous and rest x

[border-rider]

I think that for next time it would be worth analysing the rider numbers at each control to develop a distance distribution for each night, and to predict roughly where the peaks will be.  Those controls should have sufficient beds or floorspace to cope. 

This may mean using marquees or somesuch.

[Ivo]

It would also be useful to hear people's thoughts about the trajectory of the event. The entry was double the 2005 event, and a lot more international.

Do you like the fact that LEL is getting bigger, or would you prefer something smaller and more self-sufficient? Perhaps you'd like to see both?

I'll write a more serious report on the international side of  LEL somewhere in the next weeks.  And how to improve and refine the systems for the next LEL regarding international affairs.
One thing I won't do again is volunteering full time at the Lee Valley start and riding it, this was still possible last time but isn't anymore.
So, as I allready suggested during LEL to some of you, it would be good if abt. 2 weeks before LEL the volunteers during the ride itself would have to option to ride LEL on shoestring basis. Just with commercial/cashpoint etc. controls and at a maximum a few of the riders helping us by providing 2 sleep/eatstops along the route. In this way I think that there would be more British riders available for volunteering as they could do the ride with a basic level of organisation beforehand an get it oficially credited.
One of the things I'll think about for next times is getting a few more foreign volunteers over, especially those who have some experience in organising events in their own country.

[DanialW]

Nigel Hall did some rider flow predictions. A quick and dirty look at the raw data collected this time suggests that while he got the throughput pretty accurate, the timings were way out. This wasn't a failing on his part, but demonstrates the impact the weather can have. Riders were 'early' heading north, and 'late' heading south.

In my mind, this means that you can't assume that people will sleep at this control or that control. Ideally, most of them need to be ready for a deluge of riders looking to sleep or shelter for a few hours.

As most of the controls used spreadsheets to record riders, we now have a lot of data to analyse. If I can find someone foolish enough willing to key in the paper records from Lea Valley, we'll have a lot to work on, looking not just at rider flows through controls, but also how riders' speeds varied along the route.

[Ivo]

I think that for next time it would be worth analysing the rider numbers at each control to develop a distance distribution for each night, and to predict roughly where the peaks will be.  Those controls should have sufficient beds or floorspace to cope. 

This may mean using marquees or somesuch.

Controls could provide a regular situation report to the previous control. In this way riders who doubt if they sleep there or at the next one can make a much more informed decision. As happened when Traquair received the message you asked me to convey them.

[DanialW]

Controls could provide a regular situation report to the previous control. In this way riders who doubt if they sleep there or at the next one can make a much more informed decision. As happened when Traquair received the message you asked me to convey them.

We did a lot of this in the background. If you ever saw me poring over a laptop at Thorne, it was usually because I was collating rider numbers at controls to pass on to all the other controls. It's not just the next control that needs to know what is happening.

Personally, I see the benefit of controls logging riders into a web-based server. This sor tof infrastructure would allow registration desks to see immediately the state of play at controls. It would also allow people to track riders online. It wouldn't bee expensive to set up, but it would be time-consuming. Happily,we have four years to prepare.

[L Hedley]

Coxwold would need some communications first! Beautiful sleepy village...no phones!

[DanialW]

Coxwold would need some communications first! Beautiful sleepy village...no phones!

Totally. It would have been worth installing a phone line for the event. Same at Eskdalemuir.

[GlasgowDave]

I was at Eskdalemuir with Phil D, and I'd definitely volunteer again, if I wasn't riding (as if)

Here's my comments/to-do

Eskdalemuir is likely to be a bottle neck with fast riders heading south meeting slower riders heading north. We need more accommodation there. Depending on weather conditions this could move north or south.

Pre-number all beds/floor spaces, so we could allocate them properly. We did this on the Tuesday night and it worked better than the Monday.

Tell people in advance of the event that sleeping may be restricted to 3 hours in a bed (we only had 15 beds, so we had to spread the sleep around)

Wheels: I'd organise some wheels on sale or return from a shop or wheelbuilder as well as mechs, brakepads, cables and chains. I'd make sure I had some canti/v-brake pads, I forgot about them.

Tell people in advance of the event that special spoke pattern/bling wheels are unlikely to be repairable by anyone at a control and that a trip to the local bike shop may add 12 hours to their time.

Tell people in the pre-publicity that abandoning at Eskdalemuir will require them cycling to the train at Lockerbie unless they've got medical reasons. Folks with broken bikes can become helpers until the helpers can find time to get them to the station.

Some cheap warm clothes to give out to those abandoning with exposure may be a good idea.

I'm sure I'll come up with other stuff as this thread progresses.

Dave

[Salvatore]

Some cheap warm clothes to give out to those abandoning with exposure may be a good idea.

Heather at Alston had a supply of clean dry clothes for sleeping. I assume she had raided jumble sales and Oxfam shops in NW England for a month or two.

Genius.

[border-rider]

All that Dave said.

Eskdalemuir is such a long way from anywhere that a broken wheel really did cost someone 12 hours.

There were 500 riders, and could have been 600.  There needs to be sleeping space at the "peak sleeping" controls for a decent proportion of these.  

[LittleWheelsandBig]

So, as I allready suggested during LEL to some of you, it would be good if abt. 2 weeks before LEL the volunteers during the ride itself would have to option to ride LEL on shoestring basis. Just with commercial/cashpoint etc. controls and at a maximum a few of the riders helping us by providing 2 sleep/eatstops along the route. In this way I think that there would be more British riders available for volunteering as they could do the ride with a basic level of organisation beforehand an get it oficially credited.

The ACP (200-1000 only) already homologates 'pre-rides' by volunteers as if they had ridden on the date of the event.  The window is from two weeks beforehand up to the date of the event.  Amongst other things, it is the final check of the routesheet.

It seems that LRM also allows this to occur as the 2008 Great Southern Randonnee 1200 had a volunteers' preride a fortnight before.

[GlasgowDave]

Just remembered something else, as I'm just about to go out on the bike.

I'd like to have ridden to the controls north and south of Eskdalemuir so I could give advice on the route, surfaces and hazards.

Dave

[Paul D]

I think the guys at Eskdalemuir didn't know the full story about the Traquair control, which meant a little bit of misleading info. MV himself said all the Traquair beds were gone, and didn't recommend the road to get there in the dark. We ignored this advice (!) and I had a really pleasant couple of hours riding at the end of which, although the beds were taken, Traquair had loads of other room and was virtually empty hence quiet.

[GlasgowDave]

Maybe we should know how much accommodation is available at each control, so we can advise people correctly. We were told Traquair only had room for a dozen.

This is good stuff. We should summarise this thread for future use.

Dave

[Chris S]

Coxwold would need some communications first! Beautiful sleepy village...no phones!

Totally. It would have been worth installing a phone line for the event. Same at Eskdalemuir.

No need for that. A WiFi relay to someone's house (such as the Village Hall caretaker's) would be enough. It's easy to rig something up with a couple of Chinese noodle strainers and some USB WiFi dongles.

[border-rider]

I think the guys at Eskdalemuir didn't know the full story about the Traquair control, which meant a little bit of misleading info. MV himself said all the Traquair beds were gone, and didn't recommend the road to get there in the dark. We ignored this advice (!) and I had a really pleasant couple of hours riding at the end of which, although the beds were taken, Traquair had loads of other room and was virtually empty hence quiet.

yep

We only had info from what Phil could glean by standing in the road and making a call.  This was necessarily old information.

What we were saying was that last time we'd heard (about 2 hours before) Traquair was nearly full, and that going there was a gamble.  Given that Eskdalemuir was totally rammed, the gamble was whether a couple of hours night riding would find you any better off.  Luckily, it did

[Ivo]

The ACP (200-1000 only) already homologates 'pre-rides' by volunteers as if they had ridden on the date of the event.  The window is from two weeks beforehand up to the date of the event.  Amongst other things, it is the final check of the routesheet.

It seems that LRM also allows this to occur as the 2008 Great Southern Randonnee 1200 had a volunteers' preride a fortnight before.

The current LRM president is also president of ERN, the club I organise events for. I preride my local events and he fully agrees with that. So no problem to be expected from LRM.

[Chris S]

Things I was asked for and we didn't have (Coxwold):

Showers
Spare route sheets (we printed some out eventually - but they need to be at hand, ready)
Brevet card bags (we might have had these, but I couldn't find any when I needed one)
Spare rain jackets. Just a supply of £1.99 chuck-away tops would have done.
A mechanic and/or a bike stand.

This is actually a very short list. The number of times I was asked for stuff, and was able to reply "Yes, we have that/them/one of those" was pleasingly high and on at least two occasions, the requester had been expecting a "No" answer and it was great to surprise them.

The track pump and can of chain lube proved very popular 

[border-rider]

Brevet cards is a good point

We had a handful of riders with no/the wrong card.

Above all, what I think would be ideal would be a swipe card or tag system linked to the web, as Danial suggests.

[Chris S]

Above all, what I think would be ideal would be a swipe card or tag system linked to the web, as Danial suggests.

Agreed.

Oh - and if I volunteer at Coxwold again, or some other out of the way place, I must learn the Italian for "Your phone is no good here"