Agree with a lot of what I've read on this thread. My tuppence worth (and my brain is working on 2hrs sleep in 48hrs so bear with me!) and all the volunteers did an amazing job in my experience and nearly everything was perfect (apart from the catering arrangements at Louth north and south which was unacceptable IMO)...
- Don't use hosepipes for providing water, especially 50m long ones. Having water that tasted of hosepipe after Brampton until I could get to replace it was not pleasant.
- Shoes on/off just to check in/out was a real pain when you're tired and using overshoes, i.e. cover the floor to the desk or have the desk in a shoe accessible area.
- Have a qualifier event, e.g. a UK 400 or 600 in the year of the event. I saw some shocking rider behaviour and some very dangerous incidents. Some of the lack of preparedness was scary. I saw two riders seconds from potentially fatal incidents through their own lack of experience of riding UK roads.
- Jugs of milk. And then more jugs of milk. And cornflakes.
- More Cake. First cake I encountered was at Moffat AFAIK. Maybe it was me but there seemed to be a general lack of sweet stuff?
- The A701 to Edinburgh was horrendous. The surface was almost unrideable (e.g. through Broughton) for much of its length.
Agree with a lot of what has been covered and still not mentally able to process all the improvements... but
I was over the moon to finally have something other than pasta/rice/spud designed to have broad appeal (i.e. bland) when I hit BC I was over the moon to get Panang !
I suspect we later starting riders hit the first controls when they were in a closing down phase perhaps? on the way back they were better.
Some of the controls I could control at in my shoes, but it was getting a real pain and time waste to take them off and on each time especially when the weather wasn't great.. a HUGE improvement would be getting the position of the desk right, that's possibly a hour or two of sleep across the whole ride potentially lost if a control is being bounced.
I came down of YM soaked but full of high spirit with a view to optionally bouncing BC as I didnt want to get out of wet but warm gear to have to then put wet but cold gear back on... It would be a huge help to have perhaps the menu visible at the control desk and perhaps some grab & go food there as an option (perhaps some thought needed on how to keep the menu updated and discourage troughing of the grab & go (fee to cover packaging?) I was probably slightly ratty when
The weather on YM was atrocious and epic in equal measures, a high pressure jet wash, limited visibility, high wind and remote location - there were a lot of riders I came past who looked unprepared and inadequately dressed, I would say the conditions perhaps were almost Type 3 and I don't really want to get in to a debate about was it life threatening etc but it just takes a lot of little things to align for the conditions to be life threatening, and I reflected as I was passing through that it was probably all there to be worse. The non mandatory control at Alston was closed when I got there (it wasn't that well signed as I came through northbound) I was lucky, the builder supervisor was really helpful and showed me the working loo & filled my water bottles and also gave me some flapjack. Perhaps there is a case here to have something at this location (or a better one that allows a diversion route?) in case of very bad weather up top... I know the spirit is supposed to be self sufficient, but in a hierarchy of preserving life, "it's your own fault if you die" I feel gets trumped by "sorry mate, you should not proceed up there in just shorts & jersey and no lights!"
I'd also echo seeing shocking rider behaviour and some very dangerous incidents with bonus no lights riding going on also North through the fens, South in to Pok.
Louth was a disaster zone Northbound and I understand there are probably some reasons behind this but to a damp, fatigued rider at 04:00 there was no food and it was heaving, we waited ages, some food came out but people were taking away multiple plates, perhaps for a group of them maybe not, there was no info available about what/when food might be available and we ended up going off route to 'control' at a forecourt just on the outskirts of Louth - there didn't seem to be any visible presence of being in control of the situation.. There is certainly some analysis by those who are in possession of the full facts around what lessons can be applied going forward as contingency to mitigate in the future.
A couple of toilets for the volume of people is never going to work some toilets we miles away and had to be navigated with/without shoes, the simple act of just changing shorts in some privacy was a challenge at times and often a bit of lost time in waiting for somewhere to do so... Some locations had changing rooms, some didn't (or appear to have) Signs were generally good, but it was a bit of an exploration to find a empty loo. Perhaps a simple wall map showing the locations (& number!) of facilities would have helped reduce the faff
I think someone has mentioned the TCP tasting water at Brampton - foul!
Checking in and out at various activities (sleep, bag drops etc) was inconsistent
The limited tracking was great and the buzz on the social media pages about the dot watching is excellent even my Dad was following the progress of riders I didnt know.... Fantastic and surely a good thing and also not without its challenges...
As a rider with a diminishing cognitive capability along the ride, only being able to track individuals and session security errors etc was a real pain. I wanted to know where the rest of my team was as a minimum, were they alright? Were they asleep and if so for where/how long? (could we all catch up?) etc It felt like all the components were there to resolve some real world user needs - at the moment, just less than 12 hours after finishing, the rider tracking has been taken down, luckily I have a screen grab, but I can't check if friends made it etc. (**ETA** Phil has now put up a provisional finisher's list
)
This is a suggestions box, and by its nature might come across biased to what went wrong,
but there was also a lot of what went right - perhaps another thread for What went right to keep the balance, last thing we want is for all the great people that made sure the event worked to feel !