[LEL17] LEL Suggestions Box

[Nutbeem]

Clear expectations about how much support DNFers can expect with getting themselves back to the start.

This might have been useful. I found myself as travel advisor to quite a few DNFs at Brampton, explaining to them how to book themselves and bikes back to London on the train. It's not that easy - and the savings by using the advance booking system (even for trains later the same day) were significant (£50 vs £115 walk up fare). On Monday 31st I merrily used the Virgin East Coast website with some success, come Tues 1st August they had moved completely to their new "improved" booking site with no bike reservation option. So I went over to GWR. Still had some issues with riders who had left their credit cards in their car at Loughton (why?) and a couple of Indian riders with prepaid mastercards which weren't useful at all.
In hindsight it would have been useful to have a sheet giving details generally of how to book bikes on trains which we could have given out.  Even for UK riders who don't usually travel by train it can be a bit tricky.

Maybe we went beyond the call of duty with this, but for the overseas riders there was a point where I felt it was a hospitality issue - and putting myself in their position I would have been grateful for the same assistance.

Well here's a story you may not be aware of even though it happened right next door to your "Travel Bureau". Around 6am on Wednesday morning I woke up a German rider in the Brampton dorm. When he emerged he looked confused and I tried to help and direct him, but couldn't get much other than he'd fallen off his bike in the night, was very tired and where were the toilets. 15 minutes later he was still sat in the corridor, saddle bag contents spread all round him and it was clear something wasn't right but the 2 of us couldn't communicate. I located a German speaking volunteer & we managed to ascertain that he felt he couldn't go on but was very worried about how he could get himself and his bike back to London.

Once we knew this we were able to explain a) we were close to a main line station and b) if he went round to the control desk someone would be able to assist him with train times, ticket purchase and directions to the station.

Five minutes later he was crying on my shoulder and thanking me profusely. I didn't think we'd done a lot at the time, but looking back on it, this poor chap was a tired & not feeling well, he was a long way from London and even further from home, and felt like he was alone with a problem he didn't know how to solve. Your Train Travel expertise meant we were able to help him solve his problem and allay his anxieties so I think it was exactly the right think to be doing and very much in the spirit of Audax

[Greenbank]

Sure, people are tired, but such behaviour is utterly unacceptable (even if you were not dealing with volunteers, but paid employees).

It's an often quoted generalisation about Audax that you find out more about who you truly are when you ride an event of 400km or longer. On riders shorter than that there tends not to be enough time to wear one's defences down enough to expose what is lurking underneath; many people remain generally polite and considerate, but some people turn into rude objectionable idiots.

[hellymedic]

I am not sure that it's the 'real me' you meet when I'm hot, dry and hypoglycaemic; I'm a NASTY rude bitch, who might be truly horrible.
I'm not usually a bad person once my blood sugar is within 'normal' limits.
Apologies to any controllers I may have crossed!

[alfapete]

I (sort of) understood what was required but my hour or two on beds in 2013 was utterly terrifying, despite the control being very quiet at that point.  I (literally) did a happy dance when I saw there was no bed booking on my rota because I know I'd a) be awful at it and b) find it unbelievably stressful!

Can't believe I didn't put you on bed booking - it wasn't by design (but time was running out when I wrote those rotas - we had a weekend away the w/e before LEL and I should have started rota writing 2 weeks earlier!).
But I can't believe that you wouldn't have done a perfect job, either

[CrinklyLion]

I can.  I tried it 4 years ago.

Seriously - no spatial awareness, can't read maps, incredibly clumsy, dreadful timekeeping and can't be trusted with paperwork.  I know my weaknesses!

[vorsprung]

Dunno what exactly could be done about it but the bleepy Garmins in the sleep areas were about the only specific thing I would change

Maybe if there was a clause in the entry requirements that any Garmin beeping in a sleep area would be pounded to a thousand pieces with a sledge hammer?  Just a thought

[Phil W]

The bag drop collection area at Loughton during registration was a small marque. There was a mallet sitting around from when the pegs had been hammered in . I was tempted to try that mallet out on a few drop bags. You'd soon find out who had put stuff in theirs that wasn't strictly allowed.

[coops456]

By the end of the 2nd night we'd got the system well refined and running smoothly - the problem is there's now a break break of 4 years before it happens again with a new group of volunteers learning on the job. I am planning to put together a "how to manage the dormitories guide" in the next few weeks which may help.

Oh please god do. I said 4 years ago that there should be some sort of wiki-type collection of best practices etc, cos personnel changes and general human forgetfulness shouldn't mean reinventing the wheel at every control for every edition.
I ran the bed booking at Great Easton -which hadn't previously been a sleep control - and it was the most stressful thing I've done in a long time. This could have been assuaged by expertise from previous editions.

Thankfully one of my front desk team had previously managed the dorm at Pocklington, and so he setup our big whiteboard with a simple list of bed numbers. Underneath we wrote the wakeup times (half hourly slots only). Controller Iddu provided a couple of A4 whiteboards which were perfect for mobile use:
1. I asked each rider what time they wanted to be woken - and showed them what I wrote down to confirm this; I asked their rider number and their first name.
2. I looked at the big whiteboard, crossed off an available bed and wrote that bed number on my A4 board.
3. I took the rider to the allocated bed.
4. I returned to update the big whiteboard with the info and (if I remembered) scan the rider as sleeping.

System worked well, I just needed another pair of hands cos when it was frantic at 2-3am it was hard to keep up.

[coops456]

I always think there's a bit of a conflict of interests really.  From the perspective of running the control efficiently and effectively it makes sense to give people the jobs they already know how to do or train them in one job and keep them doing that all the time.  But that ends up with people spending their whole time on bogs or potwash, which isn't really very fair.

I agree but I think there's a middle ground. At Great Easton we worked as 3 teams: Front of House (front desk/beds), External (entrance/bike park/mech), Rear of House (catering/cleaning). We had controller Iddu allocate volunteers to one of those teams, so it was then up to that team leader to roster their staff and allocate specific tasks.

In theory we could rotate our staff, at least in the quieter periods. In practice when the bulge hit after midnight, I got stuck on/stuck into bed management and didn't come up for air until about 0730. 

[MikeFromLFE]

I hope PhoenixJim is around to amplify this as he was controller at Spalding. We didn't have formal rotas, and it seemed to work exceptionally well. We seemed to fall into three loose teams - catering, beds, and everything else. We rotated tasks among ourselves and I didn't notice any obvious signs of stress or unhappiness.

[GPS]

A wiki containing best practices for planning rotas, bed management, setting up etc. etc. which could be modified by controllers would be an excellent idea. As a newbie to all of this it would've saved me doing unnecessary work and instead concentrating on what needed to be done - and doing it better.

Helping riders with their electronic (ok - Garmin) problems was something I hadn't anticipated. It took a fair amount of time, and I ran out of computers at one point. Should I have spent that amount of time helping individuals like this ? That's another question. There's only so much time ... what help should riders expect ?

Helping DNFers with train ticket booking, driving them to Lockerbie station or putting them up for the night (after we'd closed the control) was also something I hadn't thought we'd spend so much time on. Some just couldn't get there themselves. 

I've also thought about the communication channels used in the whole event. Other controllers contacted me using FB messenger, phone, text or email. It would be nice if there was one channel that we all stuck to. WhatsApp would be a good example of something that could work well - it can be used both as broadcast and individual messaging client on a mobile. It does depend on networking though. Network access is a bit of a sore point though ... that's for another day.

[mattc]

"organising" cyclists has been likened to herding cats. Bear this in mind ...

[CrinklyLion]

I hope PhoenixJim is around to amplify this as he was controller at Spalding. We didn't have formal rotas, and it seemed to work exceptionally well. We seemed to fall into three loose teams - catering, beds, and everything else. We rotated tasks among ourselves and I didn't notice any obvious signs of stress or unhappiness.

I think some of the feedback from last time was that many volunteers found it tough going being stuck in the same jobs for the duration, hence the aim to swap things around - there were some people who were in the kitchen for the duration and didn't get to see the event at all, basically.  I liked Phil D's emphasis in 2013 the when you were on the rota for a rest period you _shouldn't_ be working - your 'job' was to be resting so you could go again.  We were very tight on the numbers to get everything done in BC in 2013 and I don't think we could have functioned without a rota - I was never hanging about when I was 'on shift' and was (from somewhat fuzzy memory) on shift for something like 18 hours a day...

I also vaguely remember Danial mentioning a concern that in 2013 he was visiting a lot of different controls as he was driving around in a van and finding blokes on the control desk and dealing with riders and women cooking and cleaning in the background, and being uncomfortable with the division of labour.

[eddum]

Helping riders with their electronic (ok - Garmin) problems was something I hadn't anticipated. It took a fair amount of time, and I ran out of computers at one point. Should I have spent that amount of time helping individuals like this ? That's another question. There's only so much time ... what help should riders expect ?

Each control should have nicely laminated route cards to the next control on sale at a premium for those foolish enough to rely on their garmin without any form of backup.

[Kim]

Helping riders with their electronic (ok - Garmin) problems was something I hadn't anticipated. It took a fair amount of time, and I ran out of computers at one point. Should I have spent that amount of time helping individuals like this ? That's another question. There's only so much time ... what help should riders expect ?

Each control should have nicely laminated route cards to the next control on sale at a premium for those foolish enough to rely on their garmin without any form of backup.

Seconded.  "Lost your routesheet?  Here, have a new one.  And yes, there's a GPX on the website if you want it."

Anything else is above and beyond what's reasonable.

But volunteers like to go above and beyond, which leads to unreasonable expectations the next time round...


(I have a similar view on bike fettling.  Sure, it's nice - and probably sensible - to provide a dry, lit area with a workstand and some tools, much as it is to provide food or beds.  If a control manages to get a pile of consumables on sale&return, or manages to provide really nice food, or charging sockets, or whatever, then great.  But that's how expectations happen...)

[Manotea]

Case for a 'if it all goes wrong' briefing, including options and costs for getting back to London, part of the welcome pack?

Having resorted to trains on my last overseas venture(s), I'd make a point of understanding how national train systems work when riding overseas in future. Just in case...

[Lee Velo]

On the back of the comments about being left to oversleep, I was one of the few lucky ones who actually got woken up 90 minutes earlier than requested. Slept at
 Louth at 0130 on Thursday and asked to be woken up at 0430...had a torch shone on my face and a friendly wave, went to toilets to get dressed quietly and checked my watch...0313...

On the plus side, I didn't waste any time in hand before the headwinds of the fens. I didn't blame the volunteers, its just part of audax.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

I got woken an hour early at Louth NB. Not thrilled about it at all but such is life.

[Lee Velo]

Vegan provision-

I should probably make a short post about provision for Vegan cyclists, however generally the provision was excellent.

Firstly it was great that the question was asked when we registered and the control managers asked on FB what we would like to see. I've never had a problem getting something Vegan to eat at any audax, but I did feel spoilt at this one.

It's certainly something within cycling that is becoming more and more popular and you should definitely expect to see more of a Vegan contingent in 4 years time.

I only made the following observations:

Some controls didn't have dairy free milk either visable or available when asked. Thirsk had none full stop, I couldn't find any at Barnard Castle or Brampton. This means that cereal is off the cards. I didn't starve and worked around it however.

There was an argument between a rider and the chef about the Vegan vegetable curry at Thirsk. For whatever reason, Quorn was put into the curry without being disclosed, which may contain egg. There are two types of Quorn, one is Vegan and one is not and after a heated conversation with the chef about Quorn being 'mushroom based' I did have to step in and educate gently. On checking the packaging, the chef conceeded that the Quorn used was not the Vegan variety. Not great news and a little off putting. Simply just using vegetables in the curry would have been fine!

Edinburgh did supply pasta as the Vegan option, however unhelpfully had cheese on it. I had to employ some 'tactical scraping' as I had few other options.

Some controls had vegetable based spreads for bread, some had butter and a seperate 'olive' spread which I assume was the milk free option. This has happened at other events, but on checking, most olive spreads still contain milk (crazy I know).

Spalding control really looked after me as a Vegan rider, even making sure there were a few cake options and some alpro yoghurts which I'm really grateful for!

As I said, overall I would say the provision was really good and I only bring forward these comments to make people aware of things I picked up on. I'd happily pay a small premium to ensure all controls had dairy/egg free milks, yoghurts, cakes and spreads or even arrange with the Vegan contingent to send some supplies forwards if needs be in future!   

[CrinklyLion]

The bit of negative feedback I heard during the event (at Barnard Castle) re vegetarian/vegan provision was that one of the veggie options had no protein.  I wonder if Thirsk's quorn curry was a well intentioned if mistaken attempt at providing protein?

(Btw - I dunno if they had dairy free milk alternatives as nobody asked me so I didn't ask while I was on serving up duty.  But we didn't have cereal either!)

We did get a lot of people southbound asking for soup which we didn't have, and a couple of riders complaining about soup being tomato-ey at too many controls.  Soup was a big hit at BC last time as I recall.  Perhaps we should make it a mission to find 14 (one per control) different vegan soup recipes ready for in 4 years time....

[hellymedic]

Catering for vegans, even on a small scale is a minefield, as I found out when I help a party at home earlier this month.
I'm an obsessional ingredient reader and order from Sainsbury's online.
Chickpea patties were termed 'falafel' 'felafel' and 'falafels'; searching for 'felafel' would not give the 'falafel' they stocked.
One variety was gluten-free, vegan, Halal and Kosher.
The others were not...

[frankly frankie]

Some controls didn't have dairy free milk either visable or available when asked. Thirsk had none full stop, I couldn't find any at Barnard Castle or Brampton. This means that cereal is off the cards. I didn't starve and worked around it however.

If it's cereal you want you can always eat it dry.  I do, every morning.

[hellymedic]

Some controls didn't have dairy free milk either visable or available when asked. Thirsk had none full stop, I couldn't find any at Barnard Castle or Brampton. This means that cereal is off the cards. I didn't starve and worked around it however.

If it's cereal you want you can always eat it dry.  I do, every morning.

Some vegans soak their cereals in orange juice.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Yes but both those options are weird.

[Whitedown Man]

In a world where leftover yeast extract is a national dish ...