I didn't put the whole story on Facebook because I didn't want to get into comment battles with the general public but since this is a more specific forum, here goes:
I actually did talk to the owner/operator during the route check but I didn't know it at the time. The door to the cafe was open but it was clearly under refurbishment. I could see people inside so I went in to ask if they were going to be open the following week. They weren't sure. I explained that we were running an event and that loads of cyclists would be visiting Rowlands Castle. I said that the riders had the choice of where they visited and that not all would come into the cafe. I don't know if they were startled by a lycra clad person walking into their construction site but having talked to her yesterday she admitted she didn't understand the ramifications of what I was talking about. I've apologised for the rider's behaviour and agreed a plan for next year should we run this again.
I had no idea that they were new owners and it wasn't the existing owner sprucing the place up. How you can say you don't know you'll be open a week further on and then open two days later is beyond me.
I counted up the receipts from the Brevet cards, 54 out of the 70 finishers went to the Londis. The Londis were warned that we were coming and had extra sandwiches ready. I didn't talk to the Castle pub or the Robin Hood Inn, should I have warned them as well? Only 1 rider went to to The Castle and 0 went to the Robin Hood Inn so that would have been setting some unrealistic expectations and I would have felt bad if they had brought in extra staff.
One of the major complaints from the cafe was that riders left a lot of rubbish behind that was clearly not bought at the cafe. I suspect that the riders thought they were being good by not littering and leaving their rubbish at the cafe. The bin outside the Rowlands Castle Londis is always overflowing on a Sunday, even if there isn't an audax on. How many of you have emptied your jersey pockets of waste wrappers at a cafe control and thought nothing of it?
very bad form!!
I can take the hits from the general public who have no idea what goes into putting on an audax but to get it from a fellow organiser and my assigned audax mentor is upsetting.
I did what I thought was enough for my first event. Clearly it wasn't.