What really horrifies cyclists

[IFjane]

I did not ride Bike VA this year but know the Vesuvius route well. I heard the same complaints from a friend who only rode that day (the century). He was out of water at the top. Not good planning for the BVA folks. There is nothing between Tye River & Love Gaps for refilling bottles.

Last year the route was literally in my backyard & I never heard complaints like I have this year. Not sure what happened ~ I hope next year is better!

[Becky]

I did not ride Bike VA this year but know the Vesuvius route well. I heard the same complaints from a friend who only rode that day (the century). He was out of water at the top. Not good planning for the BVA folks. There is nothing between Tye River & Love Gaps for refilling bottles.

Last year the route was literally in my backyard & I never heard complaints like I have this year. Not sure what happened ~ I hope next year is better!

I'm glad to hear that this was not normal. We didn't have any issues with water, but had a few with rest stops not being "open" for food when we arrived. Hoping for better planning next year, because we really did have a good time. Food in general seemed to be the biggest challenge.

Do the Bike VA folks send out a questionaire/review form? after the event?

[Cataboo]

I heard a ton of people saying that they'd been going to bike virginia yearly for X # of years and that they'd been getting progressively worse, and this years was going to be their last.

While I had fun - it was my first bike VA and I don't think I'm doing it again.

[Bike Chick]

If it had been my new Luna that was backed over, I would've been the one with the heart attack!

[tulip]

This was my fourth BVA. I don't think they've been getting worse at all; it's always been very well-organized. I'm just tired of the group ride thing after I made up my own 10-day tour in Texas earlier this spring. I'm entering a different phase, is all. BVA does a fine job. Except for the no water on the century. That was bad.

Riders who leave very early may arrive too early for the lunch stop. That's easy to fix--leave a bit later or ride a bit slower or stop and take more photos. I arrived at the lunch stop one day at 9:30, which was not too early. People who arrived at 8:30 were disappointed. But it's lunch, after all, not breakfast.

I would still recommend BVA to anyone who is interested in doing an organized ride that goes through beautiful countryside. This year's riding was fantastic, with very little traffic and beautiful terrain and landscape.

[Cataboo]

the problem was the heat- everyone was trying to leave as early as possible to avoid biking in the heat later in the day - and when you have the lunch stop at mile 20 and people are leaving at 7 am - the lunch stop is just in the wrong place. It was at mile 76 for the century rider.

Most days the lunch stops were way too early - but if things had been 30 degrees cooler, maybe not.

Lack of ice was annoying - no ice in the mornings at tent city. The first day of riding there wasn't ice at the rest stops. The 2nd day, thankfully they did have ice - someone at a rest stop (singer's glen?) who I asked for some ice told me that they'd all been told not to give us ice 'cause it would bring our temperatures down too quickly.

The shuttle buses were poorly organized in Harrisonburg - I waited about 40 mins for a shuttle to get over to Kmerzhad's hotel - then there was about an hour's wait for a shuttle at the hotel to get them to downtown. Lots of people were having issues with that.

Various people on the meal plans were upset with the breakfasts and dinners - having hardboiled eggs as the only option for eggs upset a lot of people. I think it worked out to something like $10 per breakfast and $20 each dinner - in both cases,places downtown provided better meals for equal or less money. The last dinner was at the university cafeteria, where if you paid for your dinner it was $8.

The lack of vendors and such around tent city also upset a lot of people - supposedly there has been a lot more variety and options in past years. It also pretty much seemed like both Staunton and Harrisonburg had no idea 2,000 cyclists were about to descend on them - most of the restaurants ran out of food the first night and were having all sorts of issues. So I don't know if that's a case of bike virginia not warning the restaurants or the restaurants not bothering to adjust the food orders after being warned...

The guy who had his bike ran over was pretty upset that after his friend was hospitalized, that bike virginia people were not doing more to help - help with the hospital logisitics, or helping him pack up his friend's stuff to make sure it went back to Staunton and such like that.

The routes were well marked, but cue sheets or something like that would have been helpful - I spoke to some guy who went 80 miles instead of the 50 mile ride, 'cause he'd gotten lost and had no idea how to get back, etc. He'd flagged a car down and asked for directions to staunton, where he then got directions to tent city. They had people stationed to wave us into rest stops and lunch stops and at a couple intersections they considered dangerous - but there werea couple hills with stop signs half way up which would have been a great place to have someone stationed instead of at the rest stops

I had purchased someone else's registration at a significant discount - so I'm more than happy with what I got for what I paid, if I'd payed full price I'd've expected more.

Maybe it was just that the countryside was fairly familliar to me, but I really would have preferred a supported tour that went somewhere instead of doing loops around a couple cities...Biking from the mountains to the coast or something like that. Biking loops around cities seemed to be something that I could have done myself credit card touring.

[Cataboo]

Posted on facebook:
Bike Virginia 2010 Shenandoah Expedition Rider Update: Joe crashed on Tuesday near lunch. Latest from his family: recovering, will have surgery later this week to repair a broken vertebra, looking at long recovery but his health should be fine.