What really horrifies cyclists

[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.