Massacre post mortem

[northwind]

This thread's designed to basically pick over this year's Massacre rideouts, see what we think went well and what we think didn't, and look at ways to improve things for next time. Negativity is ENTIRELY encouraged here There are plenty of things that I would like to tweak, and also things I'd like to improve on, but also there are a lot of things I want to keep and build on. Naturally this thread will end up having some suggestions for next year but please keep them relevant, ie, don't just say "I think we should do this", there's plenty of time for that- but if you think "This didn't work, maybe we should try that" then that's very useful.

I might be quite aggressive in the editing on this thread, don't take offence if your masterpiece gets snipped Big threads are a nightmare to read.

[northwind]

For me, there were 5 obvious issues

1) It being too much my show- that was for good reasons but I didn't start getting other people in to help til the last minute, and that was obviously a mistake. Even on the day I tried to keep it too much in my grasp, not clever.

2) The campsite. Yes, they were well located and welcoming but the bugs were a nightmare and the restrictions on late night mucking about were very annoying. Also, only fairly limited local accomodation options, though it was good and varied

3) The route- we had to drop off a section and an optional ride, and with hindsight the route was just a wee bit too big. This ties into...

4) Timekeeping. My bad here, I underestimated the time it'd take to get everyone on the road, and I don't think there was adequate provision for incidents- we were about an hour behind schedule 30 minutes into the run . I rashly thought people would pay attention when I said GET FUEL BEFOREHAND and GET FUEL NOW

5) Communication. I decided at the last minute that though we didn't need markers, having a few trail bosses just to communicate and generally herd cats would be good, but it was too late. This naturally happens anyway, people with a good brain and group experience will always take over, but it should have been formalised. These would NOT have been markers, though they could mark if they wanted, but more delegates, people who know how the ride works and can help communicate but who can also step in with problems. Basically, just some wildcards who can operate a wee bit outside the rideout, if you like.

But the strengths were very strong:

1) Location was basically very good, not too far north and well located for good roads.

2) The optional loops. Yes, they were a complete logistical bas***d but they worked very well I think. The overall route was pretty damn good in fact, very hard to top.

3) Lunch. Thanks to KG, this worked very well. It's quite awkward timing wise as if the rideout time slips, we could be in trouble- but the sit-down lunch was very, very good I thought.

4) and breakfast. This was just awesome, I love you guys, you give me sausages and coffee.

5) This is the big one... The whole thing was very flexible and adaptable. It could go as big as it had to but would have worked with 10 people, and there was no need to book in advance. When we over-ran, we could change the route on the fly. I think this is definately the way to go, the temptation to overplan is always strong but a simple plan is a durable plan. This is one place where having a dictator helps

So what I would like for next year...

A fairly informal organisational team, with probably somewhere around 6 core people but open to input from everyone.

Identified trail bosses on the road- NOT named markers, but people visibly marked who can basically take charge and make independant decisions with confidence. You know who you are.

Keep the optional loops if we can- that's a nice signature touch and means we're not having to miss out roads because some people might not be up for them

Keep the general level of roads high- we want to be accessible to everyone but at the same time, nobody wants to ride 1200 miles in a weekend in order to ride boring roads

Sit-down lunch OR lunch in a real tourist hub that can deal with serious numbers

Site-wise, I want a mix of accomodation to cover budgets and preferences, and somewhere we don't need to worry about waking up babies if we want to talk bo***cks all night and neck whisky. There's lots of ways to do this. Better foul weather facilities.

NOT TOO FAR NORTH! If people can't hit us in one day from most of the country, that's a mistake I feel.

Not overplanned- we need a plan that can survive mishaps and last minute alterations, and expand and contract at will.

Better photos- obviously a lot of this just fell apart on the day but we never did a proper group photo (sad face) and I wanted more stuff from the roads. We had an epidemic of video kit fails...

That's all that comes to mind just now, but I'm sure more will come along.

Originally Posted by northwind

For me, there were 5 obvious issues

1) It being too much my show- that was for good reasons but I didn't start getting other people in to help til the last minute, and that was obviously a mistake. Even on the day I tried to keep it too much in my grasp, not clever.

A lot of this was borne out of different expectations at the beginning of the planning.

I made the same mistake with the breakfast. When I planned to do breakfast I planned roll, sausage and coffee for 20 people and I was just going to treat you all instead of charging 2 quid for it. Then Tiger made a comment about "how do I want paid for the breakfast?" Only then it dawned on me (as it had obviously dawned on him) that we had to feed 55 people two mornings in a row. We were going to need a lot of meat, bread, litres of boiling water and lots of charcoal.

It was KG that realised that this had got bigger than our planning allowed for and jumped in at the last minute to fill the gaps - namely lunch and taking workload off me with the breakfast.

KG did 75 quids worth of shopping for the breakfast stuff in advance to save me midnight trips to Tesco's, had it all frozen and packed in cool boxes. He saved me a lot of work 'cos he knew he had the time during the day to do it. OYB was a god send in doing the clearing up as well, or KG and I wouldn't have caught the rest of you until lunch, we hadn't really thought about that either (I still haven't cleaned the BBQ, it looks like it cooked a very fatty pig!)

We just didn't realise how big the event would become. We treated it the same as organising any other big Ecosse rideout.

Hindsight is golden. Next time we know to delegate individual tasks to a team of people. I still think you need one man who has overall control though and knows whats going on with each task. You can't expect a team to function without a leader, otherwise you'll end up with 6 organisers and 6 different weekends all going in different directions, so a certain amout of dictatorship is good.

Though it being your show made your life difficult, I really didn't notice any detrimental effect to our guests.

Originally Posted by northwind

Communication. I decided at the last minute that though we didn't need markers, having 5 or 5 trail bosses just to communicate and generally herd cats would be good, but it was too late. This naturally happens anyway, people with a good brain and group experience will always take over, but it should have been formalised. .

Trail bosses are good, but I don't think we need to formalise it too much, because trail bosses can get have thier plans scuppered too! I left Pete and Lissa marking Dalmally and raced on with the intention of passing the bulk of the group and getting to Connel first to mark that left turn. I got chaperoned by a copper all the way along Loch Awe, so I got to Connel almost last. Luckily KG had it marked and nobody went the wrong way. So even with zero organisation of trail bosses nobody got lost. Just identify those who know the route as trail bosses and let them get on with it.

I think it's a good idea to have trail bosses identifiable though, maybe a different colour Hi-Viz. There were a few times I blasted past people and rode straight to the front of traffic queues, and I'm sure a few folk thought "what is that 'er doing?".

Well I didn't really care what they thought anyway, and they would see me marking at the next junction and realise why I was cracking on, but at the time I just hoped that my ST06 scottish registered bike gave away the fact that I was one of the minority in the group who knew the roads and exactly where we were going and I was making my way towards the front. There were a couple of occassions I couldn't overtake or filter through the group because I knew people weren't expecting it and it wouldn't have been safe, but when people see a hi viz come up behind them, they move over and make room.

Dean was busy doing his job keeping the pace up at the front, sometimes the fastest 5 or 6 riders were way ahead of the main bulk of the group who were travelling at steadier speeds. There were times when the main group lost sight of the front runners and it only took one of those front runners to forget to mark a junction and we'd have a problem, so you need a team that you can trust to make thier way safely to the front of each group to fill that gap. Unless you organise one marker per junction it has to be people with the confidence to overtake, make progress and do that job, otherwise all your trail bosses end up together at the back having marked all the junctions and departed last.

Site-wise, I want a mix of accomodation to cover budgets and preferences

Agreed, we had a few folk who dropped out this year due to cost. There's a lot of fuel and food involved. A tent may not be a lot of peoples preferred option, but it a necessity for some, simply because it's 6 quid a night, so I think we always need to have at least one accomodation option below (say?) 15 quid a night, be it bunkhouse, tent or whatever.

NOT TOO FAR NORTH! If people can't hit us in one day from most of the country, that's a mistake I feel.

Agreed, I didn't go to AR08 because it was too far for me. I know for a fact accomodation requiring a significantly longer ride than we did this year would put people off, because it would put me off. For a lot of folk riding bikes is about finding good roads and enjoying them, not sitting on a motorway for 10 hours. For me bike miles should be quality, not quantity. A week or two week biking holiday is great, but if I had to go south of Birmingham for a biking weekend, it would be in the car with the bike on a trailer! Getting a sore butt and squaring off a set of tyres just isn't my bag!

[northwind]

The main problem with having just one person so much in charge is that if anything had happened to me, chaos Don't like brittle plans. I always had 40 people in mind, the only bit that I felt was a problem from that point of view was the stops.

I don't really like the designated marker system as used at the AR- main reason being you end up with markers constantly pushing through the pack to get back to the front, which isn't ideal (the red mist descended a fair bit in the last 2 I think, naming no names). It depends on the route though- like this year, there were very few junctions that needed marked at all.

The drop-off system does work as long as no idiots clear off, which isn't that likely really on a ride like this. Personally, i reckon don't mess with it- you don't need group leaders or anything like that, you just need everyone to know how it works.

I think maybe just armbands or something works for the trail bosses (I like that name, i'll stick with it)- enough to make them fairly recognisable but not enough to cause any confusion with the top and tail riders. The job as I see it's really just to jump in if there's any problems more than anything else, I think the place they'd make the most difference is at rest stops, to keep things moving, but also they can take over marking a junction if they want, stuff like that- like I say, it's what some people (you included) do naturally anyway, so it just takes that one step further. They're definately NOT just markers. I think most of the time they'd be better on the road than stopped at a junction really.

Originally Posted by northwind

you just need everyone to know how it works.

The marker system works well for Ecosse rideouts. But we know the roads and if anyone gets lost they know the way home.

But, as proved by thousands of tourists on the roads of Scotland every year - what worries me on an invitational is that when people come to Scotland they are having such a good ride, looking at spectacular scenery, enjoying the twisty roads, and generally having a ball being a tourist, that they forget they have role to play and that they should be marking junctions.

As we see from the tourists in cars, in some cases common sense goes out of the window altogether! It's not something you can blame anybody for, it just happens that people get caught up in the moment, just as I did at 4 am on Sunday morning !

I don't think we had anybody like that this year, but it only takes one.

I'll name no names but we had somebody prove to be unreliable in the organisation of the breakfast, but luckily I wasn't relying on thier input. Much to my own dissatifaction I proved unreliable in leading the Sunday rideout and that will NEVER happen again! But the same can happen with marking junctions.

[northwind]

Yeah, but the thing is it doesn't really take any independant thought to mark a junction- the ride leader stops and marks the junction, and the first rider stops where they are.

I'll try to keep this short.
Dictatorship good and bad, a little less during organisation and planning mainly to stop it overwhelming one person and a little more on the day to keep things moving along, stops became protracted.
Flexibility is an absolute must both with accomodation and route, booking a location for 20 then expecting it to be able to take 50 or vice verca is difficult, and there's a lot of things that can affect the ride on the day; offs, police, weather.
trail bosses, I think we lucked out here on the day, a few of us slipped into zipping through the field, marking junctions and marshalling people out of stops etc. For me this needs formalized espcially of we have similar numbers next year. Perhaps 5 or 6 with yellow hiviz on with lead and tec orange as this year. One marking every corner even if 2nd runner is not a tb then they mark until tb arrives. The slow start could have been avoided if a tb had stopped and tec kept moving. Might have meant couple of tbs dropping off the back but they would have caught up. even at oysters if tec had arrived and said tb1 has stopped for an off, called him for update or, tb2 wait here on him ( so no one left completely solo) or head back and help if required.
route was long but not undoable, Suzuki owners club did weekend camp this weekend and rideouts was 85 miles which I thought was silly.
lunch could have been better, northy talked us out of a possible financial mess and hotel got uppity about time, a couple of urns of soup and cold sandwiches would have allowed more flexibility, but also knowing more accurate numbers, perhaps saying if your going lunch is £4~ I'll assume everyone wants fed and is happy with cost unless they opt out 72 hrs b4. Maybe a bit harsh but possibly necessary. Think that's enough for now

What all you guys achieved was nothing short of miraculous from the rideouts to the lunch to the brekkies.

Sure things can always be improved and honed but that comes with experience. Given the miles jointly covered and the mixed abilities the ****-up factor was negligable although it did unfortunately impact with timings. Next year you'll have more people with more experience and that will help I'm sure.

[Blue Flame]

Evening 'relaxation'. We did not have anywhere ideal set up for us all to group together with our 'tinnies' or to organise an evening barbecue. The end result of this was the break up of the group as some headed off to pub down the road, some hung back at the campsite and some stayed at the campsite bar and it therefore started to get fragmented & expensive. Yeah the AR08 evenings also degenerated a bit even with that facility but that was primarily the weather. It would be ideal in my opinion if this could be better for the ecosse one.

Rideout Length. The total mileage on the main day was I think a bit too long. I did not go to the dukes pass element as it was late in the day, I was getting tired and a bit fed up. That was probably due partly to the extended stops due to the thankfully minor incidents but in any event we need to allow in a factor for this and cut the overall route length down.

Lunch. I think that this should be in a town or village with a choice of facilities and peeps just told to be back at a certain time. The hotel this year was OK but if I had had a choice I would have preferred to decide for myself what I wanted to do about food whether it was a takeway or a sit down somewhere.

The Callander stop was a good example of the type of place more suitable for lunch but with as I say clear directions about what time we are reconvening.

'Trail Bosses' This is essentially the designated marker system in disguise. I worry when I see this happening about the self inflicted pressure that they put on themselves to get through the pack because of an internal belief that the ride will go pear shaped unless they get to the next junction in front of everybody. I would rather that we stuck to the original plan in that everybody is made clear about the drop off system at the beginning of the ride and that they are issued with maps on the day that clearly show the junctions. I don't think we as a group should be advocating a more formal set of markers.

Marshalling out of stops Hmmm... I was not really comfortable about this set up. Left hand turns yeah ok. I was uncomfortable with the safety of right hand ones We should always endeavour to have a stop which would entails a left hand turn out of the stop area.

<edited a wee bit for length>

The campsite was a good place for a base but agree with comments about late nite shenannigans and also bugs.

As regards the ride itself I had NO idea why the same people kept burning past me at warp speed until i saw these same people at the junctions, I then knew to get out of the way when I saw certain bikes. It took me a while to catch on. I thought that this worked very well and it was obvious that some people had just took it upon themselves to do this, thanks. Could benefit if these folk were indeed marked next time as I for one was unaware. It really helped when I found myself on my own a one point that the guys up front stopped so I knew where to go as the maps I brought never got used, a testament to the job they did.

<EDIT- they weren't the markers, marking as explained was being done by whoever happened to be first to a junction.>

As regards distance covered, I thought that although slightly too long for me to do all on Sat the roads were cracking and thanks Northy for pointing out that the first optional loop at the hotel was the best road cause I fancied kipping on the grass, however it was my favorite road of the weekend.

Communication was great I thought, perhaps flyers or someting with some of the essential details to hand out on the day? I know we could all print out the maps posted but some people forget or can't. I for one don't mind doing something like this next time but I am far too dis-organised to tackle major tasks Would love to do something to help though.