What Makes a Great Ride?

Texas is uniquely blessed with enough organized rides that between May and September you can go to a rally or race somewhere in the state every weekend.   In fact there are some weekends that allow (or force) you to choose between two or three events.   Any seasoned rally rider can attest that not all events are created the same, though.   There are plenty of good rides out there, but what is it that makes an event great?

The organization level at rallies and races has progressed dramatically over the course of a generation.   According to my father, who was an avid rider during the 70's, the early events had no entry fees, rest stops, food, sag support, t-shirts, course marking, or even “facilities”.   Planning a ride consisted of making route maps and informing the local gas station clerks that there would be a whole bunch of bicyclists in tight wool shorts passing by on a certain day and stopping for food, water, and to use the plumbing.   These were also the days when all “real” riders rode 100 miles on an average Saturday and maybe repeated it on Sunday.   The truly macho riders would sometimes do “double centuries”, in which they rode one lap on a century route in the wee hours so that they could begin their second lap as everyone else was starting the 100-mile ride.   Also, according to Dad, in those days if you carried any more than one small water bottle you were “just a tourist”.

These days, there are basic necessities of an organized ride that would have been luxuries in those days.   If an organizer doesn't provide these essentials, they'll be criticized as being negligent and profit-hungry and of not caring about the riders who support the event.    Organizing a ride is a Herculean and thankless task.   Few participants have any idea how much work and how many details are involved.   Never mind the political wrangling required.   Many are quick to criticize when one detail slips through and organizer's fingers.   These details include rest stops (which alone require food, drinks, ice, jugs, land, and most of all, willing volunteers), facilities, course marking (that's both visible and windproof, and which is set out by volunteers, hopefully without error), traffic protection, police officers, route maps, efficient registration (more volunteers), adequate parking, sag support (still more volunteers) as well as food and fluids at the finish (distributed by…volunteers!).   These are just the necessities that prevent people from complaining.  

There are numerous material goods to procure and distribute, but the grand task of an organizer is persuading people to help out.   This must require political talent in the league of Lyndon Johnson.   First, local city officials must be persuaded to allow hundreds of bicyclists to clog their roads for a day.   Because few rides only pass through one town, numerous police chiefs, city managers, mayors, and at least one sheriff must be persuaded to allow you to interrupt their daily business.   Now you need rest stops.   When, there is no public property available,   the organizer must get permission from a private property owner.     Next, you need willing volunteers to staff the start/finish, rest stops and corners, help mark the route, set up, tear down, and do anything else that comes up.   This involves persuading people that they will somehow benefit from working for you without pay.   You then must hope that they will do the job correctly (one mistake in course marking can ruin many riders' day), be friendly to riders and all get along with each other (conflicts between volunteers can ruin an organizer's day).   Even when an organizer has every base covered, they will inevitably have to deal with Murphy and his law.   And remember, this is just to prevent complaints.

There are dozens of rides out there that do a great job of getting all of the basics right, consistently offering interesting routes, friendly volunteers and a smorgasbord of food, drinks and attractions.   What extra features does an organizer need to offer, though, to make a ride great?   Something has to stand out to make a ride uniquely enjoyable and separate it from all of the others.   The Shiner Bash, for example, promises a long ride followed by cold Shiner beer, good food and great music.   The MS150 revolves around helping a good cause and offers a full weekend of meals, riding, and camaraderie.   The Easter Hill Country Tour offers all of these plus the Texas hill country.   What more could you ask for?   Flowers?   Yes, it has those too.  

There is a class of great rides that I can't ignore because although they may not draw immense crowds, they have loyal “cult” followings.   These aren't big productions, but they offer something special that a few of us deeply enjoy.   My favorite rides fit this profile.   This includes Tour de Gruene, with its hill country roads tracing along the Guadalupe River, the post-ride gathering over beer in the old open-air dance hall and best of all, the “slow race,” where the rider with the best balance wins.   The Killer Diller also nears the top of my list.   It's a race, but USCF probably wants nothing to do with it!   The hills are just short of mountains, the scenery is unbelievable, the pain is incomparable and the descents are scorching fast.   Its charm is in its low-budget nature. They use the same t-shirt design every year, with check boxes to indicate (in permanent marker) whether “I finished it,” or “it finished me”.   Your number is a washrag with numerals stencil-painted onto it.   You must return your number to get your shirt, so they re-use the numbers every year.   If you place, you'll get a trophy from a thrift store--it may have a baseball glove or a golfer on it, but it's always a surprise.   One year I got what must once have been a singing, dancing golf bag, but it no longer sung nor danced.   It's still the coolest award I've ever received!   Even better, if you win you'll get both a trophy and a can of cheap beer (in lieu of the champagne used in pro races) to spray on your adoring fans.   If the ‘Diller didn't have enough mystique already, now consider that it doesn't happen every year, or even at regular intervals.   It happens when someone has the time, energy and motivation to put it on.   This keeps us all in anxious anticipation.

Of course, I'm saving discussion of the big ride for last.   It's the granddaddy of all Texas rides, the popular “gold standard”.   Oddly, it's not in an especially scenic place.   In fact, some of us find it to be one of the least scenic parts of our state.   Nor are there big hills that grant you the satisfaction of conquest.   How does a ride in such an inauspicious place become so popular?   Hotter ‘n Hell offers a bonanza of cycling spectacle.   The organizers go to outrageous lengths to provide a grander experience every year.   It features an expo, tents, a charismatic PA announcer, activities, music, spectators and of course, the name.   Hot weather alone wouldn't draw a crowd, every Texan has access to that, but the name of the ride communicates a unique challenge.   It offers a sense of grand accomplishment to all who finish.   The organizers don't stop there, though.   They include USCF races in the event which is a major organizing effort alone, but adding it to a rally of such proportion is a logistical moon-shot.

From an amateur racer's prospective, it is rare to enter a 100-mile road race with a single-lap course, instead of doing circles on a small loop, to have water handed up to us on the go from enthusiastic volunteers (as opposed to having to beg our significant others to hand water up to us) to see spectators in their front lawns cheering for us, and to have a finish area lined with spectators and press.   The icing on the cake is discovering that even the local radio and TV stations provide coverage of our races.   This is the closest most of us will ever feel to professionals.  

Associate Publisher and Hotter ‘n Hell rider, Brian Hasenbauer, sees the mass appeal of Hotter Than Hell in that riders see these larger events as a "must do" on the cycling calendar and they love all of the events surrounding the ride.  The expo at Hotter Than Hell is first class and the activities like the pasta party, criterium, and mountain bike races add a nice touch to an already popular ride. It's not just your local rally that is only about the ride.  There is much more to Hotter ‘n Hell, which is why thousands of riders flock to Wichita Falls every year.  The committee that organizes the race, headed by Roby Christie, has the riders' enjoyment and safety on the top of their priority list all year long. 

There are dozens of “good” rides and races out there, all of which deserve our support because of the causes they raise money for and because of the hard work done by those who make these rides happen for us.   The “great” rides, though, offer that special something that none of the others provides.   Each great ride has its own niche or identity, and not all of them even cause mass pilgrimages.   The massive great rides are easy to find and definitely can't be missed, but the most rewarding challenge is finding the small rides that fall into the category of “great”.   Once one of these rides finds a place in your heart, you'll feel like you've just made a new best friend.