Newsletter - 2000 Archive

BC Randonneurs Cycling Club

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I have seen several accounts now of this year's Rocky Mountain 1200 and it is interesting to read about the event from different perspectives - from the viewpoint of the participant and from the viewpoint of a volunteer. Each is slightly different but adds insight into how the event is viewed.

I had over 30 volunteers and we had 40 registrants. This is a very high ratio and even at that, at the controls where most participants were sleeping, it was a tough and tiring job for the volunteers. Also, although not planned, Bob & Patty Marsh played the role of mobile support and several control volunteers and participants were glad of the assistance. I would like to thank the following people for their contributions:
Control Staff - Harold Bridge, Mac Cooper, Patty & Bob Marsh, Janice & Tom Hocking, Chris & Jay Siggers, Arne Driver, Dan McGuire, June Gallagher, Frances Caton, Michel Richard, Majbrit Kungras, Peter Mair, Cheryl Lynch, Real Prefontaine, Doug Beames, Henry Hulbert, Barb Lepsoe, Maureen & Jocelyn Wagner, Deb Berry, Myna Robinson and Lyle Beaulac.
Photographer and Marshall - Bob Boonstra
Post Ride Party - Richard & Fearon Blair, Barb Boonstra
Route - John Bates
Food - Ted Milner, Karen Smith
Plaques - Ian Faris
And a special thanks to John Bates, and Harold Bridge who put in almost as many hours as I did on this event.

To-date, this event has been run every year, except PBP. It is now time to consider how many resources the club wants to devote to the Rocky Mountain. The Executive has decided that running the Rocky Mountain on even years will perhaps allow us to break even on the event (this year we made about $1,000) by attracting enough participants and not stretch our limited human resources too far. By running the RM on the even years, we can take advantage of PBP and LEL for promotion to Europeans.

For this year's Rocky Mountain 1200, we introduced a few new things - firstly, we changed the route slightly. Instead of heading out to Banff and back from Lake Louise, we went back to a closer version of the first year's route travelling down into the north Okanagan. From Salmon Arm, we travelled south to Vernon using a combination of backroads and the highway and from Vernon; we used the Old Kamloops Road and then the highway to return to Kamloops. We added a few kilometres off the highway just east of Sicamous also. These route changes were viewed as positive, for the most part. And secondly, we gave participants the option of two start times (and two different overall times) - 10 p.m. for the 90-hour group and 4 a.m. for the 84-hour group. In theory, this meant that everyone finished closer together and we did have a better turnout at the party. And thirdly, we offered breakfast food as well as pasta. Despite our efforts at variety, this year we had the largest number of complaints about the food. I think this is a symptom of larger numbers of participants and small number of local participants.

For the next Rocky Mountain, I would like to see these changes remain, and consider putting a participant limit of 50 on the event. Anyone who has any comments/suggestions for the next RM, please contact me - Danelle at 737-0043.

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