Alternate Day Brevets - Understanding the Organizers/Volunteer Pre-ride:

This first section is taken from the rules page elsewhere on this site:

Officially there are no alternate day brevets in the sport of Randonneur Cycling. Here is how BC Randonneurs defines a brevet:

A brevet is a ride starting at a designated time and place, on a designated day, following a designated route.

Riders will be aware, however, that there is an exception to this rule in BC - the organizer's and volunteer's pre-ride. This ride, usually one week before the official ride, allows a brevet organizer and other ride-day volunteers to preview the route: check the accuracy of the route sheet, discover road changes and closures as well as hazards and construction. The organizing team will also be given credit for the brevet. Only the ride organizer and ride-day volunteers are permitted to join the pre-ride. There is only one pre-ride for an event, and typically the participants ride together.

Permission to participate in the volunteer pre-ride is granted by the organizer only to riders whose contribution on the official ride day is necessary and significant. Volunteers who provide non event-day help (promotion, printing route sheets) must ride on event day to get credit for the ride. The pre-ride is not to be used as a means of accommodating the personal scheduling conflicts of volunteers. A volunteer who rides the pre-ride and does not show up on ride day will be disqualified.

Is this rule absolute? Under some very special circumstances (one was a volunteer's request to attend a funeral), some volunteers and organizers have in the past been given credit for a pre-ride without being present on event day. These circumstances are rare, and the decision is the regional rides coordinator's, not the ride organizer's.

This next part lists the very rare conditions that have in the past allowed a rider to be credited for a pre-ride without being a volunteer on ride day:

Under some very special circumstances volunteers or organizers have been given credit for a pre-ride without being present on event day. These circumstances are rare, and the decision is the route coordinator's not the ride organizer's.

1. A funeral (obviously unanticipated) prevented a volunteer from helping on ride day. His pre-ride was allowed to stand.

2. A rider with a pre-existing overseas plane ticket, which was going to prevent him for attending the ride, organized a major brevet including doing all route work, organizing all the paper work, and coordinating a significant number of volunteers. He was encouraged to ride the pre-ride and credit was granted. It was not simply because he "organized" the event that pre-ride credit was granted, but that his preparations were extensive.

3. A volunteer pre-rode a "Hell Week" series. The volunteer was not a ride-day volunteer on all of the brevets in the series. The volunteer's pre-ridden series was allowed, and all brevets were credited. Organizers of similar multi-brevet series are free to use their volunteers where they are most needed, and this might mean using them more on some brevets and not at all on others. The overall contribution of the volunteer must be significant and necessary.

4. Extreme winter conditions have been a reason to change the date of some spring Peace Region brevets.

5. There is one final scenario under consideration that has not yet resulted in a credited pre-ridden brevet. Particularly on longer brevets which involve night riding (400s and 600s), some riders may feel uncomfortable riding alone. In the case where only a single organizer or volunteer is available for the pre-ride, a second "companion rider" can be asked to participate. This second rider's contribution to the ride is to accompany the organizer on the pre-ride, and credit will be granted without the companion rider needing to help on ride day.

February 2010

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