I think TdP went very well this year. At Rest Stop 11 where I was, on the 80 mile route, we didn’t seem to have near as many riders as in the past. Not sure what the cause of this might have been. Our Rest Stop had left over supplies, which they took to other Rest Stops that were in need. In the past, we had run out of supplies.
The one issue we had was not knowing when the last bike came by. We had one bike rider that said they thought they were the last one but we dismissed that as how could they know what was or wasn’t behind them? Turns out they were the last bike and we wound up hanging around an extra hour before a sweeper vehicle came by and released us.
I would like to see a “Last Bike” Amateur Radio operator, preferably with APRS, following the last bicycle, at least on the 80 mile route.
Cindy and I did a lot of foot runs and bicycle rides in the Baltimore-Annapolis region with the local Ham clubs and we would use a Ham on a bicycle (often me) following the last foot runner and I would use our Spyder 3-wheeled motorcycle to follow the last bicycle, this worked out well. With a tablet we could show the race director where the last runner or bike was, or we could display it on a large video display for all to see.
TdP is problematic with its 5 courses of different lengths.
Any thoughts from the group?
Charles WA5VHU