The Other Side of Things

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Last week I sat on the other side of the registration table at the Ramble Around Prattsburgh as one of the four event organizers collectively known as Pedaling Productions. It was really amazing to be on the other side of a race, organizing and prepping for a race in a much different way than I am used to. I wasn’t concerned with my riding hours, prepping my bike and eating healthy. I was more worried about registration and insurance paperwork, the course being signed properly (and not being vandalized), making the medals, organizing volunteers, making sure race day ran smoothly, and cleaning up after everyone else was happily at home. Don’t get me wrong it was a rockin’ good time, I was definitely bummed that I couldn’t race but I loved watching everyone enjoying themselves on their bikes.

We had wonderful weather, mid 60’s and sunny, which helped bring out 125 riders. We had a wide range of people show up including semi-pro racers, a 5 and 8 year old that crushed an 8 mile off-road course, several juniors, a tandem duo, a single-speeder, several families that all raced, and a respectable amount of women. We had a great venue, the Village Square in Prattsburgh, which allowed the racers to warm-up by doing laps around the square which really added to the intensity of the start. It was awesome to stand along the edge of the road and have a constant flow of cyclists riding by with huge grins on their faces. After the race there was just a great vibe, everyone had fun, no one was injured or lost, and the post-race food and refreshment by the Robbin’s Nest was great. We had some sweet prizes from the Geneva Bicycle Center and even hand-made wooden medals. A lot of people stuck around for the awards ceremony and prize raffle a bunch of the Park Ave Mountain Bike Team even presented Casey C with his very own custom post hammer. I’ve got some great photos in the slideshow, press play to begin but be warned that there are a lot of photos and you might want to just go to the album.

I think I really could get use to this race organization stuff, even though it was a lot of work I really enjoyed the entire process and all of race day, including riding on the back of the cube during cleanup! The long hours are worth it even though I was seriously dipping into my riding time. Reality has hit that the HardCore 24 in Naples is just 6 weeks away. Mark and I have done this event every year and have won the two-person male/female duo each time. We’ve even walked away twice with a 1st in the overall two person teams. This course is on our home turf and feel the need to go out and destroy our competition. We’re feeling the heat from Casey C and Matt H, we got them two years ago and they are going all out this year. I think I heard them talking training plans during our ride the other day…sneaky.This morning I found myself on the other side of riding, Mark and I headed over to Ontario County Park for some trail building and clean-up of existing trails. There was a huge crew making the work easy and fast, we were wishing for more pre-marked trails to cut. We had the man power to do a lot more. Check out the Trail Building Collective site for more info. It’s great that so many local places are finally opening up to mountain biking and I’m glad to be a part of helping build the trails. Mostly because I love riding them but also to give back a little bit and hopefully get more people out there riding and enjoying nature in the Finger Lakes, a beautiful and under utilized natural playground.Although I have enjoyed being on the other side of things the past few weeks I hope things will allow me to get back on the flip side of things, letting others do the event organization so that I can just show up and have fun riding and racing my bike with others.