Sun, snow and missing signs

a belated blog entry for SK2012

Provence comes to Kinross-shire (Photo courtesy of cyclesportphotos.com)

I have been a real slacker this year with blogs on organising SK2012 so this one is an all encompassing story of SK2012 from the Directors perspective.  I figure before I go on some may or may not wonder what are the objectives set by Sportive Kinross? So here is it as it was written in our original pre event planning document as presented to the Police and local council when seeking their support.

Micro Level  

• Raise awareness of Kinross Cycling Club and attract new members.
• Raise funds for Kinross Cycling Club to create sound financial base to assist in augmenting the clubs development and growth within the local community. 
• Provide a memorable and enjoyable day for all participating individuals that they will want to repeat.
• Raise money for the local childrens hospice, CHAS, £5.00 per paid entry to go to CHAS.  

Macro Level 

• Create a legacy event that will become an annual event for cyclists from across the UK and beyond.
• Encourage people to take up cycling as a sport by providing attractive, fun and challenging events such as Sportive Kinross. 
• Assist in raising the profile of Perth & Kinross-shire and the surrounding counties as tourist destination to visit for cycling and recreational activities.

So you can see we are doing pretty well, event one ticked all the boxes, event 2 was other than #signgate a great success and event two is building nicely on the legacy objective.

Charline Joiner Scottish Commonwealth Silver Medalist lead the event off
(Photo courtesy of cyclesportphotos.com)

The only other blog for SK2012 talked of our post event meeting with Perth & Kinross Council roads department and plans for 2012! As a consequence of that meeting we focussed our attentions on Police liaisons (rather than the council) who (the Police I mean here, both Tayside and Fife Police) were excellent on the day and fantastic in helping us plan the build up to the event. So I will pick up the story from there.

Getting the second event (SK2012) underway was a more straight forward process for us.  We learnt a lot the first time around and were able to take things at a more relaxed pace, possibly too relaxed when I reflect on the lead up to the event. We knew the date of the event, we knew the opening date, we were confident of reasonable numbers to ensure the costs would be covered and money made for the charity. We knew the price point was reasonable and attractive and we knew we could not rely on any grant money to help out with odd bits. So finding a main sponsor to fill that gap became an important aspect for us. An approach to a number of potential sponsors brought a meeting with @bryanalpinebike of Alpine Bikes a straightforward discussion brought agreement on a sponsorship deal and we were set with a terrific main sponsor who would also provide support on the day .

Alpine Bikes provided support on the day (Photo courtesy of cyclesportphotos.com)

Release date set  for 1st October we kind of expected (and indeed hoped) the event would sell out, but had absolutely no idea of what was going to happen in terms of the demand for the event! We were blown away by the speed of the uptake of the places. Other terms that could be applied to us were humbled, excited, astonished, delighted, rather pleased, dead chuffed, you pick an adjective.

Having secured a sponsor, sold all the spaces the next steps were to sort out all the technical aspects of staging such an event.  Fife Council for example require you to apply for a 'parades licence' and then grant a permit for the 'parade'. The application form is quite practical in many ways. It asks for a generic risk assessment, details of the route, projected numbers etc. Then rather amusingly details of the bands! To me a band is a rock band, I so wanted to put down the Led Zeppelin tribute band, but we had not booked them, so no band :-( Once the application is in it is distributed to various departments for comment and then they come back with a conditional approval, e.g. have you got third party insurance? can you put up some warning cyclists signs at this point. It's all constructive stuff. The Police want to know have you got Marshalls? how many? where are they going? What are the starting arrangements and projected timings? Is the First Aid covered? and then they say "how many riders!" and we say, "well we need to give 20 to the charity, 10 to the sponsor and keep a number of rides for people who have done us favours... So yes the event is on the limit of what you might accept" We then go to qualify all this by saying but we will lose 10% on the day so it will be 700 or less. In the end 619 finished the event from a potential start list of 728 of which around 70 did not show up. This Kept true to the 10% rule of thumb drop out rate.

This year we had the additional support of the marvellous amateur radio operators Raynet  who we met at the offices of CHAS and they explained what they would /could do for us. Their enthusiasm and knowledge was quite astonishing and they set about planning their set up. The role was to provide up to date radio communications from around the course. It was from radio reports we learnt of the riders not knowing where to go due to no signs. Something I listened to with disbelief having been involved in putting up the signs the day before! 

One of the two abductees at the Aberdalgie turn off (KCC)

The success of the mugs and coasters as mementoes in SK2011 lead to the conclusion we should use them once again. About 10 days before the event it occurred the mugs had not arrived (but as my wife gets seriously ****** off with me at the garage being full up with cycle club stuff, the lack of mugs had saved me some grief in that direction!). This prompted an email exchange with the terrific supplier we use @4imprintUK who confirmed they would be with us on time and indeed they were, in plenty of time. However, before my dialogue with the very helpful people @4imprint who assured all was in hand for delivery, I found myself wondering what are we going to do! Moral: always ask before you conclude something is about to go awry!

Some of the new signs we had made many are now MIA.

With about a month to go we had a final review of the feedback we received from last year on what was good and what was not so good about the event. Overall the feedback we had was very positive and on the basis of the feedback we rated the event 9/10. Losing marks on some points of information in respect of the signage (a common complaint was some of the signs were too small). and the bike shop support at the event. So for 2012 our sponsors Alpine Bikes were set to provide mechanical support at the event HQ and mechanical support out in the field in addition to own broom wagon.  

On the signage front we spent a further £600 on more signs including some bigger ones for the fiddly junctions where it is all too easy to miss the sign and the junction! A signage schedule was produced at the request of the Police and roads department (copied to the Police but not the road depart). In order to work out an effective system for putting them all up a cluster plan was produced which identified the approximate locations of the sign numbers on the route. You'll see from the Map below signs from 64 through to 77 were removed on the Red route and 109, 110 were removed from the Black route.

Cluster Map showing locations of signs (numbers relate to the signage schedule)

At the campus we planned to have more bodies available the Kinross Roundtable had once again kindly agreed to help with the parking management, we had volunteers from the Scouts too. One change would be the entrance to registration, we would use the access used by the School children. Redbull Wings Team were confirmed to provide free samples  to riders to stock up with some that elixir which makes a pretty effective energy drink.

A warm and friendly letter from Fife Police confirmed they would kindly provide a couple of motorcycle outriders. Bicycle borne Police from Tayside would be on hand to support for some the local more traffic sensitive junctions. The bicycle borne Police are community officers and the bikes they now ride are the ones we bought them with surplus's post the event in 2011.

So the day was set and weather in the week running up to it was lousy! On the Friday before it was good, ideal for setting out signs and on the Saturday we woke up to sunshine and snow on Dunning Hill. I received a helpful text from club member who advised “it should not affect the road too much”.  A brief review and we concluded by the time the riders arrived it would be pretty much clear.

Leaving the campus and heading towards Falkland (Photo courtesy of cyclesportphotos.com)

 

The photographer was once again was the very excellent and reformed Australian Rick Robson of Cycle Sport Photos who you can find on twitter @cspphotoscom. This year he brought some Australian sunshine with him. The weather created some truly dynamic photographic conditions for Rick to explore and capture some stunning photographs.  

They rode out of the sun into the snow (Photo courtesy of cyclesportphotos.com)

The cooks at the school served us so well yet again with some great hot food. Creating a terrific atmosphere back at the campus as people sat down to enjoy the post ride meals and share stories of their days adventure. 

Post ride feed SK2012 (photo courtesy of cyclesportphotos.com)

Ready for the off Sandy Bennett of KCC prepares to depart (photo KCC)

As for us we like to hear people enjoyed their day with us. It gives a high degree of satisfaction to  everyone involved with the event to know it has been a success and people who pay good money to participate have enjoyed the event. Next year we plan to continue the high standard,  reduce / iron out the glitches (we ran out of bananas for example) and of course ensure (using legal metaphor here) to our 'reasonable' ability everyone has a great day. The event does not happen without the wonderful volunteers who help us out including the the terrific people who volunteer from CHAS who man the feed stations with the help of club members but equally it would not happen if no one wanted to participate. It's that combination that makes it work.

Club President @docroddy celebrates his return to cycling after a role in Sweeny Todd (photo courtesy of cyclesportphotos.com)

Finally, we reckon between to the two events we have raised with for CHAS with entry fees, donations and sponsorships over £18k. Not bad for a small cycle club set up by a local GP.

See you all next year on the 27 April 2013, entries open 1st October 2012 on @EntryCentral ;-)

Thank you for supporting our event. If you want to read more, hear more or chat some more don't forget you can find us on Facebook  just look up Sportive Kinross and of course follow us on twitter @sportivekinross.

See you all next year

@sportivekinross

P.S. #signgate it was the council that did it! well sign numbers 63 -75 (see map above). Still to identify who took down 109 - 114. why did they did they do it I hear you ask? To be fair we never supplied a copy of the signage schedule to PKC roads depart to seek their formal permission to erect the signs. However to quote the council on the subject "Yes these were removed by ourselves. These signs are illegal under the Roads Scotland act 1984 section 59 Placing Objects on roads. Within this section it quotes that “The Council may exercise its powers under the Roads Scotland Act to remove the said objects. It also goes on to state that the Council can recover the expenses incurred." 

@zarbio