CFC Wrap Up
By Frank Seebode, October 1, 2007
Frank arrives at lunch. CFC 07 Photo by Gordon Renkes.
I want to say thank you to all of you for volunteering to help out on this ride. Without you stepping up, this ride would have never gone forward.
We ending up with 128 riders, quite remarkable considering it was all folks going to the COP’s website and word of mouth advertising until a mass mailing / e-mailing September 21 & 22. I set the staffing up for a 200 to 300 person ride and actually turned away some volunteers. I hope some of you who showed up on Sunday were not too bored.
Special Thanks
Joe Giampapa - On the second turn of the Ridge Runners Ramble for ignoring the turn arrow and saying “I think we go straight here” causing our group to go all over the road thus allow Cindy Berard to catch up with us. I later overhear a conversation where she say CFC might be canceled. Without that turning fiasco, I would have not found out that CFC was canceled until September and then it would have been to late to put this ride together.
Donna Bush & Bill McMurray - For starting the e-mail chains that brought us nearly all of our volunteers and a good chunk of our riders.
Ann Gerckens - For somehow realizing that the mass mailing did not happen. The mailings / e-mailings netted us about 15-20 more riders at least.
Barbara Meyers - For making sure we did not run out Gatorade and snacking materials which I had dramatically understocked. Hats off for discovering the Gatorade problem Friday night at our food stop meeting. Barbara and Bruce for running this ride the previous 2 years, I anticipated a lot of work, but underestimated it.
Tom Christman - For providing the trailer to haul the food and the coolers and ice to keep the meat, cheese, and vegetables cold.
Mike Rea and the Saturday Lunch Crew - for thinking on their feet and getting some of the first riders fed without COP food due to navigational difficulties experienced by Tom and crew.
Al Moore - Alerted me Friday the 28th that a 38 foot span bridge was out after Logan. Avoided a disaster.
Eve Holland - For taking this ride over next year. I cannot wait. I got to start my tenure as tour director as the lame duck tour director. This enabled me to throw a few scared cows over the cliff along with the bathwater. The biggest one being the Lafayette breakfast.
The Ride
Great weather always improves peoples perceptions of how good a ride is and we had perfect weather. Great weather also lessens riders aggravation when they get lost. The most popular deviation off the route seems to be at Rts. 676 and C-9. The fresh asphalt dimmed the paint making the arrows hard to see. I also did a poor job of marking that turn. All that new asphalt was irresistible and the result was quite a few missed that turn. The funniest I heard was getting lost 50 feet from Saturdays finish: two riders turned left at the corner Betsy Mills was on. A few hills at the right place in the ride can totally change people’s perception of the ride. On Sunday we had 26 miles of flat or nearly flat roads, yet I doubt most riders would say it felt like a fourth of the ride was flat.
We had no accidents, the last rider in was at 6:20 Sunday, he did the 105 miles.
Overall we had some good planning and very good luck to pull this ride off. Nearly everything went like it had to in order for this ride to come together.
Thanks again
A quilt featuring Columbus Fall Challenge Gorilla T-shirts. Maker unknown to us. Photo by Gordon Renkes.
Update on November's Cover
The quilt on the cover of COP's Newsletter for November 2007 was made by Kathy
Davis of Zanesville, Ohio. The t-shirts/quilt belong to Steve and Cindy Buck, COP
members since 1969. They love CFC and COP. (see related classified ad in the
January newsletter on page 15)