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Thoughts on the 2006 Tour de Stooges

Before I go into my thoughts about the Tour de Stooges, I wanted to let you know about a new feature on the Tour de Stooges Web site. We have posted photos from the event taken by Belleville News-Democrat photographer Derik Holtmann. Derik picked one of the most scenic areas on the route, Lebanon Road near Silver Creek, to take his photos. We invite you to see the photos, and if you took photos of the ride, we invite you to share them with us.

The 2006 Tour de Stooges was a success on all levels. We not only drew more than 500 riders this year -- the best Tour de Stooges ever -- we drew people from 12 states. Not too shabby for a single-day ride.

We had considerably fewer complaints this year than last year. Last year, we were overwhelmed by the crowd, and there were problems linked to that growth plus some unforeseen problems we had at one of the rest stops with restrooms and water supplies. We took care of those problems this year by having additional water jugs and volunteers to make sure everything ran smoothly.

While those complaints were legitimate, a few were not. One gentleman complained about the fact we served bite-sized candy bars at the rest stops. The complaint would have been valid if we had served nothing else but candy, but we had plenty of fruit and cookies. Besides most of the riders liked the fact we served candy. We ran out of candy before we ran out of any other item.

Another fellow complained that we didn't use orange arrows rather than yellow arrows. That complaint has no validity because the vast majority of people think the Tour de Stooges is very well marked. The area in which we ride is often used for other cycling events. It would be rather confusing to cyclists if every ride used orange road marking for its routes.

While we were disappointed we lost some of the people who complained, we were happy we more than replaced them with quality cyclists and people. For example, when I cleaned the fourth rest stop, the only piece of trash I found was a corner of a candy wrapper. Dawn Weber, who manned the Highland rest stop, also reported she also had practically no trash to clean up, a sharp contrast from 2005.

The quality of the participants we had this year made all the hard work the volunteers and I put into the event worthwhile.

Since next year will be the 10th edition of the Tour de Stooges, we want to make next year extra special with some new features. I hope you'll consider coming out next May for the ride, and a big, hearty thanks to all of you who came out this year!

Roger 1 comments 2:15 PM

Comments:

I thought it was a great ride. The fields of yellow flowers were beautiful. That's the reason my wife decided to attend.

I pulled my kids behind me in a Burley trailer. We went on the 42 mile ride.

# posted by  Anonymous : 7:46 AM

 

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