The 2008 Bearspaw Open

It's now been just over a week since the first running of the Bearspaw Open, presented with The RCMP - A Career Nowhere Near Ordinary, and I'm starting to feel like I've recovered from the whole organizational thing!

On the whole I think that the race went really really well. Lots of great feedback about the race course, with several people telling me that it's perhaps one of the best in Alberta. It's certainly different! It was also pretty safe, with only one relatively serious crash. Luckily the outcome was (as far as I know) some road rash and a chewed-up jersey. Racers seemed to cope with the heat (+32c I think) pretty well, although I noticed from the Commissaire vehicle that quite a few folks need to work on getting their bottles in the feed zone!

For sure we had some organizational cock-ups, but nothing too major and we'll have 'em ironed out for next year. More on this subject in a later post.

I know that the RCMP thought that it was a great event also, and the internal feedback I'm getting is very positive. We've a had a very brief discussion about next year's event already, and I'm hoping to sit down soon with them to do a full review of this year's event and to schedule a kick-off meeting for 2009.

Some quick notes on "lessons learned" as a first-time organizer:

1. Find out who your Chief Commissaire is and get him/her involved early. Carol Mayne was the Chief of the Open, and I can't say enough about how awesome she was to deal with
2. Talk to the ABA. Lots. Again, easy to deal with them and they were quite helpful
3. People in Alberta register at the last second. Try not to panic when only a handful of folks have registered a week and a half before the event. Next year I'm going to try and alleviate this in 3 ways: A. No race-day registration, B. Publish field limits, and C. Have some great early-bird registration incentives
4. Work on making your race more of an "event" than just a race. The "Dinner & a Bike Race" concept worked well, and I think it's going to be way more awesome next year
5. Try to find a race course with shorter loops so that the spectators can stay interested
6. Get your permit WAAAAAAAY early and then start talking with local residents/businesses. Give them lots of notice and information, and don't forget to invite them out to the event. You will sleep better at night having 'em on your side
   

There's a lot more I have to say on lessons learned, and I'll do a post about this subject soon. These are just the highlights that are sticking in my mind right now.

Running this event was a ton of work, and it was a whole lot more stressful than I could've imagined when I told the Midweek Mayhem board of directors "A race? Sure, ya, I'll handle that." In the end, though, it was great to develop something that people are looking forward to coming back to next year.

We've got some great ideas on how to make the event better for next year, including some potential changes to the race course to make it even better. Stay tuned.

Labels: Organization, Post-mortem, Resources