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Howdy chaps,
You know, in the last several decades at Bike Week I've seen burly biker blokes leading diminutive far easterner types around on rented HD's under the heading of "route captain" and who hasn't gotten a chuckle seeing a fluorescent vested one directing traffic around a wadded up machine laying in the road at the S curves on Bellevue behind the airport while the miscreant and a half dozen of his crazed buddies on other test ride machines from manufacturer's row in front of the speedway look on disinterestedly.
Never thought to apply it to road runs. 25 years ago my crew wanted to be at the sharp end of the spear of the pack and first ones back to the ranch at the end of the day even if it meant numerous wrong turns and more mileage. Now old and dusty and content to "leave the driving to us", as the old bus commercials once touted, it was nice to follow someone who REALLY knew where they were going. The organizers broke us out in run groups with a leader in an orange shirt, and get this, marked almost very intersection or turn with pink painted arrows on the road delineated by date and length of that ride S/R for short and long. For those of us choosing between machines with comfort/no brakes to speak of and plenty of brakes and but numbing discomfort the first page of each days S/R run maps had a graph depicting elevation changes, frequency thereof, over mileage and total elevation deviation from starting point so the right ride could be hoisted from the van.
You know, in the last several decades at Bike Week I've seen burly biker blokes leading diminutive far easterner types around on rented HD's under the heading of "route captain" and who hasn't gotten a chuckle seeing a fluorescent vested one directing traffic around a wadded up machine laying in the road at the S curves on Bellevue behind the airport while the miscreant and a half dozen of his crazed buddies on other test ride machines from manufacturer's row in front of the speedway look on disinterestedly.
Never thought to apply it to road runs. 25 years ago my crew wanted to be at the sharp end of the spear of the pack and first ones back to the ranch at the end of the day even if it meant numerous wrong turns and more mileage. Now old and dusty and content to "leave the driving to us", as the old bus commercials once touted, it was nice to follow someone who REALLY knew where they were going. The organizers broke us out in run groups with a leader in an orange shirt, and get this, marked almost very intersection or turn with pink painted arrows on the road delineated by date and length of that ride S/R for short and long. For those of us choosing between machines with comfort/no brakes to speak of and plenty of brakes and but numbing discomfort the first page of each days S/R run maps had a graph depicting elevation changes, frequency thereof, over mileage and total elevation deviation from starting point so the right ride could be hoisted from the van.
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