How to plan a century bike ride.

As you all know I'm a "C" personality. I need a plan. I like to be organized. It's a trait that has suited me well over the years. Most recently I'm helping Lt. Governor Casey Cagle with his Century ride. As you can imagine it takes a lot of planning. And a lot of doing. Think about this; there needs to be directional arrows painted on the road before every turn and a confirmation one after the turn. There could be a lot of painted things on the roads so you need to paint something specific for the riders to recognize. In our case it's the letter's "FCA". I've been spending my evenings painting 200 miles of road and it sucks.

Planning a Century ride of this size involves other things too. Here's a quick list:
1. Paint the roads.
2. SAG Locations (preferably with bathrooms available)
3. Volunteers
4. Registration; Online and Day Of.
5. T-Shirts and Goodie Bags for the participants.
6. Food. For the SAG's and lunch after the ride.
7. Volunteers
8. Advertising
9. Route Cue Sheets and Maps (Online and Day Of Print Outs)
10. Volunteers


I've organized three rides in my career as a ride director/promoter extraordinaire. The most successful was my first one and for much of the same reason the Lt. Governor's ride is going to be. My first ride was to benefit Officer Joe Groover who was shot in the line of duty.Not shot dead, just shot. (Your welcome Joe) His good friend Officer Kelley Edwards is also a great friend of mine and together we put on a bike ride and 5K run to raise money for Groover's family. We asked Blackshear Place Church to allow us to hold the event there and use their kitchen, bathrooms, ect. I developed the ride, Kelley worked the run and the event was great!

2008 Groover Benefit Ride

Where we did the best was in fund raising. You need to get companies on board to either pay for stuff or donate supplies. Well, when I walk into Publix with a Hall County police officer suddenly I get attention from the management. That's how it's been with the Lt. Governor's ride. I just tell Roy (LG's External Affairs Coordinator) what I need and he makes the calls. Magic! We need SAG supplies, POOF! We need signs printed, POOF! We need Italian lunch for the riders, POOF! Roy is like my own personal Jeannie! But let's be honest. When you start the conversation with, "This is Roy from the Lt. Governor's office" you don't get a busy signal. Consequently the ride is going to be great!
So lesson number one: Pick a great Cause! Lesson number two: Enlist men of Power! I'm just a lowly accountant who loves to ride a bike. Businesses can't get behind every man with an idea to raise money for charity. You have to be smart. When Casey came to me with the idea of putting on a benefit ride I jumped at it. Not because I needed more work to do, but because I knew that my work wouldn't be in vain.


Let me share with you some of the things happening at the LG's ride. Now remember, when we started it was a Century ride from "somewhere" with supplies from "somewhere", ect.


The online registration page is on BikeReg.com and has been updated as we've added new stuff.
The routes are built on MapMyRide.com so we can put links on the registration site and flyers, ect.
The routes keep the riders on back roads and out of heavy traffic as much as possible.

Talmo, GA - SAG#1, Cool little fake gas station.

The routes take riders through old towns in North Georgia where we've set up the SAG stops. All with bathrooms available!
Each route has painted arrows before and after the turns.
Route options: 28mile,50mile,66mile,100mile.
One support vehicle for every route!
Ride starts and ends at Chestnut Mt. Church. We roll out the back and stay on back roads.
United Health Care Race Team EXPO from 9AM-2PM where pro cyclists will provide bike safety classes for children, bike demonstrations as well as important information on eating healthy and staying fit. They will have bikes and helmets for the day's use and will also raffle off a child's bike and helmets!
The Lt. Governor's Greater Purpose Charity is conducting a Silent Auction for many items that nobody would ever give me if "I" asked. Signed cycling jersey's from BMC George Hincapie, Radio Shack, Garmin Cervelo. Signed football stuff from UGA, GT, Florida State, Atlanta Falcons.

Me and Casey

The CEO of the Atlanta Falcons and an un-named player will be there. CEO is riding with Casey. You can too!
Other bike shops say they will bring a tent for the EXPO.
Goodie bags will have lots of cool stuff in them.
FCA has great and fun volunteers for everything!

It's a ride director's dream! And Casey want's to do this ride every year! Next year it will be part of the BRAG tune up series of rides.

I have to admit I'm a little scared. I don't have complete control of this thing. At this point the event will happen whether I show up or not. But I want the riders to have a great time and get the best support. We'll just try our best!


Coming up this weekend is the 24 Hours of Georgia mountain bike race at the Conyers Horse Park. For those who don't know that's the course created for the Olympics in 1996. My legs are still aching from "Doing the Double" so I'm taking the rest of the week easy to prepare. I have four team mates for this race; Trent Smith, David Shabat, Craig Tinsley, and Trace Nabors. And there will be a ton of other friends there too. I can't wait!

2011 Good News for Gainesville Ride

I participated in a great charity ride this past weekend called The Good News For Gainesville Ride. We had a lot of fun. I rode with local celebrity Nathan O'Neal who told me about his new Promotion Company called DinGO Racing or Promotions or something. They already have two events on USA Cyclings calender. One is an Omnium in Gainesville next year on Mother's Day weekend. He says they plan on changing the crit course downtown and will treat the racers really well. Good on ya, mate!

Family Biking Day! Ellie, Landon, Thomas, Erin Grace

We had a great Family Biking Day! I'm not sure how many family's showed up but we had a blast as usual.

Proverbs 22:6  Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.

Have a great week everybody!

Chad