Details, details, details

by Kent Peters

Details, details, details. Last year's century organizer Linda Tischer had agreed to meet with me and pass along her knowledge on organizing the Historic Back Roads Century. Needless to say I was a bit overwhelmed. Details, lots of them laid out on paper, in files, on CD - even a Quicktime video of images of the ride put to music. How does one get a handle on all these details needed to pull off this event? How many portable toilets do we need? What variety of tomato is needed for the famous tomato sandwiches? Will Clarke County decide to regulate our event such that we need government approval to hold the ride? How many brochures should we print? Where do we display them? How many gallons of Gatorade will we need? What design should we have on this years t-shirt? Is it really true or only PPTC legend that volunteers pour out of the woodwork the last week before the ride? Oh my! What was I thinking? After all my first century ride was much simpler.

I was 15 years old. It was in was part of Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, but known today as central Indiana where the roads are surveyor straight for a hundred miles and the only hills are man-made highway overpasses. I was happy because I did not know there was anything better to ride than a 40-pound 10-speed Schwinn Continental. I was on the road by 6 AM and rode in a pair of well-worn cut-off Wranglers. The destination was a family reunion in the northern part of the state at a cottage on a lake. I don't remember too much about the ride all these years later, but I do remember how good it felt after having done one hundred miles in 90 plus degree heat to then cool off in the lake. I suspect that I probably finished off my well earned hunger with homemade ice cream and strawberry pie.

But now instead of images of Indiana corn fields my head is full of appreciation for everyone who is already pitching in to make the century a successful PPTC event. When Mariette Vanderzon is not drafting someone out on a club ride she is busy helping to publicize the event on websites. And one of our brave urban ride leaders, Cynthia Priddy, has already volunteered herself and hubby to help at the White Post rest stop making the famous tomato sandwiches. Marc Currie and Linda continue to feed me advice from their experience organizing previous century rides. Our president, Catherine Kitchell, keeps expressing her fear that my head will explode which always make me think that there is something else she has not told me.

I hope many of you are training for the century so maybe come along on a training ride I'll be along for led this month by Peter Klosky when we will do part of the century as a warm up. If you know you are going to ride the century, pleases go ahead and pre-register online. It gets you committed, guarantees you a t-shirt and it helps us plan. If you don't plan on riding, but still want to join in the fun then please help out by volunteering. Contact me at 301-455-5703 or by .

For more PPTC Historic Back Roads Century info and registration click here.