well Matty we took some wrong turns and then we thought we were running behind you guys so we kept on riding to catch up not realising we were infront of your guys not behind, so we didn't want to stop. we did slow down at pheasent but nobody was there which made us hurry even more. Sorry about all the confusion, we just honestly thought we were behind you guys and that will would catch up on the freeway somewhere
and
Nope mate its not just you, its all of us and it means you care
so Thank you!
; as Jukie wrote, we thought we were behind. When we didn't see any one at P/Nest we thought you were all back in Sydney. Hope we didn't cause too much stress; trying to answer the phone on a packed h/way wasn't exactly going to be easy either.
Thanks to every one for a great ride day!
Being one of the people waiting and wondering what to do from there, I can say that it was out of care and concern. It's not that we doubted you guys, but here's me recounting my train of thought:
- Jules was obviously very tired throughout the day, due to a severe lack of sleep
- her phone and stuff was in the backpack that Mark was wearing = no means to contact her
- Sydmonster's phone was ringing and not answering (so it was not like you weren't in mobile coverage)
- no-one had a call / txt saying you guys were OK
- we were waiting there for quite a while, multiple calls were made, no answer..
I don't know about you others there, but my mind started to wonder if something had gone wrong, and the longer it was the more worried I got.
So here's the lessons learned for me:
- everyone on the ride should have at least two other riders' numbers with them - we used to do this religiously, but it was plainly obvious that this was not the case this time.
- group rides need better organisation - groups of that size need leaders / people waiting at corners / someone to hang at the back. We had this by default for most of the ride, but it needs to be better formalised.
- if you get detached from the group, then stop and phone / txt others on the ride. Better to take 5 mins to stop and txt than radio silence..
The good things
- we tried to let people know about known warning items on differing sections - the moss in the RNP, the scout camp right hander in Mt Keira etc
- it was an awesome day - good group with lots of new faces, great weather, good conditions (except for the wind)
- we all came out of it in 1 piece (with the exception of Pauls points and wallet)
We'll need to be better organised next time, with perhaps some better planning and better organisaiton on the day. I think we need to be able to split into 2-3 groups of pace, and we should encourage everyone to have a safety check prior to leaving and a reminder / discussion about traveling in larger groups...
Glad that everyone returned home safely
