WOW!

On Saturday, April 4, 12 months of work came together and the NEW and IMPROVED Tour Dallas rolled out from Dallas City Hall. The reviews have been pouring in and the consensus is that everything about this ride was on the mark. You especially liked the parking choices, improved start, new break point locations and the BIG post ride party area where everybody could hang out and enjoy the day.

For an effort like this to succeed takes the hard work and energy of a large group of people. I have been blessed to work with a highly motivated group of caring people to produce Tour Dallas. While many of you have met me and give me credit for these events, on the day of the ride I actually have no job - the volunteers do it all! So please allow me to introduce our Tour Dallas Leadership Team:

Kathy Kilpatrick is our Volunteer Coordinator (think HR Director). She manages all the work crew assignments by staying up late, working on her days off, burning vacation time to work on the event and even worries that she is not doing enough.

Fred Miller is our Route Coordinator. He works to identify all the intersections along the route, manages the signage and markings along the way, assigns and manages the volunteers along the route, coordinates the route support with the Dallas Police Department and takes vacation time to work on the event.

Jan Roewe is our Registration Coordinator. She works closely with Jeanie Brazelton, our Data Entry Coordinator to make sure that we have good registration lists for packet pick up and on the day of the ride. Jan works at packet pick up ALL WEEK leading into the event - a total of about 75 hours. With Jeanie entering all the data from the packet pick up registrations, she stays very busy too. She has to update the online registration lists every day so that Jan has good info to work with. Then on the day of the ride they sort registrations and enter data so that our team has good info on all riders right at our fingertips. While that may not sound like much, it is very helpful to have on hand when we have a crash and need to contact family members etc. While Jeanie may not have taken vacation time to work the event, she did work her full time job AND stay up late every night taking care of that data entry.

Mark Guest is our Communcations Coordinator. He kept up with all our communications during the event so that we could take care of mechanical problems, picking up tired riders, making sure our break points were well supplied and answering all their questions. His can do spirit made it look easy, especially considering that it was his first year on this job!

Break Point 1 had a great team of George Hay, Mark McVicar and Robin Schofield. They had worked very hard planning for one location, only to have us change plans 3 weeks before the event. Not to worry. They quickly took the reins and developed a traffic flow pattern and service layout that we will use for many years.

Break Point 2 had Clay Jones, Jim Wilson and Tom Izbicki at the helm. This team also had to adjust to a new site 3 weeks out and never missed a beat. Seems that it went so well at their new location that we have also decided to make that a permanent location. Clay was so excited about how the day went that he is already planning some changes and improvements for 2010.

Walt Robertson was the guiding force for our SAG crew (Support & Gear) that was picking up tired riders and bringing them to the finish line. He had a great team that included drivers and vehicles provided by Pizza Patron. Walt has given up the chance to ride in Tour Dallas every year just to make sure that we take good care of the new riders who bite off more than they can chew - or the seasoned veterans who take a spill.

Joyce Jones is the Finish Line Coordinator who ran the biggest party we have ever seen at Tour Dallas. Her job is always the most challenging due to last minute changes, no shows and substitutions. Planning and managing traffic flow and patterns so that everybody can enjoy the fun is her number one priority - and she was already talking about things to consider for 2010 as we walked the site at the end of the ride.

We also had lots of other hands on deck. Cliff Bolton staging the start. Kevin Colbeck, Dave Preston, Bill Rutherford helping with SAG Support. Cliff DeWitt helping out on the route. Donna Martin did a great job handing out the medals to the 12 and under crowd and making them feel really special.

Take all these special people who lead the way, add 200 more sets of hands to the team and you have a little idea of what it takes to put on Tour Dallas. Our volunteers rocked!

That brings it back to you and me. In 2003 my idea was to produce an event that encouraged the inactive to become active. An event that encouraged veteran cyclists to share the road with entry level cyclists - so that we could introduce them to a healthy hobby that can provide a lifetime of enjoyment. It has been truly wonderful to see how you have responded to that vision - making Tour Dallas the largest 1 day cycling event in our area. Thank you for helping us make that happen.

Now before we go to work on Tour Dallas 2010, a couple of small items. Want to see your photo from the ride? Click the Brightroom link.

Get Your Event Photos At Brightroom

Want to learn more about Tour Dallas?

Click the image below and enter the 2009 event site

To enter the Tour Dallas site, click the image