Volunteer for Us!

Our philosophy for running our events is to use as little volunteer help as possible, to keep costs down. We still need help with a few things:

1. Someone to help the RBA mark the main Iowa Brevet Series course at the start of the season.

2. Someone to run the bag drop to Richland Center, WI, for the 600km.

3. Someone to run a secret control. This could be anywhere on any of our brevets, to fit with a volunteer’s schedule.

Please contact us if you can help with any of these tasks. We cover reasonable expenses, i.e. gas, food and hotel (for the bag drop). Volunteers are also given free entry to all brevets for the season.

Organize Your Own Brevet!

Want to organize a brevet yourself? Where do you start? The full blown, do-it-all-yourself method of course is to send your own Regional Brevet Administrator (RBA) application to Randonneurs USA. Unless you live really close to me or to another RBA, the Board is likely to view your application in a positive light, depending on your level of experience. My own attitude to other RBAs in the vicinity is, the more the merrier!

But suppose you only want to put on a single 200km Brevet, or even just a Populaire, and you don’t want the hassle of setting yourself up as an RBA? If your event will start within a reasonable distance of Waterloo (for example Des Moines, Decorah, or the Quad Cities), then you have another option - organize the event through me, the Cedar Valley RBA. If you run your event through me, I become your liaison to RUSA, and take care of all communication with them. You could run the event as an individual, through your own bike club, or through Iowa Randonneurs. I would be delighted to see other Brevets and Populaires in this region. I just don’t have time to put on any more of them myself.

So where do you start? The critical items you need are:

1. An RUSA approved route – the RUSA review is mainly to check that the controls are located to prevent riders from taking shortcuts, and that the route stays on reasonable roads, preferably county roads around here. Some types of brevets also have specific distance requirements. You will have to produce a cue sheet (I can provide a template) and a highlighted map of the route, which I can then send to RUSA for approval. For control points, I have found the easiest thing is to put them at Kwik-e-Mart type stores to avoid the need for volunteers, but if you have a team of volunteers to help on the day, then you could put them just about anywhere. The route itself can be an out-and-back or a loop, lollipop, etc. The one thing you cannot do is to make multiple loops of the same course.

2. Liability insurance to cover yourself and the riders – if you run the event under Iowa Randonneurs, then we use the RUSA insurance policy. If you do it through another bike club, you will need to use the club’s insurance, or you could also use the RUSA policy, which is a simple per rider cost, paid after the event. Your club’s insurance has to name Randonneurs USA as a third party insured. I need a copy of the insurance certificate and waiver form to lodge with RUSA before the event is held.

3. Entry and waiver forms, and cue sheets and brevet cards for the riders. I can provide templates for most of this stuff, and the RUSA web site is also a good source for master files.

4. A date for the event! This should preferably not clash with any of the events already in our local calendar. Sufficient notice is needed. RUSA validated events can be added to the calendar as little as 5 weeks ahead of time. Fully fledged ACP Brevet de Randonneurs Mondiaux events have to be submitted by October 1 for the following season.

5. Familiarity with RUSA Rules for Organizers and Rules for Riders. These are both extremely important documents. The key statement to remember is that brevets are not casual affairs. It is also helpful to be familiar with RBA Procedures, although much of this is just for the RBA to worry about.

It also helps to have some event publicity to attract riders beyond those in your local bike club. All events are automatically listed on the RUSA web site. I will add the event to our own web site’s Calendar page, and provide a link to your web site if you have one. Alternatively you could create and send me a web page for your event, to add to our site (easily done using MS Word). Other good places to list your event are bikeiowa.com and bikeiowa.org web sites, Silent Sports magazine, and of course posters in your local bike stores.

Within the limits of my own available time, I will do all I can to help you set up your event.

If you are reading this and want to organize an event, but you don’t live near here, then I suggest you contact your local RBA with the same proposal. A few RBAs may not be interested in expanding their event calendar in this way, but many might jump at the chance.