Great company (me, Andras, Justin) but a totally, TOTALLY disastrously organized ride.
We were doing the 66mi ride, which meant drop your bikes at Penn Station to be trucked out to the start at Mastic-Shirley.
Problem 1. Registration was between 6-7am. A friend of mine and I were there by 625a and the line was hundreds deep. We didn’t make the front until 715, where we were told to dump our bikes in a pile leaning against Penn, and “they’d get to the start.” We then had to run for the train, making it on by maybe 1 min before the doors closed. A bunch of people missed the train.
Problem 2. We arrived at the start to an empty LIRR parking lot at Mastic-Shirley. 3 trucks showed and unloaded bikes… but not ours. Another truck arrived from Babylon with more bikes… but not ours. We along with a few hundred other people were told that “more trucks were on the way.” About 30 mins later we were told that we were being moved to the next rest stop via bus, and our bikes would meet us there. It was about 11am at that point (purportedly 915a start.) About half the people in the parking lot were moved via bus, the other half staying there.
Problem 3. We get to the rest stop to find most of the food gone (nothing says “cycling performance” like a bowl of York Peppermint Patties), and no information. We waited. And waited. And waited. At about /2pm/ two trucks arrived after having apparently stopped at the 66mi start and fully unloaded then RELOADED the trucks.
Problem 4. We all get our bikes off of the jumble stacked in the back. The four folks in my group’s bikes all received fresh scrapes/dings from being piled in, and we’re told that we have to hustle to make Montauk or we’ll be stuck overnight.
We made it to Montauk about 630, enough time to get a couple of beers and food (for a couple of the folks i’m with) and a shower (for me) before we have to hustle to make the LIRR back to the city. Upon arrival at Penn, we see a HUGE pile of bikes just leaned against the building — but again, not ours. A bunch of people were sitting around on moving blankets on the sidewalk saying that they’d been moved 5 times over 13 hours, and still no bikes, so our day wasn’t the worst. Eventually, another truck pulls up and has our bikes, ending the day at around 1130pm. Totally bogus.
The ride itself was beautiful, but the organization of the ride was a giant clusterf__k. I’d never do one of his rides again in a situation where I had to give up my bike to them.
Oh, and to the staffers unloading the bikes they’d thrown in the back of a truck to a bunch of people who’d been standing around in the sun for 5 hours shouting “hey, you win a prize!” when they gave a bike back to its rightful owner? Die in a fire.
The NYC Century is 1000x better run. I wouldn’t do another one of Glen’s rides if you paid ME $100 to do it. Arrogant scumbag.
