Vancouver Island Riders' Survey
Assembled by Mikael Jansson

Mikael had circulated this by e mail earlier this month. We both thought it would be a good idea to park in the newsletter for easy reference. [EF]

As you may recall, I sent out a list of questions on September 4th in order to get some data to address some of the statements that have been presented to members as facts in the past. These were the questions:
1a. How many BCR rides have you done this year (2012).
1b. How many rides would you have done if all rides were unsupported (organizer present at start and finish only)?
1c. Do you decide to ride a brevet based on the level of support that is offered?
1d. How much do you appreciate the support that volunteers provide during a brevet?
2a. How many rides did you organize this year (2012)?
2b. How many hours do you estimate that it took to organize these in total?
2c. What could be done to reduce the number of hours that it took you to organize these rides?
3a. How many rides did you volunteer at?
3b. How many hours do you estimate that you volunteered for?
3c. What could be done by the organizer to reduce the number of hours that you volunteered for?
4. Would you be more likely to organize rides if you were NOT expected to get volunteers and food for each control?
5. Would you be more likely to volunteer if there were fewer hours expected of volunteers at each ride?

I was primarily interested in the answers to questions 1c and 4.

The data are unequivocal:

First, Vancouver island riders do not consider the level of support offered when they decide to ride a brevet. My guess is that many people are like me in this respect: I ride brevets when I can find the time to do so. Thus I would ride more brevets if more of them were scheduled.

Second: There would be more brevets offered if organizers were not expected to provide peopled support at each control. I found it interesting that most respondents who said that that they were NOT more likely to organizer more rides if they were not expected to provide food and volunteers added that they don't do that anyways. They either did all the work themselves or organized unsupported rides.

It is important to remember that all respondents have great admiration for the volunteers who come out to support the riders but as one respondent said, he: would rather they were out on the brevet with us.

There are some other nuggets of data in the attached. In particular I was surprised by the time required to volunteer at the RM1200. All volunteers said that that they devoted more than 100 hours to that one ride but I think that the feelings of all of them is well represented by one who emphatically reported that: It was worth it.

My hope is that the data provided by VI riders will help to guide us because I believe that they are an accurate reflection of VI members opinions and preferences.

Cheers,
Mikael

More detailed survey results on this 3 page PDF: 2012 VI Riders' Survey.