As smooth as clockwork

Imagine you are tasked with managing and arranging 28 hyperactive, probably crazy, young adults into a daily routine, for 70 days, while they are traveling across the breadth of America. Daunting, isn’t it? No one actually wants that job.

Our cross-country bike ride had only riders. No external ride managers. We were the leaders, we were the riders, we were the managers. We worked beautifully like a Swiss watch with a mechanical self-winding movement. A smooth self-governed machinery. I am a big believer of investing time into creating good processes. That’s when you create a sustainable model. The success of the model should never be determined by the people executing it. It is all in the details.

I am often asked how we managed to ride across the country -where did we sleep, what did we eat, did we pay for anything? Here’s the lowdown on our ride logistics.

Route planning

The entire ride was divided up into three segments/legs — each legs had two leg leaders. The leg leaders were responsible for securing hosts for each night during their segment, at least a month ahead of our ride, and planning the route for the next day and giving us directions (a.k.a. cue sheets). They use google maps and a software that shows elevation of a route on a map. They can’t always determine terrain through google maps, but try their best when google allows it. The closer we got to the mountains in Wyoming and Montana, the more the riders asked for elevation details. Lastly, and most fun, the leg leaders also assign tasks at the start of each day and propagate this information everyday with doodles on a white board.

Hosts

Speaking of hosts, at least half of the hosts are usually repeat hosts from previous years. So it is important for every team to maintain a good relationship with the host each year. Goodwill goes a long way. To fill any gaps in hosting, the leg leaders cold-call local churches, fire stations, YMCAs. We loved all our hosts. We were so pampered during our ride. We have slept in people’s backyards as well. We slept in a LOT of churches. I was so conditioned to pulling into a church that for a week after the ride ended, every time I passed a church, I could hear that cow bell that our van duo rung when we reached our host at the end of the day. Oh, Pavlov!

Support van/SAG logistics

We have two vans during the entire ride — a large 20 seater van and a mini-van. The mini-van is our water van. Everyone with a driver’s license takes turns driving the vans. Each van requires two people every day. The van folks have their own duties. The water van duo has to maintain water and snack stops every 20 miles and is generally responsible for ensuring we stay on track of the route and ensure there are no hurdles with the route. There have been times when they rerouted us due to unanticipated hurdles like road repair or road closure. The 20 seater van carries all of our duffle bags. Each rider is allowed a standard sized duffle bag and a backpack. The luggage van duo is responsible for securing lunch for the entire pack of 24 that’s on the road, they are hence called ‘lunch van’. They solicit food donations that are on the way to the host and have to meet the water van at the designated lunch stop (typically at mile 60 or 40 based on the riding mileage for the day).

Soliciting Food donations

The lunch van was equipped with food donation forms. These forms was an official tax write-off for generous food donors. Businesses loved these! We rode an average of 70 miles each day. We had a handful 100 mile days, so the lunch van duo had about 4–5 hours to get us lunch. We secretly always had a ‘who will bring the best lunch’ competition. We also had a supply box in case of contingencies. Out in the boonies where there aren’t many restaurants, our ‘for the west’ food supplies were canned beans, rice, other canned food, pasta, spices. The generosity with which people donate food is extremely heartwarming. The 28 of us were all very extremely well-fed and sinewy by the time the ride ended. We were never short of food. This ‘for the west’ stash wasn’t used until we were so far in the west, that some of us started to question where ‘west’ started.

Other leadership roles

We had two ride directors, who generally tried to keep us all sane and took care of operating logistics. A PR coordinator who contacted radio stations, TV channels and newspapers for coverage. A service coordinator who organized service events at several Ronald McDonald Houses and Hope Lodgers across the country. A bike mechanic who ensured we didn’t neglect the vehicles that made this journey possible by carving some time out of our off-days for group bike conditioning.

Before the ride, little did I know that this journey was to be the most unforgettable and impressionable lesson on teamwork I’d have ever learned.