Cycle Oregon 2009

Not New Jersey

Since January, Cycle Oregon has been teasing its potential participants about this year’s ride.  They posted the route’s “shape” on the web site, inviting all to attend the official kick-off event (in Portland, the City Of Cool People.. like Scout and Jarrett and Scott).  Until then, the web site forums were active with speculation.  Those (ahem) who had some Google Map-Fu guessed the location.

With such a buildup, it was not surprising the web site rollout didn’t go so swell:

• February 1: A site “shell” is installed reminding visitors of the kickoff and the awesometubetacular  new website rollout.  I knew they were going to have a rough day because… I’ve seen this happen too many times.
• February 5, morning: Site featured a countdown timer.
• February 5, 7:00 – 7:10 pm: “You’re Too Late” posted.
• February 5, 7:11 pm: New front page, but clicking on anything had a 98% chance of serving up “Error 500” (server is self-flagellating), PHP errors (revealing their ISP is the same as mine), or “Error 404” (file not found) pages.  Picture sparks flying out the back of a dataserver as this things being hammered by excited and impatient patrons unable to be in Portland.
• February 5, 8:00 pm (ish): WordPress installation menu posted.
• February 5, 8:30 pm (or thereabouts): Plain white page with two links to registration sites.
• February 6, 12:26 am: site looked like it’s back to normal.
• February 6, 10:10 am: I receive email inviting me to view last night’s “kickoff presentation.”
• February 6, 10:45 am: The shell site from February 1 is back.  The cycle continues for another day.
• February 18: the ride is officially sold out.  The site’s very snappy now!

I had enough time to think through the itinerary and pull the trigger:

9/13 — Medford, OR to Yreka, CA – 68 miles

9/14 — Yreka to Happy Camp, CA – 74 miles

9/15 — Happy Camp to Lake Selmac, OR — 80 or 54 miles

9/16 — Lake Selmac to Glendale – 70 miles

9/17 — Glendale to Grants Pass – 75 miles

9/18 — “Layover” day in Grants Pass with optional 43 mile loop

9/19 — Grants Pass to Medford — 52 or 42 miles