2011-07-16/17 Sat/Sun - Dunwich Dynamo DD19

oh and the person organising the southwark cyclists coaches trying to dissuade us from running a coach next year as they changed the departure time at the last minute to 11am this year and next year will be running rolling coaches. one an hour from 10am. just means that next year we need to leave the beach at 9am...

plus as well he was a really nice chap. not sure if thats relevent but i detected no malice or confrontation, more sadness/frustration that to get ourselves home it was easier to organise it ourselves than use their service. which they evidently worked damned hard to provide.

There's obviously no rivalry, and while I can't speak for Southwark Cyclists, I can see a couple of factors, like the finite size of the car park--if the DD keeps getting bigger and bigger, it could cause some serious traffic problems in the wider area, too. Also, it obviously is a public car park, but so many people seem to bring their cars now, and with another coach/van/lorry operation, it would probably be important to co-ordinate things so that there's space for everybody.

SC are committed to providing a great service (all being volunteers), and their operation has grown so big (it has probably also contributed to a rise in numbers) that it can undoubtedly benefit from staggered departure times, too. The queue for loading was very long and just wouldn't get shorter for a good while. They'll be fully aware of this and I'm sure will improve plans. It'll be pretty difficult to make the organisation more complex in this way, but yesterday there were already separate coach departure times and it seemed to work well. When we arrived at Smithfield, there were no problems in reuniting hundreds of riders with hundreds of bikes.