Submitting Ride Sign-up Sheets

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5 replies [Last post]
Anonymous's picture
Anonymous

I had kind of an empty feeling the first time I led a ride and discovered that the sign-up sheet with all that laboriously entered, mostly illegible, sometimes imaginary data on it had no ultimate home. I could see that it might help me identify the riders by name and provide what might be an emergency number to call if something went wrong, but I really didn't need the e-mail addresses or to know whether my group were members of the club, and I'm not into collecting autographs. At a later time, I thought maybe the object was to give the usually male ride leaders easy access to female numbers and addresses. Since I'm married with children and resolutely mongamous, that had no appeal to me.

In practice, I have religiously followed the sign-up ritual; when the ride is over, I take the usually torn and sweat-soaked used sheets home to throw away. Discarding them, I always feel slightly guilty, as though there is some purpose yet unserved, some better intended end for these personalized records of adventure.

Ultimately, I have come to understand (rightly or wrongly) that adoption of the sometimes indecipherable waiver that prints out on the forms is the real object of soliciting signatures. (Is the signature an informed consent to the waiver, since almost nobody knows it's there?) Now I wonder what will happen if one of the hangers-on who occasionally joins up from the other side of the GWB crashes and burns without signing. And what about those pick-up rides (the ones that are listed on the message board but are too casual to bother with sign-ups)? Or certain leaders who disdain the whole idea?

Now, I see that sign-up sheets are to have a central repository--perhaps an ultimate resting place. At last, the thought that someone really cares will abate those guilty pangs.

It's mostly curiosity, but why?

Anonymous's picture
Geo Carl Kaplan (not verified)

Insurance!

Anonymous's picture
viviane (not verified)
sign up sheets

While the topic is up on the message board, one suggestion:

With the prevalence of cell phones taken along on club rides and some riders (like me) being notorious for inadvertently finding alternate routes - in other words getting lost, I'd like to suggest a space on the sign up sheet to list a cell phone number.

Similarly, I have found that having the ride leader's cell phone number can also prove useful, especially when experiencing a mechanical.

Anonymous's picture
Rick Braun (not verified)
Good idea! (nm)
Anonymous's picture
37cent (not verified)
Mail, what's that?

How about a fax number (eFax has free numbers to receive faxes and forwards them to any email address as a pdf) or an email address for those with scanners? A stamp may not be expensive but given the ease and ubiquity of other less time-consuming methods of communication it seems a burdensome requirement for those already volunteering their time and who have no other reason to buy stamps.

Anonymous's picture
Ed O'Donnell (not verified)
cell phone

Just a thought...While I was riding in the paceline of the SIG last week, my cell phone rang. It certainly didn't seem worthwhile to drop out and answer, nor raise my arm and yell - what? cellchanical, mechphone? Anyway, I thought that it was just my wife, and I would call her when we got back to Manhattan, or maybe it was my friend Tony, he could certainly wait, and besides he was always calling and annoying me on my cell...so why bother answering. Ultimately I forgot to check the phone when I arrived back. I guess I never thought that my friend who was behind me may have dropped off and not yelled out or maybe I didn't hear him? Hmmm…. I haven't seen him since the ride...come to think of it we haven't spoken either...and I haven't seen him since the phone rang in Tenafly....I wonder...

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