What makes a tour TRUELY AWESOME?!?!

[Lucy]

Hi All!

What makes a open winter road tour TRUELY AWESOME:D?
Why would you travel HUNDREDS OF KILOMETRES TO GO TO A TOUR?
What makes you DESPERATE TO PARTICIPATE?
Other than great racing WHAT ARE THE BEST THINGS?
How could open winter road tours be MADE BETTER?
Anything you have to say:).

Is it leader jerseys? Prize money, group dinners, the atmosphere, a good canteen?

[Vanessa]

What's this all about Lucy? Some sort of project or just personal interest????

[Lucy]

This is the last year that the Junior National Road Championships will be held in Canberra. Many junior teams travel interstate, including TAS to the DBR Junior and Women's Tour to test out the national course.
We do not want to lose these riders who travel long distances to ride the DBR Tour so are trying to gear up now to make this year's DBR Junior and Women's Tour bigger and better than ever before (and keep it that way too)!

It should become Australasia's best Junior and Women's tour!

They (DBR Australia) put in a great plug for Vikings and ACT Cycling :)
http://www.dbraustralia.com.au/

[Startrek]

Kicking arse ,and performing to my personal best does it for me .Good food and a dry road helps.

[Ross]

Probably for me the things in the order you have the poll. The atmosphere and the organisation are very close, maybe equal. Bright was a little disapointing with the organisation side of things when they withdrew the Masters ABC grading after they had already accepted our money.

[Startrek]

Being safe ,last year i withdrew from the tour over this .

[Katherine :)]

While I voted for atmostphere, because i think that's the thing that MOST makes a tour, i also reckon that the other things are a bonus that would make me want to go back. No one has voted (yet) for the "Celebration" section, but i think the things in that catagory also help make the other catagories? like, "leader's jerseys" for example may not be things that make or break a tour.. but i think adding little things like that help increase the tour's atmosphere and add an almost "proffessional feel" to the atmosphere, which helps to make it more exciting and thus sticks in people's minds and attracts them back the following year.
but yeah, i really think there should be an "all of the above" option :P

[Vanessa]

I would have voted for "all of the above" though really why does the junior & women's tour have to be in WINTER (in Canberra) - winter on the gold coast would be okay but Canberra...brrr

[Katherine :)]

oh i know right! all of the junior tours are in winter... in cold places! its not fair.

[SimonD]

To me material things and celebration are least important. The Tour of Bright has a brewery, which is notably absent from your list but raises the prospect that what someone like me wants out of a tour could be different to the juniors (who will likely be taking things a bit more seriously) want.

I would have voted for "all of the above" though really why does the junior & women's tour have to be in WINTER (in Canberra) - winter on the gold coast would be okay but Canberra...brrr

So you get the local advantage!

[j_young_80]

Atmosphere and Organisation. Since i'm never going to be in the kitty cash, these are the things I hold dear.

You haven't listed Post-Tour Celebrations - which would rate highly on my list. Bright wouldn't be the same without a 10pm drunken dip in the Ovens followed by near ejection from the campground.

3 of my favorite cycling events are Bright, Bathurst and the CT for these reasons.

[SueP]

Ditto - atmosphere and organisation

[Hoops]

For me most of the things on the list are the icing on the cake. I'm much more interested in the race program and having a team to race with.

I like Bright because of the signature climbs and the diversity of the race. I.e., Longish stage, Hill Climb, TT. I understand there are difficulties getting road approvals and getting enough volunteers to marshall here in Canberra, but for me I don't know if I'd be as excited about the CT if it wasn't a home town event. My grade raced 3 stages and all of them were on the exact same out-and-back section of road with an additional 10km's tacked on the end of each stage. I know the DBR Tour was similar in that some grades did up to 3 laps of an out-and-back course.

I'd just prefer to have more diversity in the stages (and a TT) so people think "ahh, stage 2, that's got the corin climb in it" rather than racing the same 20km strech of road 6 times. But as i said, may not be possible in Canberra.

[mikeyc]

Organisation, Atmosphere (most importantly team), Course Variety and Post Celebrations. If I get a water bottle without having to steal it, great :)

[Startrek]

Rain

I think my first Canberra Tour ,really it was the first time i had raced something so big .I was cold and it rain so hard i couldn't see but we finished it .I thought if i can do that i can do anything ,sometimes rain can be a challenge and personally rewarding .