Bike the Drive - Post 1
I don’t know if there will be a post 2 or 3 etc, but I thought I’d leave room for the other guys.
Okay, now that it’s over, I can tell you how stressed I’ve been about Bike the Drive lately. We decided to be a vendor late in the game (how’s 1 month before sound?), and the Chicago Bicycle Federation graciously had us.
“Can you provide coffee to 22,000 participants?” they asked.
“I hope so,” I said. And with that we were off. We didn’t have brewers at the time, I had to order them. We didn’t have cups at the time, nor shirts, nor coffee for that many people, to say the least of having 16 volunteers willing to be up and leaving for the city at midnight for a 14 hour workday in which some would be attacked by zombies! So you can imagine that it’s been quite a ride. But like a 30 mile trek before sunrise, some difficult rides prove worth all the effort. This was one of those.
First of all, I can’t begin to say how great our volunteers were. They did everything. They took control, worked together, and created a world for the participants to experience a new way of thinking about their morning cup. Our volunteers took the time to learn about our company and enjoyed talking with the participants. They meticulously tested and slaved over the coffee as well as the setup to ensure that everything went smoothly, and you know what? We had not even one complaint! Wow! And I didn’t even mention that they did most of this in the rain.
Dispite the rain, we did have a lot of people come through our tent. Alot of them are new friends, some of them are new freinds waiting to be made next year, and one of them ended up being my 6th grade soccer coach (small world). We got some free publicity on NBC from our new friend Ed as he was being interviewed. I got to meet Quin(n), a great guy whose name you will hear in rap songs soon, and I learned the major difference between Logic and ProTools (shouldn’t I have done that in college?). We were happy to talk to some fantastic people from NBC, WDRV the Drive, the Ambassadors for Bicycling, and as always we were happy to be next to the nice people at CLIF bar (who provided our nourishment in exchange for fresh coffee).
And, as always, the Chicago Bicycle Federation was great. Rebekah and Tiffany worked like crazy to help us get coffee to the volunteers on the ends (a near impossible task), and of course to set up and find our way around. Aaron and Ethan helped us get our everlasting Ingersoll Rand generator, John biked coffee around to volunteer tents, and Patrick (a friend from last year’s event) evangelized the good news of free coffee to volunteers.
It began rainy ominous, it turned out sunny with a light breeze and blue skies - that about sums up the whole experience. I love Bike the Drive.