Totally missed the boat!

One of the most retold story of the entire Seattle trip happened during registration.

Over the past year or so I was the main contact for the cyclists and many of them I got to know well. From these interactions I was able to tell a lot about the cyclists, how they handle certain things and put them into their groups based on these observations. This was true about all of the cyclists except one. Now I am going to admit some things that well do not put me in the best of lights, and is kind of mean, so I am going to be as generic as possible in describing this cyclist.

From the beginning there was just something off about this cyclist. Every contact that was made to Sea to Sea, was made by a 3rd party. From the application being sent in, the email address, phone calls with questions… nothing came directly from this cyclists to myself or to our communications director. Now this cyclist is over 25, old enough to take care of their own business, so it struck us all as a little odd. (Yes I am admitting we as a staff talked about the cyclists) I was giving the cyclists the benefit of a doubt and thought perhaps their place of employment did not allow personal calls during business hours. Other thought there was just something wrong with the cyclists. Well a couple week before the start of the tour, a 3rd party is on the phone with me, asking questions on the cyclists behalf and in the middle of the conversation the person on the phone says “just a second, cyclists has a question” and then after silence the 3rd party asked the question. Well there went my work theory. Of course I hung up the phone and shared this with the office full of staff. (This is where it gets mean) We all went off, about how there had to be something significantly wrong with this cyclists. We were thinking, deaf, speech impediment, mentally challenged, and on and on. Admittedly this was during our crunch time and we needed a stress reliever, but this cyclist became an inside joke and we mad all kinds of predictions about how many people would come to registration with the cyclists.

Fast forward to registration… It was actually a pretty slow time when this cyclist came in, alone. So I watch as the cyclist crossed the room to come to me at the start of the line. The cyclists gave me their name and I am not going to lie, my jaw hit the table. This person standing in front of me could not be the cyclist we had spent days joking about. The cyclists is a very attractive person, well spoken, personable and by the end of the weekend I discovered very helpful and willing to jump in and lend a hand. I could not believe it, in fact I wanted to text the other staff to tell them, but didn’t get a chance. But as soon as I saw other staffers, it was the first thing I told them.

I can’t believe how off I had been about this cyclist, I had the completely wrong impression. Although I do still find it weird that a 3rd party handled everything.