Last Sunday Jan23 was the PALM meeting, Everyone was amazed by how quickly PALM filled up this year. We are using the postmark on the application to determine whether the application made it on time or not. If the application is postmarked Jan 18 or earlier, the application was accepted. With this date we accepted 783 riders and 69 staff (including site people, SAGs, bike shops, truck drivers, etc.). Since the meeting a few more applications postmarked Jan 18 have trickled in. As it stands now, we'll have over 850 people on PALM. So much for the 700 rider cutoff. We trying to determine if the this year's sites can handle the extras. So far it looks like there is enough camping room, but one site's cafeteria can only hold 250 people. We may have to go with extended meal times.
There was a discussion on how we can guarantee that everyone gets the application at the same time. US mail, even 1st class US mail, isn't the answer. One staff member who lives 40 miles from Ann Arbor didn't receive his application until Jan 18 even though it was mailed Jan 13. We have riders who are in Florida, Arizona, and Alabama when the applications are mailed. It takes days for them to receive their applications. Mailing the application a day early wasn't enough. Then there's the MLK holiday. If you got your application before the holiday, it gave you some extra time to fill it out. If you didn't get your application before the holiday, you were dead. We are still trying to figure this all out.
I do the final step of registration which includes mailing out the confirmation letters. I got applications for 8 people at the meeting so that I could check out my programs for this year. It took me a couple of days to enter these applications. Now I'm just 850 behind. Ah well, a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Alternatives To PALM
As many of you know, PALM filled very quickly this year, and we have turned away a large number of potential riders. I think that PALM is a fairly unique ride in that we keep most of our daily distances to a maximum of about 50 miles, and we try to have a ride that appeals to a wide variety of ages and abilities. However, there are other rides in Michigan and our surrounding states that you might decide to try as an alternative to PALM. I will list some of them in this blog entry, and you can get details by checking out the web sites. As far as I can determine, these rides are not filled as of the end of January.
The Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure. www.goba.com. June 18-25, a 7 day loop ride. From what I have been told, this ride attracts the same variety of participants as PALM does. Like PALM, each year GOBA follows a different route, and this year's ride is flat to rolling and takes place in central Ohio. The 7 days include 5 riding days of 45-60 miles each, with 2 layover days that include optional loop rides or alternate activities including a trip to the Columbus Zoo and the U.S. Air Force Museum. The ride limit is 3000, and the fee does not include meals. GOBA has an excellent web site, with lots of details about the ride and an excellent rider handbook.
Across Ohio Bicycle Adventure (XOBA). July 23 to July 30. www.outdoor-pursuits.org/xoba/ The ride is limited to 250 participants and provides limited sag service. This year's route will travel through western Ohio, with flat to rolling terrain. The daily distances range from 52 to 70 miles, with a total of 444 miles.
Rides sponsored by the League of Michigan Bicyclists. www.lmb.org. The League sponsors several rides, including the Pedal and Paddle on June 4-5 and the Sunrise Adventure October 7-9. Their other 2 rides all have longer days and challenging hills.
If you want even more options, you can go to www.nbtda.com, and search for rides all over the country.
Another option for trips that involve several days of cycling and are based at a hotel or conference center are available from the Road Scholar organization (formerly called Elderhostel). These programs are for mature adults, and most participants in the bicycling programs range in age from 45-70. So these are not options for families. I have participated in each of the programs listed below, and I enthusiastically recommend all of them. Check out the details and dates at www.roadscholar.org. You can also email me at www.palmbiketour@yahoo.com if you want to know more about these programs.
Program #13922RJ. Bicycle Through Amish Country. Rides of 20-40 miles each day on the flat, quiet country roads in northern Indiana.
Program #9947RJ. Bicycling on the Great Allegheny Passage. Bike a 30-40 mile section of this beautiful rails-to-trail route south of Pittsburg each day.
Programs #13329RJ and #13306RJ. Biking the C & O Canal Towpath. Bicycle sections of this bike path that stretches from Washington, DC to Cumberland, MD.
We sincerely hope that all of you find a biking adventure that you can enjoy in 2011, and we hope that you will be able to join us on PALM in 2012.
Ellie, PALM Mail Granny
Sunday, January 23, 2011
PALM 2011 Has Filled
On Saturday we had 61 riders, on Tuesday we had 330 riders, on Wednesday we had 630 riders, and on Thursday, Jan 20, we received the applications for 143 more riders. PALM for 2011 has filled. There is still some discussion but it looks like if your application has a postmark of Jan 18 or earlier you are on, otherwise you are not. This will bring the total number of people on the ride to about 780. (This doesn't include staff, SAGs, and truck drivers). Our cutoff is 700 riders so this puts us well over the cutoff even if 50 riders cancel.
PALM is run by an all volunteer staff who do it because we love PALM. It is hard for us to turn anyone away from PALM, something we love. 700 riders is about the limit that the schools we use can handle. Any more and it is long meal lines and cold showers for sure. When PALM started, it used to have a northern and southern route and had over 1000 riders. It was chaos. It was hard to find (volunteer) staff who could run the extra 4 sites. It doubled everything including the chance of something going wrong. I do the registration now and I can tell you that not that many people did PALM more than once in those days, leading me to believe that the rider experience was not that great. Now there are lots of people who do PALM 3, 4 or 5 times even entire families. The PALM experience seems to be a lot better. So 700 is not an arbitrary cutoff instead it's the maximum number of riders that experience has shown us that we can handle and still deliver a good rider experience.
So the best that we can hope for is to give everybody the same chance to get on PALM. This year I staggered the mailing. I sent the applications to the out of state and West Michigan riders a day early. I hoped that everyone would receive their applications by Jan 15. (I have already heard from people who didn't.) I put the application on the website on Jan 15 (at midnight) so that if you didn't have an application mailed to you (or didn't receive it yet) you could download it. And we are hoping to use the postmark on the applications we receive to figure who is on and who is not. This would be fairer for out of state and West Michigan riders.
For the people who didn't make it onto PALM this year, you will be receiving your checks and our regrets next week. We know you won't be happy. We are not happy if we can't do PALM. Try not to call the PALM phone number and complain to Ellie. She's on the DL and may not be able to do PALM herself. As I mentioned before, Vickie and Ellie are contacting everyone who is on the ride to tell them they made it. It will be weeks before they receive their confirmation letters and this will cut the suspense.
One final word: PALM does not have a waiting list. Instead we accept more than our cutoff (we'll be accepting 780 this year) and pray that enough people cancel to get us down to a number we can handle. Thank you for your interest in PALM.
PALM is run by an all volunteer staff who do it because we love PALM. It is hard for us to turn anyone away from PALM, something we love. 700 riders is about the limit that the schools we use can handle. Any more and it is long meal lines and cold showers for sure. When PALM started, it used to have a northern and southern route and had over 1000 riders. It was chaos. It was hard to find (volunteer) staff who could run the extra 4 sites. It doubled everything including the chance of something going wrong. I do the registration now and I can tell you that not that many people did PALM more than once in those days, leading me to believe that the rider experience was not that great. Now there are lots of people who do PALM 3, 4 or 5 times even entire families. The PALM experience seems to be a lot better. So 700 is not an arbitrary cutoff instead it's the maximum number of riders that experience has shown us that we can handle and still deliver a good rider experience.
So the best that we can hope for is to give everybody the same chance to get on PALM. This year I staggered the mailing. I sent the applications to the out of state and West Michigan riders a day early. I hoped that everyone would receive their applications by Jan 15. (I have already heard from people who didn't.) I put the application on the website on Jan 15 (at midnight) so that if you didn't have an application mailed to you (or didn't receive it yet) you could download it. And we are hoping to use the postmark on the applications we receive to figure who is on and who is not. This would be fairer for out of state and West Michigan riders.
For the people who didn't make it onto PALM this year, you will be receiving your checks and our regrets next week. We know you won't be happy. We are not happy if we can't do PALM. Try not to call the PALM phone number and complain to Ellie. She's on the DL and may not be able to do PALM herself. As I mentioned before, Vickie and Ellie are contacting everyone who is on the ride to tell them they made it. It will be weeks before they receive their confirmation letters and this will cut the suspense.
One final word: PALM does not have a waiting list. Instead we accept more than our cutoff (we'll be accepting 780 this year) and pray that enough people cancel to get us down to a number we can handle. Thank you for your interest in PALM.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Warning: PALM is Filling Fast
I tried to stagger mailing the applications so that everyone would get their application by Saturday Jan 15. That would mean that today would be the first day we could expect to receive applications back. As of today we have received applications for 330 people. If you plan on riding PALM, please tell me that you have already mailed your application to us. Two more days like today and the ride is filled. If you received an application and want to be on PALM, fill it out and mail it tonight. If you haven't received an application yet, click www.lmb.org/palm/files/PALMApp2011.pdf, download an application, fill it out, and mail it tonight. Call your friends and tell them to do the same.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
2011 PALM Site Addresses
This year's PALM sites are
Ludington - Saturday
Ludington High School
508 N. Washington Ave
Ludington, MI 49431
Hesperia - Sunday
Hesperia High School
96 South Division
Hesperia, MI 49421
Big Rapids - Monday
Big Rapids Middle School
500 North Warren
Big Rapids, MI 49307
Clare - Tuesday
Clare High School
306 Schoolcrest
Clare, MI 48617
Bay City - Wednesday
John Glenn High School
(Bangor Township Schools)
3201 Kiesel Road
Bay City, MI 48706
Bad Axe - Thursday
Bad Axe High School
200 Barrie Road
Bad Axe, MI 48413
Harbor Beach - Friday
Harbor Beach High School
402 South 5th Street
Harbor Beach, MI 48441
Ludington - Saturday
Ludington High School
508 N. Washington Ave
Ludington, MI 49431
Hesperia - Sunday
Hesperia High School
96 South Division
Hesperia, MI 49421
Big Rapids - Monday
Big Rapids Middle School
500 North Warren
Big Rapids, MI 49307
Clare - Tuesday
Clare High School
306 Schoolcrest
Clare, MI 48617
Bay City - Wednesday
John Glenn High School
(Bangor Township Schools)
3201 Kiesel Road
Bay City, MI 48706
Bad Axe - Thursday
Bad Axe High School
200 Barrie Road
Bad Axe, MI 48413
Harbor Beach - Friday
Harbor Beach High School
402 South 5th Street
Harbor Beach, MI 48441
Download the 2011 PALM Application NOW
We staggered the mailing dates of the application this year so that everyone would receive it at the same time. We were hoping that by Saturday Jan 15 you and everyone else would have received the 2011 PALM application. If you haven't, download it from www.lmb.org/palm/files/PALMApp2011.pdf now. Remember Monday is the MLK holiday and no mail is delivered. Don't wait to see if you will receive it on Tuesday. We expect that a lot of riders will mail their applications over the weekend and that we will receive a lot of mail on Tuesday. Don't be late. If you want to be on PALM, download the application, fill it out, and mail it now.
Vickie reports that we received the first completed applications on Friday and that we received 36 applications on Saturday. So far we have 61 registrants. The last two years we filled very quickly, 8 days (over the MLK holiday) in 2010, and less than 2 weeks in 2009. But it took us until March or April to send out all the confirmation letters. Registration is a two step process. First Vickie verifies the applications: are all the waivers signed? Is there an emergency contact? If there are minors on the ride without their parents, do we have the parent's signed permission and is there a sponser for the minor? Are the t shirt sizes marked? Is the total amount correct? Is there a check and is it correct? Over 10% of the applications have errors. (Last year we got an application where the rider's name was not filled in.) Every application with an error means that Vickie has to contact the sender by email, phone, or snail mail. Then she sends them to me. I enter them, create the confirmation letters, and the meal, tshirt, jersey, and bus counts. The program I use is not web based, it is a single user program on my computer. We are volunteers: cheap but we have other lives. When it took months for PALM to fill up, all of this was not a problem. But now that we fill up in days and it takes weeks (or months) for confirmation letters to go out, this is a problem.
To address this, when Vickie and Ellie open the applications this year to determine the rider count (and whether we have filled or not) they are going to contact sender to tell them we have received their application and that they are on PALM. So you will know weeks before you receive your confirmation letter that you are on PALM. You can help by including a current email with your application. Please be sure that it's legible. If you have no email, they plan to call you. We hope that this will save a lot of worried emails and phone calls.
Vickie reports that we received the first completed applications on Friday and that we received 36 applications on Saturday. So far we have 61 registrants. The last two years we filled very quickly, 8 days (over the MLK holiday) in 2010, and less than 2 weeks in 2009. But it took us until March or April to send out all the confirmation letters. Registration is a two step process. First Vickie verifies the applications: are all the waivers signed? Is there an emergency contact? If there are minors on the ride without their parents, do we have the parent's signed permission and is there a sponser for the minor? Are the t shirt sizes marked? Is the total amount correct? Is there a check and is it correct? Over 10% of the applications have errors. (Last year we got an application where the rider's name was not filled in.) Every application with an error means that Vickie has to contact the sender by email, phone, or snail mail. Then she sends them to me. I enter them, create the confirmation letters, and the meal, tshirt, jersey, and bus counts. The program I use is not web based, it is a single user program on my computer. We are volunteers: cheap but we have other lives. When it took months for PALM to fill up, all of this was not a problem. But now that we fill up in days and it takes weeks (or months) for confirmation letters to go out, this is a problem.
To address this, when Vickie and Ellie open the applications this year to determine the rider count (and whether we have filled or not) they are going to contact sender to tell them we have received their application and that they are on PALM. So you will know weeks before you receive your confirmation letter that you are on PALM. You can help by including a current email with your application. Please be sure that it's legible. If you have no email, they plan to call you. We hope that this will save a lot of worried emails and phone calls.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Thaw and PALM applications
I did do a 10 mile ride on December 31 and then did the First Dozen in Dearborn on January 1. The thaw melted all the snow and ice. I got to see that the grass still has some green in it and to finish putting my garden to bed for the winter by pulling the last of the greens and tiding up my compost heap. So I got a December and January ride in on the only two days above 40. Then on January 2 back to winter The low last night was supposed to be 2, but we were shown mercy and it's actually 13. Imagine being greatful that the temperature is 13. Michigan.
Yesterday I sent the mailing list for the PALM applications to the printer. I included everyone who sent me an address up to January 8, 5:00PM. You can still send me your mailing addresses but now I'll have to address and mail them out myself. And I'll have to get some applications from the printer to do this. Your best bet on getting a 2011 PALM application is to wait until January 15 when I'll post a link to it on our website and in this blog. Download the application, fill it out, and send it in. Our next PALM meeting is Jan 23. If the same thing happens this year as happened last year, we could be just about filled by then.
By the way the mailing list contained 3585 addresses of which 892 have never done PALM, ie the list contains 2693 people who have done PALM at least once. Last year we added 283 new addresses to the mailing list. We'll send people applications for 7 years before they are dropped from the list unless they do PALM. If you have ever done PALM, you are on the address list forever, ie until the post office returns the application as undeliverable or you ask to be removed.
Yesterday I sent the mailing list for the PALM applications to the printer. I included everyone who sent me an address up to January 8, 5:00PM. You can still send me your mailing addresses but now I'll have to address and mail them out myself. And I'll have to get some applications from the printer to do this. Your best bet on getting a 2011 PALM application is to wait until January 15 when I'll post a link to it on our website and in this blog. Download the application, fill it out, and send it in. Our next PALM meeting is Jan 23. If the same thing happens this year as happened last year, we could be just about filled by then.
By the way the mailing list contained 3585 addresses of which 892 have never done PALM, ie the list contains 2693 people who have done PALM at least once. Last year we added 283 new addresses to the mailing list. We'll send people applications for 7 years before they are dropped from the list unless they do PALM. If you have ever done PALM, you are on the address list forever, ie until the post office returns the application as undeliverable or you ask to be removed.
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