I meet volunteer Bill Sheridan yesterday at my first rest stop as he was cutting watermelon. His rest stop was at a major crossroads of the routes. Here’s his report.

In Putnam Valley, the deer do brunch on Sundays. That’s because all of the residents sleep in late. Much to the chagrin of the deer munching on my Hostas, today I man a rest station at Oscawana Lake Rd and Church Rd. for the tour de Putnam. I always wondered where they get volunteers for these things. Now I know. They ask the Volunteer ambulance/fire departments. I’m from the Putnam Valley Volunteer ambulance corps. If you want a volunteer, you ask a volunteer. –not magic. At 8 am., and the only thing occupying our corner was a portable john. About 15 minutes later we had a truck pull up with a table strapped to the roof, two bags of food, a couple of watermelon, and a few jugs of water. Were now open for business!

We barely set up when our first rider showed up, he started the race at 7:30. No doubt there are skinny deer where he lives. At our station, we had bananas, a PB&J setup, granola fruit bars, watermelon, a water cooler jug for tang, and one for water. He helped himself, because we were still bewildered at the burger flipper in the bag. We found out later, it was for us to stir the tang with. As the race progressed, I was luring riders to our stand by offering Vodka-tonics. It was the oldest trick in the book, bait and switch. (as a volunteer, you need a sense of humor) Everyone was nice, even the guy who brought his own lunch of sardines and garlic cloves. By 9 o’clock we were in full swing. We were chopping up the watermelon slices, and they were disappearing. It was interesting to see people smearing peanut butter on the bananas. Elvis would’ve been proud.

At around 10:30 I found myself shying away from the table. The first to clear out was the granola/fruit bars. The bananas were next, the water and tang were getting low too. We radioed in for more supplies. When someone is busy, you tend to lose track of time. About three hours later, a nervous quiet started to slip into our crew, while waiting for the supply truck. They even took our race directions! First to go was the blue, then they swiped our red directions too. We were watching the last acceptable pieces of watermelon vanish when the supply truck pulled up. Wahoo! He didn’t have enough to replenish what we lost, but we received water, a couple of boxes of granola bars, and a watermelon. He was hesitant to give up the watermelon. Because of that, I asked him how it was going. It turned out that two hundred people preregistered, and another 500 registered at the beginning of the race. He was clearly stressed.

We took what he could give us, and he was off. At the table, we heard that one person needed a bicycle pump. I had a cigarette lighter compressor in my car, but the valve was different. Down the road from us someone needed a spoke fixed. Another rider slid out, and joined the club of road rash victims. Most of the requests we had was to flatten the hills. Sorry guys, cant help there. By noon, the supply side and the demand balanced out. We finished our day with a jug of wartered down tang, and pleanty of PB&J. It was a fun day.

See ya next year!
-Bill S.

Bill – thanks for being part of a succesful event, all the riders thank you and look forward to seeing you next year.