Classic Ride with #823
Originally Posted by
gugie
Common theme: "yeah, went to Eroica Cali, disappointed in (fill in the blanks)...but I'll be back next year.
What's worrisome is the big drop off in riders.
I'll be first out of the gate to declare that if it doesn't occur next year, many will appear anyways (see last year's Cino event). It's about the people, the bikes, the ride, and the food, in that order.
I haven't posted yet because I'm still formulating my thoughts. However, I'll make an observation. The NOVA riders and Classic Riders had different graphics designating their ride numbers. I observed double digit numbers in both the NOVA and Classic Rides so I think its safe to assume they started near single digits or maybe reserved the very early numbers for VIPs. Certainly the Colnago above had #14 Classic ride. Here's photographic evidence from the Radavist (for the NOVA ride) and Eroica California's own 2019 gallery pics showing the highest number riders I could see - #200 for NOVA and #823 for Classic Riders.
From The Radavist - Nova rider #200
From The Radavist - Nova Tandem #198
From The Radavist - Beer, probably from Halter Ranch stop
From my perspective, there were 200 NOVA riders (and may have been limited to that number) plus at least 823 Classic riders, giving a total of at least 1023 riders. Last year, IIRC, there were 175+ NOVA riders and 915+ Classic riders, putting the 2018 numbers ~1080-1100. So the drop in riders was maybe 75 or about 6.8% drop, putting it over the 2017 event attendance if my numbers are correct. There are many factors which may have led to the slight drop which I’ll discuss in another post.