Need help editing
 

I'm writing an article for a local entertainment paper. It should be 6-800 words. It's about doing the Big Dam Bridge 100 ride. I did the 50 mile variation. So I wrote up the first draft, just laying down everything and came up with a 5,000 word article. Oops. So I need to make it more specific and limited in focus.

But it seems like there are some major themes developing.

I seem to have been the only person to actually ride to and from the race. That turned out to be more of an adventure than I would have imagined.

The massive use of police to control traffic and guide the riders compared to another ride I went on that made do with painted arrows on the pavement.

The terrain that was covered, the struggle of the ride.

The countryside that I saw on the ride.

The people I saw on the ride.

A general intro, discussing what the Aid stations were, and other stuff for newbies.

This is a general paper. I asked the editor what the demographics were and he responded 'People who read'. The articles that I've written are the only things bicycle specific in the paper.

Any suggestions as to what the general public might find the most interesting?

Thanks.

The people I saw on the ride.


The variation, age differences, personality differences, skill differences, sex differences, etc., should be the nugget. You can interweave the rest as needed around that theme. People are interested in people.

The first question non-cyclists always ask after hearing I've done a long distance ride is, "How do you do it? How do you ride that far?"

And then the first comment I get after telling them far I rode is, "My butt hurts after DRIVING that far!"

Go with the low end of your word limit - "Rode there. Rode far. Rode home." Job done.

You might mention that there was a woman who rode her first century at 70 years of age at the BDB100, our own Arkansasgal of BF50+. She founded and leads our little bike group, the Ozark Roadies. She's ridden her age this year, and has conquered our local mountain ride as well.

A bunch of us, including Arkansasgal, came down from northwest Arkansas and rode the 100-mile ride. I've ridden several centuries, but this was was far and away the most well organized century I've ever ridden. The organizers did an outstanding job.

As has been mentioned above, the general public is frequently in awe when you mention that you rode a hundred miles on Saturday. Perhaps John Q. Public might be interested to know what motivates people of both genders, virtually all ages, all races, and all sizes and shapes to get out and ride that far in a day. Bragging rights, fitness, stress relief...

A discussion of rest stops might not be fully appreciated by non hackers. But for the sale of readers here, the rest stops were well provisioned and well run. At at the Bigelow rest stop there were high school cheerleaders by the road cheering the riders as they came in. I thought that was really neat. I sat up in my saddle and applauded them as I rode by.

The most striking thing I saw was a bunch of black-eyed susans just past the Bigelow rest stop. This wasn't a little patch of them but acres of them, and within that area, they were thick! It was a real eye popper.

I enjoyed the sights, things you might miss if you're in your car, and the conversations with people you meet when you ride that far.

From a business perspective, I'm sure the event brought in a few bucks for the Little Rock/North Little Rock area.

Hope that's some food for thought. If you know any of the organizers, please tell them that one of your 50+ brethren from northwest Arkansas said that they did an outstanding job!

It's fairly common to overshoot like that. At least you now have material to work from. Put it aside and use it as fodder for a second draft.

Newspaper, right? IMHO, assume that your reader is not a died-in-the-wool cylist. Consider falling back on the tried-and-true: who, what, when, where, why? Answer those questions. Keep the article short and sweet. Stay factual. Don't editorialize. You'll probably come out good.

Tell me a story. Write as if you were talking to me. Hook me right at the beginning. Include interesting people. Stop before I lose interest. Shorter is better. Simple is good.

Include some violence, religion, and politics otherwise nobody will read it :).

Seriously, assuming this is a "human interest" story, write about the people on the ride (not necessarily yourself), the struggle, the countryside, and then the people again.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

The hardest part in scaling down from 5K words was the realization that I could not possibly maintain the narrative of a single ride. I could not possibly contain the moments that made up my ride. So I had to step back and it was not editing rather a complete rewrite from a blank document.

All the best stuff had to go. Nothing about passing and being passed by a fellow who I had ridden against in a century a few years ago, as we battled for the honor of slowest and second slowest to complete the ride. Nothing about how I started the ride with my kickstand still down and got heckled by other riders for it, but I wasn't going to stop because stopping would have caused a massive wreck at the beginning. (I was on a recumbent, so I could have done the whole ride with the kickstand down without incident, just an occasional scraping noise in sharp left-hand corners). Nothing about how, when trying to return home, I was prevented from riding on the River Trail and forced up Overlook Drive, which was steeper than any of the hills on the ride and into a tangle of cul de sacs and winding streets and the route out to the main street was so circuitous that none of the few people I could find to ask directions from could give me directions out of the neighborhood. Lots of great stuff fell the the editing room floor.

I even wondered did I need to make the ride to write the article? Could I have just saved myself the money and stood on the sidelines.

Or does having done the 50 mile ride let me write a bit more authentically? I mention a 300 lb man on an ill fitting bike as part of crowd waiting to start. I don't mention that he almost forced me off a hill as he decided that he just couldn't pedal further up the hill at the exact moment two people were passing us, so he cut sharply right to stop and I was boxed in by them on the left. Happily, its easy to stop quickly going up hill. Nor could I describe the fellow on the hand cycle that I mention in the crowd, and how I attempted to catch up to him on the road to Maumelle, but he was too fast! Doctor J, I did mention Arkansasgal, though I did not see her. I wasn't able to work in Ken Gould, founder of BACA who blew past all of us on the steep hill on his recumbent while most riders were struggling to just push their bikes up the hill. Not bad for a guy in his 60's.

But I think the refined article does its job of perhaps presenting an alluring prospect to someone who has not done a ride yet, and I think that was the target market. After all, the editor did not say the readers are people who bike.

So, catch the article in the next issue of the Emerald City of the South, at convenience stores and stand alone racks all over the Little Rock area. This is the third in a series of articles I have written for it. The first described how to use your bike for local chores like going to the post office, the bank or a local store. The second described my recumbent, and now this.