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Takeover Feedback Thread! Event, location, dates

Hondasxs

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Would like to collect some feedback on the 2018 takeover. Good, bad, ulgy. I won't take offense. This is data collection thread.

Give me some feedback on how things went?
  • What should we have done differently?
  • Do we need more "things" to do?
  • Would you be interested in some how/to classes like Winching 101, or tie rod/cv changeout trailside?
  • How about the location, Have we been to RRB enough?
  • Where would you like to have it and can it handle 500+ people next year
  • Easter is this weekend next year, So, what date would you like to have it?
 
J

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So, after talking to different folks about it, here are a few thoughts.

We need more info for new folks on what to expect and what to pack. I think a lot of people were unprepared for how much time we spend on the trail. They need to know to pack for lunch on the trail and 3 hour rides are often 6-8 hours. They need to know how much fuel to bring and what spare parts to toss in. They also need to understand that they need to do certain things to their machines to get the most from their time there.

I think we need better info on the trails. Meaning what are roads vs trails. The @Lifetime-Trailmaps made it nice but I found I didn’t know what trails to take for more of a trail vs road route. A difficulty level of trails would be nice.

I think we need to get the ladies more involved on the site and offer an option for their communicating without all of our regular site info and shenanigans. A Facebook group for them or pub type place would be a great way for us to get them more involved. They offer an organizational aspect that we sometimes lack. It makes food and planning easier if they know ahead of time of what to expect. Also, I think some of the ladies had some good ideas to make the drawings more competitive. We didn’t make the raffle and group dinner because we were on the trail. But I heard some good suggestions from them. Many are scared to go on certain rides because of the hype of some trails but if they can talk to other women ahead of time that have been there and done that... maybe it will make it a little more fun for the guys that have to live with them before and after the rides. I’m fortunate to have a copilot that’s down for whatever, but not everyone’s significant other is a dude with a vagina!

I think we need a better focus on group get togethers. I think a lot of folks are intimidated by destination meets because they don’t know what to expect and aren’t prepared for creek rides, ledge bouncing, and such. Maybe a little more focus on group camp fires in camp around 8-10 so those of us who are on the trail together have a better chance of meeting folks. There were lots of people I never saw because scheduling conflicted.

I think we need to have a 30 minute sitting rule and a better plan for days events. @Kilo427 and I were ready for more night riding but there was more standing around this year than last. If you come to ride then we need a route pre planned for the night and those that want to go can go and those who want to stand around and socialize can that.

We also need to get our group night rides started a little sooner. I know the girls and even a lot of the active members wanted to ride at night but when we sit around until 1-2am waiting for a plan, well they were ready for camp and ran out of steam before we could get started. Last year was more of a s*** show after dark this year was a little too lame. We need a happy median.

Location, last year all the rain made the trails more challenging and fun. I found the option for “fun” trails a little limited this year. I don’t know if rrb has access to more good stuff within reasonable distance. I noticed we all were struggling to choose good routes to take without just doing the same stuff over and over.

Vendors, they need to be more active and show up. They need to donate more and offer better prizes that people will get excited over. Maybe a list of prizes ahead of time would gear folks to spend a little more on tickets. The NRA banquets do a great job of splitting prizes and making it a little more competitive for ticket sales. Also, pre purchase of ticket packages would be helpful.

All in all it went well... we just need more group involvement and pre planning. The more of us that have experience with the event the better it will be. You and @JACKAL and a hand full of others can’t be expected to carry all of the burden of the event. We have to delegate certain responsibilities and event happenings to groups of people that will get things done.

It’s an expensive endeavor for a lot of folks so making it more user friendly will help promote participation. Spreading out the expense of getting prepared with advanced ticket purchases, machine upgrades and such might ease the burden and keep folks from not attending because it’s too costly when they’re waiting until the last minute to prepare. Better cabin prices and more options for places to stay would be nice, particularly if it continues to grow like it is.

A lot of this stuff can’t be fully controlled but we can do some things that will help minimize the issues that arise. This is such a good group and a good time that everyone should try and make it. I can’t say enough how much I appreciate it and the friends I’ve made. I fully understand the work that’s involved and very much appreciate what you and the other guys have done to make it a good time for so many. Can’t wait for the next trip!
 
Tramguage1

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Some of the ladies have already discussed the significance other thread. I will discuss with @Hondasxs and come up with something.
I think including the ladies is a fantastic idea. I feel we may be able to pull off the group meal!
 
ohanacreek

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I don’t say this much but @JTW that was very well said I haven’t had much time to respond till now so I’ll expound upon your very good points and add a few.

It was good and anytime something grows this quickly there are going to be growing pains. Richard can’t be expected to bear the burden of this thing all by himself. It’s also something he is and should be very proud of. Getting as large as it’s getting there could/should be some delegation of responsibilities and expectation that you are going to get your duties done. Final decision needs to be Richard’s, its his baby but it’s a lot to bear solo.

Getting the ladies involved for the social aspects is a great idea, let’s face it they are better at that than we are. Give us a creek, cold beverage, and a fire and we can talk about tie rods and tires for hours, but the niceties are appreciated especially by our better halves.

We ran into several groups that were under/over prepped, when the old hats talk we leave out all the basic needs because we’ve been before. I saw questions about the cabins because RRB didn’t have what was included with each cabin clearly listed. Help with trail prep is good I have my way of prepping food for a trip that crosses lunch/dinner with snacks in between, but @Cuoutdoors has the best trail lunch’s/dinners I’ve smelled. I’m copying his setup for next year. Standing there eating my cold sandwich was less appealing after smelling the meal he cooked out of a similar sized amount of space.

The group we ran into going down WidowMaker were extremely hesitant to go down but with assurances of what to expect were more than happy to follow and did very well. (we old hats might have forgotten to mention skids because it was just a given for us but I did try to go very slowly and lead them down a good line to make it easier on them and their machines) If more knew what to expect on the trails it would be easier to prepare.

Some trails are easy for the most part but may have a few more difficult spots along it that upgrade the whole trail, some are just a long difficult trail.

The trails also change with weather in the weeks leading up to it. @jackals trail updates were invaluable. Landslides can turn a green trail to a blue, red, or some even to a double black.

I have 500GB of video I can put together some LONG trail videos to better show average trails by difficulty. Most of them are more mild with a few tough spots. I remember my first takeover a few spots that now don’t even make me blink had me very hesitant. We joke about you rolling all the time @JTW and harass each other about breaking stuff but most of the more extreme riders damage on past trips, were not from the main trail or bypasses but were from trying the more/most difficult lines, but there are very few spots that can really get you into any kind of trouble on the blue trails (weather damage not withstanding) and even on most of the red trails a novice with a somewhat prepared machine would be fine. Knowing what to ACTUALLY expect will give a lot of people more confidence. There is a plethora of riders with experience off-road; these guys WILL NOT leave you stuck, stranded, or broken and will help you get through, over, or past an obstacle. Even if you are a complete stranger in a new Jeep or 70’s era Grand Marquis.

Communication was BETTER this year but HAM radios with dedicated group of channels with a squelch tone would be great, you can set 5-10 channels that no one else up there can be heard on your radio except your group with those channels programmed and you can set a channel for each riding group. That way everyone else in the trail system isn’t breaking in and making you respond. You know if you hear the radio it’s your group. The Baofengs can be had for $25-$50 for a setup handheld a simple spreadsheet or CSV file can be copied and pasted into the programming software for the radios.

I think through the year some trail tutorials could be made to help people with proper winch use, trail etiquette, radio use, line choice etc...

Practice makes perfect and text only goes so far, it’s easy to demonstrate for those who are visual learners. Pain to make a video or take enough photos and detail what is going on, but it might be very helpful for some of the newer guys though.
 
Neohio

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So, after talking to different folks about it, here are a few thoughts.

We need more info for new folks on what to expect and what to pack. I think a lot of people were unprepared for how much time we spend on the trail. They need to know to pack for lunch on the trail and 3 hour rides are often 6-8 hours. They need to know how much fuel to bring and what spare parts to toss in. They also need to understand that they need to do certain things to their machines to get the most from their time there.

I think we need better info on the trails. Meaning what are roads vs trails. The @Lifetime-Trailmaps made it nice but I found I didn’t know what trails to take for more of a trail vs road route. A difficulty level of trails would be nice.

I think we need to get the ladies more involved on the site and offer an option for their communicating without all of our regular site info and shenanigans. A Facebook group for them or pub type place would be a great way for us to get them more involved. They offer an organizational aspect that we sometimes lack. It makes food and planning easier if they know ahead of time of what to expect. Also, I think some of the ladies had some good ideas to make the drawings more competitive. We didn’t make the raffle and group dinner because we were on the trail. But I heard some good suggestions from them. Many are scared to go on certain rides because of the hype of some trails but if they can talk to other women ahead of time that have been there and done that... maybe it will make it a little more fun for the guys that have to live with them before and after the rides. I’m fortunate to have a copilot that’s down for whatever, but not everyone’s significant other is a dude with a vagina!

I think we need a better focus on group get togethers. I think a lot of folks are intimidated by destination meets because they don’t know what to expect and aren’t prepared for creek rides, ledge bouncing, and such. Maybe a little more focus on group camp fires in camp around 8-10 so those of us who are on the trail together have a better chance of meeting folks. There were lots of people I never saw because scheduling conflicted.

I think we need to have a 30 minute sitting rule and a better plan for days events. @Kilo427 and I were ready for more night riding but there was more standing around this year than last. If you come to ride then we need a route pre planned for the night and those that want to go can go and those who want to stand around and socialize can that.

We also need to get our group night rides started a little sooner. I know the girls and even a lot of the active members wanted to ride at night but when we sit around until 1-2am waiting for a plan, well they were ready for camp and ran out of steam before we could get started. Last year was more of a s*** show after dark this year was a little too lame. We need a happy median.

Location, last year all the rain made the trails more challenging and fun. I found the option for “fun” trails a little limited this year. I don’t know if rrb has access to more good stuff within reasonable distance. I noticed we all were struggling to choose good routes to take without just doing the same stuff over and over.

Vendors, they need to be more active and show up. They need to donate more and offer better prizes that people will get excited over. Maybe a list of prizes ahead of time would gear folks to spend a little more on tickets. The NRA banquets do a great job of splitting prizes and making it a little more competitive for ticket sales. Also, pre purchase of ticket packages would be helpful.

All in all it went well... we just need more group involvement and pre planning. The more of us that have experience with the event the better it will be. You and @JACKAL and a hand full of others can’t be expected to carry all of the burden of the event. We have to delegate certain responsibilities and event happenings to groups of people that will get things done.

It’s an expensive endeavor for a lot of folks so making it more user friendly will help promote participation. Spreading out the expense of getting prepared with advanced ticket purchases, machine upgrades and such might ease the burden and keep folks from not attending because it’s too costly when they’re waiting until the last minute to prepare. Better cabin prices and more options for places to stay would be nice, particularly if it continues to grow like it is.

A lot of this stuff can’t be fully controlled but we can do some things that will help minimize the issues that arise. This is such a good group and a good time that everyone should try and make it. I can’t say enough how much I appreciate it and the friends I’ve made. I fully understand the work that’s involved and very much appreciate what you and the other guys have done to make it a good time for so many. Can’t wait for the next trip!


I agree with @JTW on so much of this. His wife was instrumental on preparing my wife for what to expect this past weekend.

@Hondasxs This may be hard, but you definitely need to hand over the reigns on some of this. It is way too much for one man to accomplish.
@Dribbles @Tramguage1 @CaptinJackRZR wives and mine had an absolute blast selling raffle tickets Saturday night. The 4 of them are already planning on taking over the Takeover with respect to raffles and selling tickets. We had a fair amount of people come up to them during our rides asking when and where to buy raffle tickets. They want to form a planning commitee of sorts to help you/our club continue to grow.
I plan to spend some time today working on a word document for you. I'll email it over to you to put on your letterhead later.

With respect to raffle tickets, maybe bring a CC swipe for your cell? I wasn't around the selling of tickets too much, but giving people the option to whip out a debit card and load up on the raffle tickets might help in the future.

A vendor section would be great. I had a fist full of cash to spend this weekend on whatever goodies I could have. My wife wants whips and all sorts of other parts and pieces, I would have thrown cash on the table right then and there to satisfy her wants.

I think the weekend was an overall success. My only complaint is not meeting more members. I swear my wife met more than I did. Helps she was selling raffle tickets and handing out prizes with Richard.
 
100Acre

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Maybe to get more folks together in an evening dinner setting for a meet and greet, maybe try a chili or Dutch Oven competition, which I imagine the ladies might like to put on. I definitely will bring more pre made lunches and dinners. It was all I could do just to make dinner after a long ride. By the time I managed to wake up everyday, there was little time to prepare for lunch on the trail. It'd also be nice to know that in the future, trail leaders will have all the right recovery gear with them so we don't need to carry tons of extra gear in our machines.

Food Trucks?- It would've been a plus and helped with trail lunches.
Vendors?- I would've bought tons of stuff had anything been available.

I'm sorry but that breakfast at the lodge was nasty. My milk among others was spoiled the eggs were powdered, potatoes undercooked and the bacon was tasteless and the coffee weak. All you can eat for $11 was definitely not worth it.
I'm curious to see what Windrock and Eagle Campground will have to offer.

The whole pressure washer needing tokens was lame too. You can only get them from the general store when they're open and one of the washers ate 3 of the 4 tokens I bought before I realized it wasn't working and no sign saying so. Quarters would've been much easier to deal with.
The showers were hot and the staff nice but I'm curious to check out other Takeover site options.

A side note; those folks like myself who came alone, need to be able to provide emergency contact info to someone for our families back home in case of accidents.
 
Plumber32

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I couldn't complain about much at all. But I've been here done this place enough.

I would really like for us to spread our wings a bit. Someplace new would be great imop.

Dates for ride: this would be very dependent on the location. Can't do Colorado in april probably still snowed in.
 
Neohio

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I couldn't complain about much at all. But I've been here done this place enough.

I would really like for us to spread our wings a bit. Someplace new would be great imop.

Dates for ride: this would be very dependent on the location. Can't do Colorado in april probably still snowed in.
More cornholes boards right?
 
100Acre

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We could look at a inter club gofundme to raise cash for entertainment like music. I'd put down some cash even for some country music if it'd get @CumminsPusher here...
 
Neohio

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Maybe to get more folks together in an evening dinner setting for a meet and greet, maybe try a chili or Dutch Oven competition, which I imagine the ladies might like to put on. I definitely will bring more pre made lunches and dinners. It was all I could do just to make dinner after a long ride. By the time I managed to wake up everyday, there was little time to prepare for lunch on the trail. It'd also be nice to know that in the future, trail leaders will have all the right recovery gear with them so we don't need to carry tons of extra gear in our machines.
We had a dinner Saturday night. With the event only being 2 days currently, I don't know if a dinner Friday night is feasible. We all met for a group picture then hit the top of the world I believe.

Food Trucks?- It would've been a plus and helped with trail lunches.
Vendors?- I would've bought tons of stuff had anything been available.
With the restaurant on site, I doubt the resort would allow food trucks, without asking for a hefty compensation.

I'm sorry but that breakfast at the lodge was nasty. My milk among others was spoiled the eggs were powdered, potatoes undercooked and the bacon was tasteless and the coffee weak. All you can eat for $11 was definitely not worth it.
After reading reviews on here of the food offerings in the past, we chose to cook our own breakfast daily.

A side note; those folks like myself who came alone, need to be able to provide emergency contact info to someone for our families back home in case of accidents.
I will make note of this and see what can be done during registration next year.
 
Smitty335

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Would like to collect some feedback on the 2018 takeover. Good, bad, ulgy. I won't take offense. This is data collection thread.

Give me some feedback on how things went?
  • What should we have done differently?
  • Do we need more "things" to do?
  • Would you be interested in some how/to classes like Winching 101, or tie rod/cv changeout trailside?
  • How about the location, Have we been to RRB enough?
  • Where would you like to have it and can it handle 500+ people next year
  • Easter is this weekend next year, So, what date would you like to have it?
First of all, a BIG THANK YOU! Richard, Tram, Jackal and all the rest that worked so hard to pull this off! I met so many nice people and wanted to ride with them all. Was thinking, for those of us that don't care who they ride with, have a draw, to make up the riding groups, segorate experience levelsI, I wouldn't make it mandatory, that way you would get to know more members, just a thought. I know one thing, I'm not going to drive 24 hr,s. for 2 days riding next year. I would like to know next year when the early arrivals are getting there and if they want to share a cabin, with the traffic as bad as it is, I would to arrive on Sunday evening and leave the following Sunday morning.

RRB facilties, courteous employees, nice restaurant, private showers, but we camped in very small spaces in a gravel parking lot basically?
My first time to attend and ride the area, loved the trails. I talked to several people who said they liked Wind Rock better, trails are marked better, for newbies?
Again Thank You
 
CumminsPusher

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We could look at a inter club gofundme to raise cash for entertainment like music. I'd put down some cash even for some country music if it'd get @CumminsPusher here...
You don’t want me running the music. It’s a family event and some people have virgin ears.
 
drfubar

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We learned the hard way last year about breakfast at RRB so a few of us got together and cooked breakfast each morning, lunch on the trail and dinner again together with a fish fry one night. @Hondasxs with his helpers did a fine job. Thank you to @JACKAL for the information on the trails a few weeks before Takeover. It helped me decide which trails to lead my group on and which ones to stay off from. We did get on a couple of the trails not recommended but we negotiated them with no problems. Enjoyed it.
 
100Acre

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Because it's a lot for any one, two or three folks to put the Takeover together, and thank you @Hondasxs @Tramguage1 @JACKAL and everyone else who helped to made this work, but I was thinking they may want or need to delegate responsibilities on the shoulders of others. Maybe start a volunteer thread and have an optional list that folks can sign up for. I'll certainly volunteer my time and money towards making the next Takeover that much more Spectacular!
 
Vondy

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Had a great time and look forward to next year. Would have liked to have met more people, but that was mostly our fault, first time there and wanted to get good trail time so we went on our own a lot and never seemed to be leaving when other groups were. The one group we tried to go with to eternal flame, we must have followed wrong group that wasn’t going there.

Whe just used the free maps on an android with GPS and navigated park easily. Need to find our way to the Royal Blue side next time. Thanks to @JACKAL for his trail reports and POI. That helped a lot.

Only thing I could suggest is a schedule for group rides with destination, difficulty level, and estimated length. A hard to extreme P500 group ride would have been fun! I’ve got a lot of confidence on my buggy but still wouldn’t want to be only P500 holding up a group of 1000s.

Week or two after Easter works well.

Any location in that area is fine

Thanks to everyone that put this on! Awesome job.

Became a lifetime member as soon as I got home!
 
100Acre

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Had a great time and look forward to next year. Would have liked to have met more people, but that was mostly our fault, first time there and wanted to get good trail time so we went on our own a lot and never seemed to be leaving when other groups were. The one group we tried to go with to eternal flame, we must have followed wrong group that wasn’t going there.

Whe just used the free maps on an android with GPS and navigated park easily. Need to find our way to the Royal Blue side next time. Thanks to @JACKAL for his trail reports and POI. That helped a lot.

Only thing I could suggest is a schedule for group rides with destination, difficulty level, and estimated length. A hard to extreme P500 group ride would have been fun! I’ve got a lot of confidence on my buggy but still wouldn’t want to be only P500 holding up a group of 1000s.

Week or two after Easter works well.

Any location in that area is fine

Thanks to everyone that put this on! Awesome job.

Became a lifetime member as soon as I got home!
"A hard to extreme P500 group ride would have been fun!"
You should've been with @JACKAL "s group ride. We got to do some interestingly difficult terrain for sure!
 
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