Hello, Pelotonia?

I am very very impressed with the effort and success of Pelotonia this weekend.  Huge kudos to the entire effort.  As a cancer survivor and also active biker (not nearly as active as my 2 wheeling commuting husband), I hope to do it in future years as a tribute to those loved ones we’ve lost to cancer.

As a professional PR and marketing consultant, I can’t help but point out an irony I observed.  Pelotonia had an incredibly engaging web site - especially from a donor relations standpoint. The transparency of supporters on each riders’ page was a beautiful way to build community and recognition.  So… as a donor supporting 4 different riders, I was curious how the tour was going for them and well, everyone.  I logged on yesterday evening to the site.  I found nothing.  Today, nothing.  No photos. No videos.  No photo of Lance. No shot of the starting line.  No shot of a rest stop or a SAG wagon.  No hint of the throngs of supporters along the way.  Hmmmm.  The twitter feed wasn’t pretty light and didn’t include hashtags for me to find other tweets.

The irony is that I found more information from the Dispatch at my door step this morning and from riders’ individual facebook posts (when they remembered to do them) than from their main site.   I know the effort it takes to coordinate an event like this (I have ridden GOBA and TOSRV before) and certainly how to integrate real-time communications and of course, you say, cuttemsomslack, this is the first year!   I will look forward to some real-time updates next year - and maybe some several-days-after updates on the site this week yet.  We want to know our riders are healthy, happy and having fun - while doing good!