A Little History
Unbound Gravel began as Dirty Kanza in 2006 when 34 bicyclists met in Emporia, Ks for a 200 mile bicycle race across the gravel roads in the Flint Hills of Kansas. It has grown in popularity through the years and now there are more than 4000 riders who toe the start line annually.
Given the size and remote nature of this course, mobile telephone coverage is spotty at best and as the ride grew, it became difficult for race directors to provide rider health and welfare support to participants on the course. With the growing number of riders, each passing year became increasing difficult to provide rider support and extraction.
Kansas City Jeep Club began providing assistance in 2008. They brought upwards of 20 jeeps to provide the “wheels on the ground” along the course. In the early years, KCJC used mobile phones and CB radios to communicate along the course. However, the extreme size and remoteness of the course demanded a more robust solution.
In 2015 the Jeepers began passing their amateur radio exams and earning radio licenses. To their credit, they had the foresight to set a radio standard in their club and many of the Jeeps were outfitted with Yaesu 7900 dual band mobile radios and nice antenna systems. They realized early that it would be much easier to manage a fleet of radios and operators if the hardware was the same.
In 2015, EARS (Emporia Amateur Radio Society) began talking to DK/KCJC about options to work together. We determined our objective was to provide a communications medium across the course which would allow the Jeeps to communicate with a dispatch center. This would provide the infrastructure to significantly increase the level of support provided to the riders. Meetings were scheduled and concerns voiced. Radio coverage maps were created over the area for our local 2 meter repeater and a goal was set to provide S7 or better radio coverage to over 90 percent of the course for the 2016 event; a goal EARS thought was attainable. When the course was released , we learned that race course creators are a sinister bunch and they find every hill, every crevice, every water crossing and wicked piece of terrain they can find to challenge the riders. A consequence of these rider challenges is the difficulty faced by the communications team to deliver quality radio coverage into these difficult locations. Even with very nice 2 meter repeater coverage across much of the course, it became increasing clear enhancements would need to be done to achieve our goal.
EARS set out to install temporary, linked repeater setups along the spotty sections of the course and had things in place when KCJC arrived in town the Thursday prior to the race. As they took off Friday morning to scout the course the only radio communications the Jeep drivers had ever experienced was CB. They continued to be skeptical as we told them we were expecting to have coverage for a large portion of the course. Armed with their new amateur licenses and quality radio hardware, they were amazed at the clarity and distances now available to them through the repeater network. Although the coverage was not perfect it was a significant improvement from previous years. They were stoked; we all were.
On race day, EARS put the repeater into net control operation and all communications were handled through net control. Even though we had talked about this format and the protocol and practiced it the day before during the course scout we knew it would be a learning curve for all parties involved. And it was. We all struggled early on as multiple Jeeps began needing airtime to report problems, net control needed airtime to dispatch Jeeps to specific locations etc. However, as the morning pressed on, everybody began to settle into the task at hand and things smoothed out considerably. In retrospect, the main issue was patience. Net control expected Jeeps to answer immediately and the Jeeps expected an immediate answer from net control. The reality is occasionally the Jeep operators are busy with another task or out of their Jeep assisting riders. Similarly, net control was not always immediately available due to situational chaos. To the credit of all involved, on air efficiency went up consistently throughout the day. By the end of the event, some 21 hours later, everybody was handling the radio traffic and dispatch protocol quite well.
It is unlikely that anybody anticipated the sheer volume of radio traffic. Looking at repeater reports, our local machine was keyed up, passing traffic for over 14 hours of the 21 hour event. We were incredibly busy.
DK, KCJC and EARS had several post event meetings to discuss all facets of the event. We had frank discussions on what we did well and what we could do to improve. Each volunteer took action items out of those meetings to fix things for the following year. As DK 2017 approached, we again met and discussed improvements to our system and processes. We have used that process repeatedly year to year to learn and provide a better service for the safety of the riders.