There are nine weeks left in 2014, and I’m on a pace to hit my arbitrary 10,000 mile milestone. In fact, if I keep this pace up, I may even be able to take the last week of the year off. And this is a very tantalizing prospect to me, because in my heart of hearts, I’m a very lazy person; and would love to do nothing for a week except watch Rankin and Bass Christmas shows and stuff myself with sausage.

This extra time should also allow me to further my plans for next year’s Dubuque Gran Fondo (see how I did that sweet transition? Writing!). I have made the decision that the monetary losses incurred weren’t enough to deter me from plowing ahead and doing another DGF. When the dust and gravel has all settled, the 2014 event ended up costing roughly $33 per person. The largest costs were for timing, signage and police, and next year we’ll be able to reuse the signs we made this year, so that fact alone means it will only cost about $18 per rider to put the event on. So, you know we have that going for us. We hope to cover all of the costs for the event with rider entry fees, because—while we wouldn’t turn away any monetary sponsors—the process of searching for and acquiring sponsors costs time and money; and in the end relying on sponsors to cover costs means a lot of budget uncertainty from year to year. That being said, the 2015 DGF provides potential sponsors an excellent opportunity to showcase their brand to a very select demographic and also provides an opportunity to be associated with a healthy, positive community event. Please send cash in envelopes to me andI’ll put your logo on whatever you want.

There will also be some changes to next year’s route. I’m planning on having another shorter ride for those who want a lighter day of riding. I heard LOTS of feedback about the amount of gravel included in the ride, and while I plan on keeping most of the gravel sections, there was one section that could be eliminated, because it was a steep downhill near the end of the ride and to be honest, it was slightly terrifying. But other than that, the deep dish (like the pizza), Midwestern-style gravel will stay for the foreseeable future.

All in all, my foray into event promotion was a (non-monetary) success. I learned more than I ever thought I would about local government, insurance certificates, police scheduling and city permitting—and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the local officials were very easy to work with. So the DGF will live another year. May God have mercy on my soul.