BICYCLE-STUFF REVIEWS

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Tour de Goodwill, Shreveport, LA

May 2008

Keep up the good work. Gets better and better every year. I love the 100 mile route and that is why I drive from Dallas to do this ride. Yummy food afterwards. Very friendly people and great routes. Not too hilly make for a very fast 100 mile time.

May 2007

This year's Tour de Goodwill was fun and the routes were easy to follow. They had 4 different routes with distances up to 102 miles. They had registration on tieir website and also at the event and it was quick and easy. The mass start was a bit tedious but we eventually got going. The tour's organizers must have read previous critiques because this year the route markings were color coded and also had signs with Goodwill logos to steer riders in the right direction. The roads were mostly good with sparse traffice and law enforcement personnel patrolled the course. The rest stops were adequate and sag support was evident. After the ride they had several tents with freshly cooked food and cold drinks. Helmets off to Jamie Johnson and all the great volunteers for helping make this an enjoyable ride.

May 13, 2006

This was my first year to do this ride. Everyone was very friendly and they even had pickles to get your salt fix on which was great. Roads super smooth except the last 10 miles, (I rode the 100 mile). I think everywhere in Louisiana has this type of road, its ,like they lay the road down in very large blocks and don't level it. Thump, thump every 5 seconds. One major complaint I have and its a big one is this has to be the worst signage of any ride I have ever been on. I though I was lost 5 different times. Never been on a ride that I had to pull the map out 5 times. At 2 different points or intersections I had to stop and make a decision to go left, right or straight because all three directions said 100 mile that way. The other 3 had 100 arrows going 2 different ways. Complete craziness. What are they thinking. All painted in white and all newer paint. This is totally unacceptable and really takes a toll on you not knowing if your going the right way. In addition, the turning marks were right on top of the turn. We had to brake very hard to turn and almost caused some serious accidents at least on 5 turns. They defiantly need to put the turn markers ALOT farther back before the turn and paint the 100 mile that we are doing a DIFFERENT COLOR. I drove 2 1/2 hours to do this ride because I seek out doing centuries and this was the only one this weekend I could find. This was my 11nth one. I will be back to do it again as long as signage and signage spacing are corrected. The policeman were very helpful and friendly. This ride has alot of potential.

I thoroughly enjoyed this event. Thankfully it was held in May and temperatures were much nicer than the 05 ride held in late August. Their website had online registration and there were maps available for each of the distances. They had routes from 26 to 100 miles. I wanted to do the century but decided it might be wiser to do the 76. The roads were OK and most of the routes goes through rural areas so traffic wasn't much of an issue. I pre-registered and packet pickup was quick and easy. The event was staged on the campus of LSU Shreveport so it was easy to find and there was ample parking. Afterwards there was plenty of freshly cooked food and cold drinks plus tables under a tent for after ride fellowship.