Ride Calendar Input Screen (Add a Ride)
The ride calendar program is based on club guidelines for rides. The various fields as well as the defaults and rules for each are described here.
The ride name is self-explanatory.
The distance or time field does double purpose. For road rides, put the distance in miles here. For mountain rides, put the time in hours. You can use one decimal place if you wish. For instance 1.5 would equal an hour and a half. You'll have to translate between decimals and parts of an hour yourself.
The date field only allows legitimate input. It defaults to the first day of the next month.
The recurs end date is the last date for a recurring ride. You need to enter both the beginning dates and the end dates (inclusive). Then put in the number of days between recurrences (e.g., weekly would be 7) in the recurs every field. If you have a recurring ride that starts at different times, say in April and May and then in June, July and August, and then in September, October (earlier), then you will need to enter them as separate sequences. The recurring function puts the same leader, starting location, ride name, ride description, ride category, time, pace and terrain on all rides.
The time field is set so that you can input between midnight and noon 0 thru 12 as a.m. and noon thru midnight as p.m. The data is stored in 24 hour format and if you input, say 13:00 it will store it as 13:00 (a.k.a. 1 p.m).
The ride description is self-explanatory and a catch-all. If, for instance, you want to fuzz over the pace by having multiple paces or the leaders by having multiples, you will have to do it here.
The ride leader is drawn from our membership tables. However to make it more convenient, the program first searches the existing ride calender tables and lists leaders (in order by the number of rides they have led) and then goes into the whole membership table and lists everyone else. You can shortcut it by typing one letter and it will jump down to say, the m's. There is a separate membership system for adding leaders to the membership table.
The location field is taken from a table of starting locations. There is an "AAA Placeholder" location for temporary use if you get halfway into the add a ride screen and realize that the location you need is not available yet. The ride report programs will automagically know the directions to starting locations (it is taken care of in the add location function) once they have been entered once.
The ride type can, at present, be road or mountain.
The ride category can be really casual, casual, tour, quick, multi-pace or not applicable. Use of ride category is strongly encouraged for road rides. Mountain bike rides probably should use the n/a choice but the other categories are available.
The pace and terrains are taken from the ride guidelines for either road or mountain rides. The choices available are determined by whether you have selected to enter a road or mountain bike ride on the previous screen. If you need to elaborate, then use the ride description field.
Please note that if you choose the multi-pace ride category, the system will automatically place a blank in the pace field. Any entry in the pace field on the form will be ignored.
Further, with regard to the use of the multi-pace category it is my recommendation that, if you have separate leaders pre-designated to ride at known paces then there should be a separate ride entered for each. They will still sort out on the ride report in sequence and prospective riders will get a better sense of what they will encounter. However, where it is just known in advance that you will break up into separate groups or where you have rides like the century which by definition will break up then use of multi-pace is appropriate.
Ride Calendar Report
On the ride calendar report screen you can select to see Road, Mountain or Both types of rides. There are two ways to specify dates. You can also select a specified number of days to view, starting from the current day. Placing an asterik in the field will show all rides (of the type or types selected) that are in the database, so unless you are interested in seeing rides that have already taken place you probably don't want to use the asterik. Alternatively, you can specify a starting and ending date.
There are two formats available for the ride calendar reports. The standard report is the one you should usually use. The Bikeabout report is similar but omits links to other web pages since they are not useful (and take up extra space) in the printed Bikeabout.
Ride Calendar Edit
Authorized users will have access to a screen that lets them edit rides in the ride calendar. This only works from the current day forward and placing an asterik in the “days” field will look for 720 days of rides starting from today (enough I think). The ride calendar edit selection screen will return a screen with information on all rides that meet your criteria. The leftmost column on this screen is the internal number of the ride and you can click on this to get a screen where you can actually edit the ride. The edit screen will be filled in with the current information about the ride and you can change any of it there.
As of January 2006, two new fields are available for the ride listing. The first, called map_url, is intended for links to maps that are located somewhere on the web. These could be in a user’s own web site or on the MHCC site or even at a mapping site such as Google or Mapquest or Delorme. You need to put in the full url (including the HTTP:// part when entering these urls. A user will see these urls in a new browser window and should shut the window when done. Likewise, there is a cue_url field that can be used for cue sheets or extended instructions or both. To avoid typing mistakes, it is highly recommended that you open the url in a separate window and copy and paste from the address bar of that window. This, of course, applies to ride calendar administrators only.
Integration with Event Calendar
As of April 2008 the ride calendar has been integrated with a more general purpose event calendar. Each time a ride is entered or changed the event calendar is appropriately updated with selected information from the ride. So, if you prefer the event calendar format feel free to use it. You can narrow the categories on the event calendar so you only see road or mountain rides or you can open them up to see all kinds of events. Before you make a decision to go on a ride, we strongly encourage you to consult the full ride calendar listing to get all the details on the ride.
Integration with Ride Reporting
As of April 2010 ride leaders were enabled to put their completed ride reports directly into the system. Use of this facility is optional, rid leaders can still complete a printed report and mail it to the Road Vice President if they prefer. The primary ride calendar screen allows MHCC members to review completed ride reports. The option for this is “View Rides by Leader or Date and Ride Reports where available”. Non members will not see this option. Ride leaders themselves have further options to select their completed rides for doing a ride report on.
