The Dart is a team event in which each team rides different routes toward a common finish location, like arrows toward a target. Like the longer fleche, the event includes team fun and camaraderie on a unique route chosen by the team. But the shorter Dart can be completed without sleep deprivation, and in daylight! The Dart populaire that we will offer must be a minimum of 120 km and take place over an 8 hour time period and can be used toward the P-12 award. Teams should start at 9:00AM and finish by 5:00PM.
The target for the Dart is the Pike Restaurant and Tap House in Gettysburg, PA, where the teams will join together for a post-ride dinner and exchange of stories. Sunrise will be at 7:36AM and sunset at 6:09PM, so teams can ride entirely in daylight. For any riders that plan to stay in Gettysburg on Saturday night and ride back to the DC area on Sunday, the Comfort Suites Near Gettysburg Battlefield Visitor Center is right next to the Pike Restaurant, and many other hotels are located within a short distance. However, Gettysburg is busy in October, so you should make reservations as soon as possible.
The Dart populaire has rules that are somewhat different, and perhaps even more arcane, than those for a standard brevet. Rules for the Dart populaire are here. Some of them are summarized as follows:
Each team must consist of three to five bicycles. (Note that a tandem counts as a single bicycle, so teams will sometimes contain more than five riders.)
The traditional Dart route starts at some distant location and then heads for the target, but a loop route is also allowed, as long as the start location is far enough from the finish to be considered as a different postal zone.
As in a standard brevet, the routes must contain control locations chosen so that the shortest bicycle-legal route through the controls is equal to at least the minimum distance. However, the Dart has an additional requirement that one of the controls must occur exactly 2 hours before the scheduled finish and be at least 25 km from the finish. That control would be 6 hours after the start of the Dart populaire.
Each team must have a captain who is responsible for designing the route and submitting it for approval. Captains should carefully read the rules first. The schedule will be:
October 2: Applications from captains due to the organizer (Bill Beck) including 1) 2021 Dart team captain regform, 2) 2021 Dart route application. The route information can be submitted electronically to william.a.beck@gmail.com in PDF, MS Word, or MS Excel format. Route files from RWGPS will also be appreciated, but not required.
October 16: Final rosters with 2021 Tracking Form due to organizer. Deadline for final route approval.
October 16: Control cards submitted to organizer for approval. (Organizer can help generate these, if desired.) We may omit this step, EPP is acceptable for the Dart.
October 30: Dart
Team captains are responsible for making sure that their team members have registered.
Please contact Bill Beck (william.a.beck@gmail.com) with any questions. We also have many experienced fleche captains in the club who would be excellent sources of advice. If you are thinking of forming a team or looking for a team to join, the dcrand listserve is one good way to connect with other riders.