I made my way into Loudéac before sundown on Tuesday on my return. My personal to-do list of business to get done at that control included a visit to the restrooms facing the bike-parking courtyard; individual restrooms, exterior doors.
A couple of control volunteers were already waiting outside the restrooms with their bucket, mop, and cleaning supplies when I walked up.
Soon enough a restroom door opened and a rider exited. The volunteers looked at me, and I at them, to see who was going to make their move for the open door. (Given the condition of the restroom, it was immediately apparent that I may have had almost-impeccable but oh-so-bad timing.)
Now, I have developed a personal strategy of doing whatever it is that control volunteers suggest I do, if at all possible -- they really are there to look out for riders, and they know more about what's going on at the controls than I do. That's their charge, and they know what they're doing...but whatever you want to do, if you have your own ideas, well, you go ahead and do your thing; that's fine with them, too.
One of the volunteers said that I could go ahead and use the just-vacated restroom if I wanted to....buuuuut there were also additional restrooms just down a very short set of stairs in the adjacent courtyard. Either way, it was fine with them.
I thanked them and took their suggestion to go out of my way to the lower courtyard (where members of the local public were enjoying a live band on stage as part of the control festivities) rather than use the vacant restroom immediately in front of me.
I popped right down to those other restrooms -- which, quite clearly, had just been cleaned and restocked. :)
Thank you, volunteers!
 |
| Loudéac bike parking courtyard, outbound Monday: control stamp room, canteen, officials' tent and first aid station beyond; courtyard restrooms off-camera behind me. |
No comments:
Post a Comment