Skip to Navigation  Lessons Learned: Patrolling a Race  Back in
April, the OMBA Bike Patrol out of Ocala, Florida volunteered
its support for the Hammerhead 100 mountain bike race, which had
more than 200 entrants. Three patrollers volunteered along the
25-mile race course. Two of them rode the main loop while the
third patroller stationed himself and his Jeep at one of the sag
stops.  Among the three, they extracted two riders with
dislocated shoulders, cooled down and led out one rider with
heat exhaustion and searched for a missing spectator, who they
found two miles away and provided water to, as he was
dehydrated, before leading him back.  Frank Belaska, the
director of the OMBA Patrol, passed along some of the valuable
lessons his group learned from the experience:    1. Have at
least one patroller with a vehicle that can run errands or
transport riders if necessary.   2. When the weather gets hot,
carry extra water and watch out for heat exhaustion. The rider
with heat exhaustion that we helped was bar