LATE-BREAKING NEWS!
On Thursday, 1/23, the DeathRide organization
changed the rules for entering the event. Instead of having to
sit on top of your computer at 10am for the next couple of days,
praying that you hit the exact time to get in, they're brought back
the lottery. Only this is a lottery that you have to pay
to participate in. Only $3, but I have a feeling some will
think the DeathRide is being rather cruel, taking money from people
who don't even get to ride. We'll see. Their email
follows (Thanks, by the way, to Neil for sending this to us)-
Dear Priority Registration Entrant,
Due to great feedback from recent registrants and potential
registrants of the 2003 Tour of the California Alps - Death Ride, we
have decided to change the Priority Registration process. During the
past 2 days, 420 registrations were taken through an open, online
registration process. While we accomplished our goal of registering
420 participants during the opening days, we believe that
implementing a change will dramatically improve the quality of the
registration process for you, the rider, while providing an
equitable selection process. (If you are one of these lucky 420
registrants, please disregard this email.)
Later today (Thursday, Jan 23), we will open an online lottery for
the remaining 840 Priority Registration slots. You will have until
3pm (Pacific Time) on Monday January 27 to register online for this
lottery. Please feel free to register at any point between tonight
and Monday afternoon...THERE IS NO BENEFIT TO REGISTERING EARLIER OR
LATER IN THE PROCESS, as long as you submit your application prior
to Monday at 3pm (PST).
Upon submitting your lottery registration application, your credit
card will be charged the full amount of 1) the ride registration fee
($80), 2) the fees associated with any merchandise or extras you
purchase (amount varies), and 3) a registration processing fee. On
Wednesday, we will randomly select applicants to receive the
remaining 840 Priority Registration spots. - If you ARE selected to
receive a Priority Registration slot, you will receive an email on
Wednesday indicating such, and your credit card charge will remain
intact.- If you are NOT selected to receive a Priority Registration
slot, you will receive an email indicating such, and your entire
credit card charge (less a $3 lottery fee) will be refunded to your
card on Wednesday. Of course, you will have the opportunity to apply
again for this year's ride in March, when the registration process
is opened to the public (i.e. non-PriorityRegistration).
PLEASE NOTE: You are not permitted to enter yourself more than one
time for this Priority Registration lottery. By registering more
than once for this Priority Registration lottery, you will
automatically be excluded from the selection process, thus reducing
your chances of being selected to zero.
The online Priority Registration lottery can be accessed by going
directly to http://www.active.com/event_detail.cfm?event_id=1041210.
You will be asked to provide the password for lottery entry that was
sent to you in your original registration materials.
Thanks, and good luck!
Jim DeGraffenreid
Ride Director
======================================================
Mike,
I managed to get registered this morning for the 2003 Death Ride. I
thought you might
like to hear how the process went.
First thing to note was that their web server was EXTREMELY busy - I
kept getting time-out's
all over the place and the whole registration process eventually
took me about 20 minutes to
complete, despite the fact that it should only have taken around
5...
Here's a couple of hints to speed the process along:
Firstly, create an account with active.com and then login to their
web site BEFORE starting
the Death Ride Registration process - this will save a few
keystrokes and helps to speed things
along.
The registration process consists of 3 mandatory steps; Waiver
acception, Participant information, and finally you get to submit
payment.
Waiver acception: remember to tick the box which says that you
accept their terms and
conditions - you won't get any further if you don't.
Participant Information: here you enter your details such as mailing
address and emergency contact contact name and phone number and
details of merchandise you wish to purchase. You MUST enter
information in all of the fields with a red asterisk (*) next to
them. Failure to do so will prevent you from getting to the next
step. Remember to enter the password sent to you (I got mine by
e-mail) in the field entitled 'Participant Password' (the second
field on the page There is a facility for entering a change of
address if you've moved (which I have) since you last entered the
Death Ride.
Submit Payment: once you've given them all of your details your
registration is added to a "shopping cart" - you need to click on
your shopping cart to "check-out" (i.e. complete) your registration.
This bit confused me for a bit. The shopping cart button is near the
top left of the page and is labeled "VIEW SHOPPING CART". Clicking
this takes you to the section where you enter your Credit Card
information. After entering your details you click on the continue
button and can ignore the streams of adverts that come up on the
page. Simply go to the bottom and choose "no thanks" and you'll be
taken to a page which tells you whether you're registration was
accepted.
You should receive a confirmation e-mail within a short time - I got
mine in about 10 minutes.
So it seems that there looking for a few good typists rather than
cyclists for this year's event..
regards,
Graham
=================================================
The problem you are speaking of is common with smaller internet
sites that =
have problems with a lot of traffic. The basic idea is that they are
not an=
=
amazon.com, so they normally do not invest in the type of equipment
that ca=
n=
handle the intense traffic around registration for an event with
limited =
capacity.=20
The solution is to the problem is to realize that there is not a
problem =
with the sign-up per se, but that the server is just taking too many
hits. =
The way to deal with this is to hit "reload" or "continue" or
whatever =
button you are supposed to hit to get to the next screen until you
get =
through and the server accepts your downloaded information. My
friend and I=
=
were eventually successful this morning by hitting "reload"
repeatedly to =
pull up the registration screen, filling out our information
quickly, =
hitting "continue" repeatedly until we got to a payment screen,
filling out=
=
that information, and then hitting the "pay" button. We both got in.
Of =
course it took us doing the "lab-rat getting a food pellet" button
hitting =
routine for a good 25 minutes or so, but it eventually worked. The
trick is=
=
to just disregard any error message you get until you get the
payment =
screens or the "full capacity" screen.
The only reason I know about this issue, is that I had to do the
same thing=
=
=66our years back to find out from the California Bar Association
web-page =
if I passed the bar. I just about lost it the first time I got an
error =
message (the absence of your name from their list is the only way to
know i=
=66=
you failed), but eventually got through.
Best of luck to everyone!
Gavin
=================================================
This is typical; they just can't seem to get their act together.
Every year
it gets more complicated and more stupid!
Rick
=================================================
I tried at close to 1000. Did no more than a minute of email and
tried =
again - and got the message that the limit had been reached. I wuz =
robbed!
=================================================
Jim,
FYI.....
At 9:45AM I attempted to register for the 2003 ride but Active.com
indicated
registration wouldn't be open until 10:00AM....just as was indicated
in
their advanced notification.
I again attempted the same thing 5 minutes later....not wanting to
be late.
Then I called the phone company to check the time and it was 9:55AM.
I immediately went back to Active.com and tried again to register
but got
the message that "Online Registration is no longer available for
this
event".
I'll keep trying to follow the new registration rules but it is very
disappointing to have the first days registration closed before it
was
supposed to open.
Possibly someone from Alpine County could contact Active.com so at
least the
playing field is level for all veteran riders.
In future years how about allowing a 1 week window for all veteran
riders to
sign up...and then open the remaining places up for new
participants. I'm
sure you'd still sell out, still have the same economic benefits and
provide
a much less chaotic sign up process.
Sincerely,
Bill
==============================================
Hi Mike,
I registered for the Death Ride this morning on
Active.com, and my entry was accepted. I am not here
to gloat. I am just here to tell you what I had to do
to make it happen.
It took me a total of 28.5 minutes from the beginning
of the process (I started at 9:58 a.m., before the
server started accepting any applications) to when my
electronic receipt was generated. The keys to do are:
- Create an account with your profile with Active.com
first. (I've had an account with them for a long time
due to some of the road races I've signed up for last
year.) This will save time during the actual
registration process. Make sure you are logged in
before going to the official registration page.
- Go to the official registration page BEFORE 10 a.m.
Servers take requests on a first-come-first-served
basis. You want to make sure your request gets there
before anyone elses.
- Don't be fooled by the error messages. I too
received many, many error messages about the server
not being available during the process. Please tell
the folks on your email distrubtion list that this
error does not mean the server is physically
unavailable. It only means that the server is too
busy to service the request at that momemt, and the
request timed out. The error message is a standard
message that's generated when the server is either
physically unavailable or when the server is too busy
to service additional requests.
I just kept pressing the "refresh" button on the
browser until I got through. I know that many users
probably gave up when they received 5 error messages
in a row. But the trick is to keep pushing the
"refresh" button to force the browser to re-contact
the server. Each time the refresh button is pushed,
the request (along with the form information you've
entered) is sent to the server again. I've probably
received no less than 100 error messages between each
registration screen. My persistence paid off. I
moved from screen to screen with this approach and
finally reached the screen to enter my credit card
number and eventually the screen that displayed the
acceptance of my entry into the Death Ride.
I hope this helps.
Benjamin
=================================================
I phoned the active.com help phone number (just now, after
recovering from 1/2 hour of frustration between 10 and 10:30
of continuous "Unable to connect" messages, followed by the
"Sorry, try again tomorrow" message). They said, "We were
surprised by the volume, and the server went down. We will
try to have it ready for high volume tomorrow". I could have
told them how many people would be trying to simultaneously
connect (the number of people who rode last year!), but I
guess Alpine County Chamber of Commerce forgot to do that.
I'm getting psyched up for tomorrow's ordeal....
Chris
================================================
Mike,
I got through and was able to register in 25 minutes. I was unable
to
complete a second registration for my wife.
You have to be persistent. I got numerous error messages as I
stepped
through from screen to screen. Had to go back and then hit the
continue
button 30 -40 times. After you get to the order screen, which
requires the
password, you need to re-enter the password each time before
continuing;
otherwise when you finally do connect to the server again, it tells
you to
re-enter the password into the order screen and around you go again.
Once
I got to the payment screen, it was all gravy the rest of the way.
On the
second time around, I got my wife's info input, but only got a "Oops
,
can't find the server" message instead of the error message from the
first
go around. After about 50 times of back and forth, I received the
"We're
sorry.........." This was at 10:45 AM.
The site is kind of clunky. It really seemed like it was broken as I
first
started, and I was wondering all the way through if it had given up
the
ghost. Oh well, I get five more days to try and get my wife and son
registered. It appears that one a day may be the limit. By the time
you
get one person registered, there isn't enough time to complete a
second.
Good Luck!
Ron
=================================================
Dear Mike:
The site came on line at exactly 10 am, as advertised.
The server did not function until 10:05.
Then the thousands of instantaneous "hits" overloaded their
underpowered operation.
Fortunately, I had anextra 25 minutes to spare and repeatedly hit
the "back" button and kept on keepin on.
At 10:25, my button pushing broke through the logjam.
Advice: keep trying.
Thanks for the Heads Up.
Cordially, Jack
=================================================
Mike,
actually, I think he may have gotten "in", and then it took him 30
minutes to complete the transaction -- this was his e-mail (i had a
dentist appt this morning, so he was also trying to register me)
> I got in but you didn't. It took about 30 minutes
> pushing the submit button to finally get through to
> the server, and then, after I paid for my entry, it
> was filled up (even though I had 2 windows open).
I'll ask him more when I talk to him...
Dan
==================================================
I got into the active site for registration and filled out the first
three
pages of information and then got tossed out with an error message.
Clearly
the active.com site has a very primitive software architecture and
does not
meet general standards.
==================================================
Hi Mike:
I tried to logon to the site at 11:30 PST today and I got the
message -- daily registration limit has been reached -- try again
tomorrow!
FYI
==================================================
Mike,
Just to let you know, my brother managed to get in, so it is
possible.
he said it took about 30 minutes of pushing the "submit" button to
make
it work, though.
I'm guessing they're pretty overloaded!
Dan
==================================================
It seemed to work for one of my buddies....
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Tour of the California Alps - Death Ride
Ride Registration aqpparently successful!
Regards,
Ben Etling
"Active.com-Registration" will be displayed on your credit bill.
2003-01-22 10:28:35 Order 3388234-012203102309
Participant: 2002 Past Participant of the Death Ride $80.00
Day of Ride Emergency Contact Not On Ride Course: 925-829-5481
Phone/Location: Home
I plan to ride: 5
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Have a great day,
Eric
====================================================
Mike.. is there any mechanism to hook up riders who are successful
in registering, but do not want to ride. I have not ridden in last 3
years but would like to ride (like you...) let me know what you
think is best
Thanks
Kevin
==================================================
Unix Serve type 2 error message was what I got AFTER I
clicked on "accept" during the Liability Waiver
process.
Defininitely a Sub-opitimal customer experience. They
should have made the registration all day (like the
Wildlflower Century...). Now I have to schedule OTHER
mornings to wait around.
How stupid is this?
==================================================
Mike
Advise your readers to keep hitting the "register now" button on the
Active
web site, and if they get the server error messages, just hit the
"Back"
button and keep trying. Once in the registration process I got
dumped a
number of times. Be persistent!!
Stan |
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