Bicycle Across South Carolina started as an idea and has grown to become a successful, unique experience that entices riders from across the country. As we head into our third year, we are looking at the past, present, and future of BASC for both lessons learned and inspiration for years to come.
The Past
Year one (2019) brought us blindly into an event that we spent hundreds of hours planning but had never seen other than on a PowerPoint or Google Doc. We didn’t know what to expect. Our credibility was questioned (“What does a newspaper know about putting on a cycling event”). The shuttles didn’t show up. And we just happened to land right in the middle of one of the two weeks out of the year where millions of love bugs emerge for mating season. All in all, we didn’t know what we didn’t know.
One thing we were right about is the strong sense of community surrounding this event. Our 2019 riders saw the potential of this event and we’re excited to be a part of the early stages. The willingness to evolve and change based on rider feedback allowed us to hold this event again in 2020.
Although 2020 was no walk in the park, we were equipped with knowledge from our first year and decided we needed to bring in the experts – Medalist Sports! This small but mighty team is a full-service sports management company and has worked on various large-scale events across the country, such as; The Tour DuPont, Kent Tour of China, Tour de Georgia, Amgen Tour of California, and the LIVESTRONG Challenges.
The Present
With our dream team fully assembled, we’re ready for year three. I looked at the first two years of this event as a chance for us to learn about who we are and who we want to be. We’ve got a little more confidence now and have earned our place in the cycling community. So what’s next?
Our goal this year to use the word “experience” more rather than “logistics.” Let’s talk adventure, activations, ax throwing, and barbeque instead of shuttles and transportation. With this in mind, we are switching up our format slightly in order to better accommodate our riders.
Each year we also switch up the routes to both appeal to our returning riders and highlight local communities in South Carolina, which is after all one of our goals for this event! This year we’re targeting more of the upstate to help boost participation in Columbia, Greenville, and other surrounding markets.
The Future
The future is bright and full of gravel (80% gravel and 20% pavement to be exact)! The trend of gravel rides has been continuously growing over the past few years and it’s here to stay, which is why we’ve started shaping BASC into more of a gravel ride. We fell into an exciting, niche market and can’t wait to continue on this gravel path to success!
Our five-year plan includes increasing rider counts drastically through grassroots and digital marketing campaigns, identifying diversity and inclusion goals to help diversify our audience and the cycling industry, recruiting national sponsors, building out unique brand activations, and much more!
Join the Adventure
As the event continues to evolve over the next few months, we want to hear what you’d like to see at BASC. Post-ride yoga? Football on a big screen? Email me here and we’ll see what we can do!
Interested in being a sponsor? Email Alison at awarburton@postandcourier.com.
Have Questions? Check out our FAQ page or email basc@postandcourier.com.
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