Medical Crew

The ACT Ride is concerned for your safety. During the Ride we have a full-time Medical Crew and a Medical Director. If you have any medical questions, please enquire from the Medical Table at Day Zero registration.

Medical Crews will be at AM Pit, Lunch Pit, PM Pit and Camp. In addition, there are roving medical crews on the route, much like sweep.

Notes from the Medical Crew

We are looking forward to meeting each one of you and we’re eagerly awaiting the beginning of this new adventure. As the opening day draws closer and temperatures heat up, we want to go over some friendly medical advice.

Our hope is to have every one of you attain the goals that you have set for yourself during this Ride. We want you all to ride into closing ceremonies feeling empowered and exhilarated, knowing that you have just accomplished something truly amazing.

In order to do this there are several simple yet important rules you must follow to ensure a safe ride for not only yourself, but others around you as well. The medical staff would rather keep busy by cheering you up the hills than treating you in our medical area. Our tips follow:

Stay Hydrated!

We cannot put enough exclamation points behind this to justify how important this is on the ride. It does not pertain only to those who bike rather quickly but to every person that is part of this Ride. To the crew loading up the gear to the last rider coming into camp, staying hydrated is crucial to finishing what you started. August is historically hot and muggy and any physical activity drains you of water and minerals. You cannot wait until you feel thirsty because it will be too late. More people have ended up in emergency rooms during previous rides due to dehydration than any other medical problem.

If you are severely dehydrated you may not be permitted to continue riding. Nobody wants this to happen, so we are begging you to practice the simple rule of “Drink and pee... No IV”. It works.

If you are a rider please have either two water bottles or a camel back full of energy drinks or water. If you are a crew member you should also have fluids accessible to you at all times. You cannot rely on us, your medical crew, to hydrate you with IV’s as this year we will not be using IV’s at all. Like we said earlier, our goal is to have the safest ride possible and we need your help to do this.

Wear Sunscreen

Many of you may be out in the sun for over eight hours each day for the entire Ride. There is a huge potential for sun damage to occur, and in the worst cases it can be equivalent to a serious burn. We do not want to have to transport someone to the ER because they didn’t think they needed sunscreen. Even if it is cloudy you will need it and throughout the day you should reapply it. Although the medical crew will have sunscreen available for an emergency, we do not have enough to slather on every one of you. Please come prepared.

Stretch

Yes, as you may know already from training, you may experience pain in some parts of you body that you didn’t know existed. This is normal but there are ways to reduce this. Although doing calisthenics at 6:00am when you can barely open your eyes may sound like torture, it will pay off in the end. Stretching will help elongate the muscles and help prevent injuries during the day. Just pure training cannot be underrated either. The more miles you put in now the easier the ride will feel. As you know, the ride will be hilly. The more challenging training rides you can do before hand the better. You will thank yourself later.

Bring Your Meds

This includes not only your prescription medications but over the counter remedies as well. We can keep your meds in a refrigerated area and we will have times available for dispensing your meds. It is fine to keep them with you but remember that is does get very warm in the sun. Items such as ibuprofen, acetaminophen, TUMS and Immodium may come in handy during the ride so please pack accordingly.

Medications Details

Collecting Medications

• Medications will be collected on Day One before the Opening Ceremony.
• Participants will be required to read and fill out a "medications policy" form explaining the care, availability and final distribution or disposal of their medications.
• Medications must be placed in a waterproof zip-lock bag. It is recommended that only the amount of medication needed for the Ride be brought along.
• Medications should be divided by dose and day and individually bagged for the morning and afternoon coolers. The participant number of the person for whom the medications are being kept must be clearly marked with permanent marker on each bag. For confidentiality reasons, we ask that the participant's name not be included with the medications.
• Refrigeration of medications requiring a cool environment will be available. Refrigerated medications will be available in the morning at camp, at the lunch stop and at the camp in the evening.
• Medications will be stored in the camp medical area between 9:00pm and 6:00am and will not be available for distribution during that time.
 A designated Medical Crew is responsible for all medication distribution. The Medical crewmember and person owning the medication will be responsible for checking that the participant number on the bag correctly corresponds with the number on your ID badge. At no time will the Medical crew administer an individual's personal medications (including insulin injections).

Final Distribution/Disposal of Medications

• The final distribution of medications will take place at the Closing Ceremony.
• The participant will be responsible for signing an authorization to dispose of any medications not claimed.
• The Medical crew will not attempt to locate any person to return medications.
• All medications not picked up will be discarded as medical waste at the conclusion of the Closing Ceremony.