Icicle 2017 – A Calculated Success!

The warmer weather that was forecast for Saturday piqued the interest of so many last week.  There were indications on Thursday that the Icicle might be well attended, and those indications were bolstered early Friday after reviewing the website statistics.

Activity on the WCBC website averages about 150-200  hits (or visits) per day year round, increasing to 300 or so leading up to one of our major events (Icicle, Doublecross, Shorefire and Savage).  But because of the unpredictable weather this time of the year, the Icicle usually doesn’t spur this type of website activity.  Last week proved to be historical, as we were averaging 460/day Saturday thru Thursday, with Friday tipping the seven day average to nearly 550/day.  

For those that like to review statistics, below is a listing of website hits searching for “Icicle Metric” -related pages and hits to the website as a whole.  As we got closer to the weekend and the weather forecast improved from a high of low 60’s to a high of mid-70’s the site visits increased dramatically.  

Throughout the span in the table below, visitors to the website in search of information about the Icicle Metric accounted for about 35%-45% of the activity, but on Friday 71% of the visitors were in search of Icicle information.  Even Saturday, the day of the Icicle, 45% of the website visitors were still looking for information about the Icicle Metric.  

When I saw this trend throughout the week I reached out to those that had volunteered to help and a few alternates and asked all of them to show up at Registration to get all of the riders thru registration as quickly as possible so they could get on the road without delay.

I found this very interesting and thought some of you might, as well.  This year’s Icicle was incredibly well-attended and our ability to use the Club’s website to gauge interest helped us to prepare for the turnout.

It’s just one more way technology is helping us make our rides better!

JW Haupt
WCBC Icicle Registration
WCBC President