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Dear Friends,
We are eager to give you a status report, now that we have completed some of the work we described in our update sent at midnight on Sunday. This update went out to anyone who had created a 2023 profile (for RAGBRAI services) at pkbelly.com:
"A Note on PBV Registration"
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Last year's 3-week sell-out did not prepare us for a 30-minute sell-out this year, and yet, we are making good progress.
This afternoon, Kay began notifying those who are clearing the waiting list for Weeklong Support. She will try to complete this task by 9:00 tomorrow night, February 2.
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ABOVE: Kay, writing to rider after rider,
letting them know they have cleared
our wait list for weeklong support.
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Please keep reading, but first, we need to notify those who have inquired for the first time on Monday, Tuesday, and today...
PBV Is CLOSED to New Inquiries
for the Time Being.
(This pertains to our Weeklong Support, our Partial-Week Support, and our Rental Tent Service.)
For those who have just begun to consider Pork Belly Ventures RAGBRAI Charter after Saturday night or Sunday, we need to bring you up to date. The moment we opened for the 2023 RAGBRAI season, some of our services sold out: Weeklong Support, Partial-Week Support, and the add-on service, Tent Rental and Set-Up. These services filled in a matter of minutes on Saturday night, January 28th, and we immediately started taking names for waiting lists.
Until we satisfy those on the waiting list, our support and tent services will remain closed. If/when we would open these services, we'll make an announcement.
You may certainly sign up for our shuttles at pkbelly.com.
For those who are not on the waiting list. other RAGBRAI Charters are listed on the Charter page at RAGBRAI.com. We are sorry we won't be spending the week with you, and we wish you a wonderful RAGBRAI.
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Confirmations Have Been Sent
(from Saturday night registrations)
Pete has spent many hours, reviewing 1800+ registrations and removing duplicates. Though the credit-card processing service was overwhelmed on Saturday night, our website did retain services on registrations in the order that they were submitted, along with all payment information. If riders reached the "Make Payment" page, their data was preserved, and they should have received a confirmation email by now.
Confirmation emails were delayed, but day-by-day, Pete has finally caught up and sent them all.
If you didn't receive yours, it may have gone to spam or you may have an error in your email address on the registration. Please login again to review your services and see that your payment has been applied.
If you did reach the Make Payment page before sell-out, and you didn't receive your confirmation or if you don't remember your login credentials, write to [email protected].
(We appreciate your patience on the reply, as Pete is receiving an inordinate number of emails.)
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New EXCEPTIONS/POLICIES for 2023 ONLY
Some folks are cancelling and making other arrangements. We completely understand the need for peace of mind. This is a difficult situation for so many people.
2023 Temporary Exception on REFUNDS: Until February 10th, if you cancel your services with PBV, we will make a 100% refund. This is only fair, and we are glad to do it. If you have decided to cancel, please write to [email protected]. We wish you a great ride.
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2023 Policy on Non-Transferable Services
We understand that our services could be offered for sale at very high prices--on eBay or wherever. For the 2023 season, we will not allow transfers. Don't buy it! We will fill from our waiting list. We are the only ones who can sell our services.
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Stand By on the Tent Waiting List.
The tent service is more than full. Cancellations don't begin to happen until May/June/July. Our refund deadline is June 15th, and we usually see a wave of cancellations just before that date.
We are keeping the tent waiting list, but we are not even working on tents right now. Please don't write to us about the tent waiting list or to renew your request for a tent. Email is very heavy, and we won't be able to address those questions for some time.
If the rental tent service is your deal-breaker, by all means secure a rental tent with another charter and ask for a PBV refund by February 10th. We understand and wish you a great RAGBRAI.
At this time, ALL of our efforts are going into the waiting list for support.
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Wait List for Support
Kay and her team have scrupulously kept the waiting list in chronological order. As we said at the top of this email, she has begun notifying those who are clearing the waiting list for Weeklong Support. We will try to complete this task by 9:00 tomorrow night, February 2.
RIGHT: Bella, too, is working away this evening,
helping to notify riders that they have cleared our waitlist.
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The Size of Our Charter
We're trying to include as many riders as we can without compromising the quality of our service.
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We Miss the Old Days.
We deeply regret causing you uncertainty. Please know that we miss the times (like 2021), when we could always say, "No hurry. Take your time, and sign up when you're ready."
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We will continue to be in touch.
There are many wonderful ways to do RAGBRAI, and this year's ride will be even more awesome than usual! Our very best wishes to everyone--whether or not you can join us--for a memorable and epic RAGBRAI 50.
Sincerely,
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P.S. We've had some questions. To clarify for all, this is what happened. PBV published an update, "A Note Before We Go," on Friday, January 27th, saying that we expected to open registration between 7:00 and 10:00 PM Central Time. That was the best info we had at the time. The route was indeed announced at 8:15 PM or so, by means of a pre-recorded video. As soon as the last town was announced, we opened registration right around 8:25 PM. We received our first waitlist request at 8:53 PM. Within an hour, we had hundreds of requests. Since then, our team has been going full steam in an effort to be fair and to serve as many riders as we can. | | | | |
