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Riding season is upon us! It is a true joy to get out and ride (even when the weather is a little cool). Several of ourmembers, new and longer term, say they joined the club to have someone to ride with. That apparently has worked better forsome and maybe not so well for others; for a variety of reasons. Mostly our members seem to ride with people that they havemet at our various organized activities but have now expressed interest in group rides or expanding their group of riding friends.
In the past we have had more group rides and fewer rides more recently. Mostly, I think, because members are reticent tovolunteer as ride leaders. Some people are intimidated by this and I understand their apprehension. You don’t know who willsign up, the riders who do show up may be better riders than you or want to go faster than you are comfortable, or just theopposite. It could be utter chaos and the group would look to you for control while still keeping the ride fun. The wholepoint is to have fun riding and maybe also find new riding friends.
In an effort to control the chaos, or at least make it manageable, the club’s on-line sign up allows the ride leader to limitthe number of riders and set parameters to suit your preferences. Things such as duration, start time (kickstands up) andwhether you are riding to a specific place (to have coffee or a meal for example). I personally like to start early andprefer not to ride with more than four other people.
Also, before the ride I have a pre-ride brief to outline where we aregoing and anything the group needs to know before we start. The following is the pre-ride brief I use and you may use, modify, ordo your own thing as you wish. It’s your ride. My intent is to help increase safety and limit the chaos, which assures theride will be fun.
Group Pre-Ride Brief
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