Leading a club ride is the simplest and yet the most essential contribution you can make to your club. After all, our rides are at the heart of who we are and what we do. Without our rides, we’d be just another social club. Those who have led rides before know it’s fun to do--allowing one to dream up unique and interesting routes to share with your friends--and they also have learned that it’s very easy to do...neither intimidating nor tedious.
The process begins with your imagination: envision a cool collection of roads or trails that you would like to inflict upon your fellow club members. It can be a basic route done many times before or it can be brand new to the list, or something with a special twist, like a visit to some event or point of interest. Once you have the germ of an idea, check your schedule for the weeks ahead.
If you’re unsure how to get this far, check the specifications listed in the left column on page 4 of the newsletter, next to the ride list. Once you understand our simple system, it’s easy to plug your own agenda into that template and plan a ride appropriate for you. And rest assured, if it’s right for you, it will be right for some other members of the club, as we have riders at every level of the recreational cycling food chain.
Many club rides are stored at the club website in the archives of past ride lists. If you need help coming up with a route, this is a good place to start. Beginning in 2005, all of our past club rides are not only on file at the website, but come complete with downloadable maps and route slips, so choosing a route is now just a mouse click away.
Find a date that works for you and then call or e-mail the club Ride Director (Bill Oetinger, 823-9807 or srcc@ap.net). Bill is also the newsletter Editor, so he can not only help you fine tune your route, he can polish up the wording of your listing in the monthly calendar.
For publication in the monthly newsletter, ride submissions need to be in the Editor's hands by no later than the 15th of the previous month.
That will get you on the calendar. Now what? Making maps comes next for most people. You can make your own from scratch or from copies of existing maps, but you don’t need to go to all that trouble. As noted above, the club offers ready-made maps and route slips for all rides on the weekend calendar.
As soon as the newsletter goes to the printer each month, we set to work producing route slips and maps for the month’s rides, and these are posted with the on-line ride list at the club website. (Gordon Stewart, who provides this service, should send you an advance copy of your ride’s route slip so you can check its accuracy before it goes on-line.) Anyone visiting the website can click on a link and pull up a printable pdf of route and map.
Print out as many copies as you think you’ll need. How many copies is that? Depends on how popular your ride turns out to be. Some club rides attract over 50 participants; others only a few. Not all riders will need maps and some can share one. Also, some folks will go to the website and print their own slips/maps for your ride. So it’s hard to predict. Figure on around a dozen copies.
Maps and route slips in hand, that brings you to the actual ride...showtime! Rookie ride leaders can feel a bit of stage fright at this point, as if they’re being judged for their performance in the role of ride leader. Relax! You have to understand that the riders who show up to do your ride are predisposed to have a good time. They’re a great audience, and if they didn’t already like the route you posted, they wouldn’t be here.
While non-club members are welcome on our rides, our insurance policy dictates that non-members must sign a liability waiver before the ride. The ride leader circulates this form (one form for all non-members). Waiver forms can be printed from the club website. On most rides, there are unlikely to be non-members, but if a form gets signed, it should eventually be given to the club Secretary.
If you’ve planned your ride correctly, so that it matches your own abilities and ambitions, you should end up staying in contact with the group. You may be leading from the front or from the back, but you can stay on top of things either way. Some ride leaders choose to lead from the rear, knowing the faster riders tend to be autonomous and the slower ones need more assistance. Others lead from the front so they can control the regroups and the pace. Almost anything will work, and almost all of your riders will be fairly self-reliant, so you won’t end up riding much differently than you would on any other club ride.
Ocassionally, problems do come up on rides. Sometimes a person will show up who is clearly out of their depth for the specs of the ride. If you find them falling behind over and over, you are within your rights as ride leader to advise them that the group may not wait for them at each regroup. (Talk to them: make sure they have a map, know where they’re going, and are generally comfortable riding alone.) We always encourage new riders to join us, and we make great efforts to include everyone, but it is important to remember that coming on a ride implies a contract between the leader and the participants. The leader undertakes to provide maps and guidance; the riders undertake to show up on time, to understand the published route, and to be able to ride competently at the listed tempo.
Sometimes an accident will occur. A rider may be injured or a bike may be damaged to the point of not being ridable. In these rare instances, the ride leader may need to deal with the situation in some way that changes the day’s plans. We deal with each crisis as it arises, and there is no single best way to sort each one out.
Fortunately, such cases are extremely rare. Most people leading club rides--on a regular basis over many years--will never have to deal with such a problem. Most days, your biggest challenges as ride leader will amount to deciding where to regroup and where to go for lunch after the ride.
Is leading a ride harder than not leading a ride? Of course it is. But for that small outlay of effort, you and your club and your friends will reap immense rewards. Give it a try. You might be surprised at how much fun it turns out to be.
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