General Cycling Discussion - looking to start a bike club at school

i am 15 years old and a freshman in high school. i am currently doing track, but have shin splints so i cant run. ive decided to make biking my main focus. so, i want to start a bike club at school. i have absolutely no idea what to do. road vs mountain? when? ect... do you guys have any suggestions? thanks.

-matt

First you need to get the interest of a few friends, then you need to talk to an administrator and display your interest and find out what to do. I've tried to get something together here at college but its tough, but mostly because nobody rides around here. Most likely, the administrators would see road cycling as "safer" than mountain biking, so maybe shoot for that to start. Good luck, and DO NOT give up!!

First you need to get the interest of a few friends, then you need to talk to an administrator and display your interest and find out what to do. I've tried to get something together here at college but its tough, but mostly because nobody rides around here. Most likely, the administrators would see road cycling as "safer" than mountain biking, so maybe shoot for that to start. Good luck, and DO NOT give up!!

just go to a real bike shop and join their clubs.

that's not the same as having one at school. Besides it looks good on your college entrance thing if it says you started a club.

Nobody at my school bikes alot so if I started a bike club it would be me and my into to business teacher.

i would say put up some signs or make an announcement that you are starting a bike club...have a meeting and see who comes out. if a decent amount of people come out then see if they ride mtbs or road. heck, if there are alot of people you can have the best of both worlds. then once you have established how many and what youre riding come up with a schedule for training rides etc.... if you are going to raise money then maybe appoint a treasurer (make sure it is somebody you trust). also bring information on racing licenses and the sort. if you know an actual club leader talk to them or even your lbs might be able to help you if you have any quesitons on the legal matters.

In my experience, if you want to get a club started in school, you need to find an enthusiastic faculty member (or two) involved to sponsor the club. Of course you also need fellow students who are interested, but ask whether any of the teachers are interested not only in sponsoring a bike club, but participating.

As I've written in another thread that when I was in H.S. 25 years ago, the bike club was very popular. We had two teachers who were avid cyclists and they organized several centuries and even two day trips.

Of course, your mileage may vary...

There's nothing wrong with getting an area bike club to mentor your school's cycling club. You'll likely find the organized club willing to help out if you ask the right person.

Also, if you host an introductory meeting consider having a charismatic professional or collegiate cyclist address the group.

Good luck.

I am now in my third year of college, so not that far out of HS... There were some students in my HS that were into mountain biking, but I don't know of any that were into road, but that doesnt mean they don't exist. You will probably get more general interest in mountain biking. I don't think anything says your club can't do both though. Some days on the trails and some on the road.

Get some friends who are intrested as you are in getting a club together. Talk to administration and get some flyers or announments going and see if you can put together some meetings in the future and see who attends. A few people did that and put together a pretty decent paintbal team.

Make sure the club is fun. The club here at school has become all ROTC Road/Tri geeks and is about as much fun as pulling teeth... it used to be a lot of fun with a lot of beer, er, high carb energy drinks, and a lot of watching such great movies as American Flyers and Breaking Away, with a lot of training disguised as fun rides. Now its just lets go out and ride 500miles today and hear about what the board members of the club have done cause they are so awesome. So basically, in ONE semester we went from having 15-20 at our meetings to having 4-7 people at our meetings, INCLUDING officers. Because its not fun and the officers suck.

Definately get allies in the form of the LBS and the local bike club. Get the LBS to sponsor you by giving like 10% off labor or something. Start racing ASAP and when you start posting worthy results start looking for local sponsors and try like Clifbar, Cytomax, Defeet and all those guys too. They usually hook up school teams somewhat.

ahhhh yesss.
my 2 bestest friends and i wanted to start a bike club also. we had to get signatures from students to show the student association that there was an intrest for the club. we got all the signatures needed and started the bike club. when it came up for the first metting only my friends showed up :S we still biked and had fun. maybe no one showed up because it was on a weekend? i am going to try harder next semester, maybe a bike-commute-to-school club were we would meet up in town and bike to school all together. (me dreams of critical mass to school, droool)

You might check out this (http://users.lmi.net/fritz/league/docs/MANUAL2.html) site.

You might check out this (http://users.lmi.net/fritz/league/docs/MANUAL2.html) site.

NICE i been trying to find a site like this! thanks a mil. you the BEST PROSODY EVER!!!

ahhhh yesss.
my 2 bestest friends and i wanted to start a bike club also. we had to get signatures from students to show the student association that there was an intrest for the club. we got all the signatures needed and started the bike club. when it came up for the first metting only my friends showed up :S we still biked and had fun. maybe no one showed up because it was on a weekend? i am going to try harder next semester, maybe a bike-commute-to-school club were we would meet up in town and bike to school all together. (me dreams of critical mass to school, droool)

Thats my dream too. I am just waiting for this current bike club to completely disband (its close... cancelled meetings for 3wks straight now!) and hopefully I can get something like that going here next year. Meetings are usually good on a Tuesday or Wednesday night it seems... Thursday and Friday are party nights, too much workload on Monday...