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Riding buddy

Old 08-14-13, 02:20 PM
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Riding buddy

Really wish I could find a riding buddy, but haven't seen any Clyde's in the area. Any suggestions for finding one?
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Old 08-14-13, 02:29 PM
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a local bike club? your local bike shop? problem with a shop is most of those guys ride hard and fast ...
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Old 08-14-13, 02:30 PM
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Originally Posted by ill.clyde
a local bike club? your local bike shop? problem with a shop is most of those guys ride hard and fast ...
Yeah the guys at the shop much higher level than myself. Only bike club I could find was the university, again outside my fitness/skill level.
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Old 08-14-13, 02:32 PM
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sucks ... particularly your location. That's not going to be an easy find.
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Old 08-14-13, 02:53 PM
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Originally Posted by IAMAMRA
Yeah the guys at the shop much higher level than myself. Only bike club I could find was the university, again outside my fitness/skill level.
You could show up and give it your best effort. Here in Milwaukee, several of the local bike clubs have more relaxed rides. Bay View Cycling club has a social ride every Tuesday out of Bay View, and Cream City has the same sort of ride every Wednesday leaving from various locations around the area.
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Old 08-15-13, 07:39 AM
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If you live by a university there are likely faculty and staff that ride bikes. You might try what I have done which is work with your LBS and organize a moderate group ride a couple days a week.
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Old 08-15-13, 10:09 AM
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If the city or area has bike paths hit them and try to make a friend, I find the people on the paths ride slower and are generally more apt to ride with a friend of lower skill like me. After a while challenge them with further routes and street riding to see if they go for it. Wish I was in your area, your just the type of guy I'd ride with. I'm not interested in fast pace, just enjoying the ride and scenery and putting some healthy miles under my belt.
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Old 08-15-13, 10:57 AM
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The problem I found with my local cycling club was the beginner group had riders a lot slower than I was which is pathetic since I only average 15-16 MPH on my hybrid and they all looked more fit than I am. Then there's the next ride group up, of which were too fast for me (they average 18-20 MPH). I could work up to that, but they didn't seem very interested in me joining their group since I ride a Hybrid. I guess what I'm saying is, in my experience, if you don't ride a road bike don't expect to fit into bike club.

One recommendation given to me by the ride leader of the beginner group was to participate in an organized bike tour, apparently there are more recreational riders in those than the ones who pay dues to a bike club. He recommended a "Tour De Cure" ride but I missed the registration cut off and I don't know of any other group tours until next summer.

Like someone else said, ride your local MUPs - I occasionally have other riders talk to me at rest stops or ride along side me and strike up a conversation. Not everyone that rides the MUP wants a friend so don't be surprised if you just get a nod or wave.
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Old 08-15-13, 11:19 AM
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Originally Posted by MikeRides
The problem I found with my local cycling club was the beginner group had riders a lot slower than I was which is pathetic since I only average 15-16 MPH on my hybrid and they all looked more fit than I am. Then there's the next ride group up, of which were too fast for me (they average 18-20 MPH). I could work up to that, but they didn't seem very interested in me joining their group since I ride a Hybrid. I guess what I'm saying is, in my experience, if you don't ride a road bike don't expect to fit into bike club.

One recommendation given to me by the ride leader of the beginner group was to participate in an organized bike tour, apparently there are more recreational riders in those than the ones who pay dues to a bike club. He recommended a "Tour De Cure" ride but I missed the registration cut off and I don't know of any other group tours until next summer.

Like someone else said, ride your local MUPs - I occasionally have other riders talk to me at rest stops or ride along side me and strike up a conversation. Not everyone that rides the MUP wants a friend so don't be surprised if you just get a nod or wave.
That seems pretty fast to me. Everyone has his or her own level. No reason why you can't ride with the slower group for an hour or so, then see if there are a couple of faster riders who are game to take off and ride a little faster for the duration. Either that or, go with the fast group and hang on for as long as you can, just make sure you know the way back to the ride start.

I ran into this problem this summer, and in previous years with a cycling group my local health club organized. I showed up for one of their rides and the ride leader was a real life Izzy Mandelbaum.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcFSOnumgZA Anyhow, I never thought it would come to this, but the group went so slow, maybe 8 or 9 mph on a mostly flat ride. (and even with this, there was 1 guy who kept falling behind, though it hardly seems possible to get dropped when the group average is slower than 10 mph). With frequent stops and breaks to allow the slow guy to catch up, we only went 12 miles in 90 minutes. And then they were stopping for lunch. I skipped the lunch left the group and rode back to the start myself as I didn't count on a 25 mile ride taking 3 to 5 hours.

Another group ride I was on recently I wound up riding with just two other people. We were going really slow, maybe averaging 12 to 12.5 mph. One lady, riding a full carbon road bike was absolutely gassed after just a half hour. We had to slow down the pace to 11 mph just so we didn't drop her. Anyhow, I rode by myself another 25 miles after the group ride was over to get a workout.

I guess I am saying, don't count on finding a group ride perfectly in synch with your ability and riding style. And if you do, keep in touch with those people and coordinate your schedules so you can ride with them more.
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Old 08-15-13, 12:00 PM
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Originally Posted by MRT2
That seems pretty fast to me. Everyone has his or her own level. No reason why you can't ride with the slower group for an hour or so, then see if there are a couple of faster riders who are game to take off and ride a little faster for the duration. Either that or, go with the fast group and hang on for as long as you can, just make sure you know the way back to the ride start.
.
there were a couple riders riding my pace, including the leader of the group rode a converted MTB! The couple slow riders must have been doing 8mph max. I can adjust my riding to a slow group, but c'mon 8mph.. I think I would be better off running along side of them (not to say I could run 8 MPH with this spare tire around me). There was a strict no drop policy for this group, and because of this I didn't think to ask the faster riders if they wanted to pull ahead. I like a challenge so I was game for the 18 MPH average group, but like I said they pretty much frowned upon a Hybrid in the group even though I did manage to keep up for most of the 30 mile ride - dropped at the 20 mile mark. I do ride with a guy I met at the bike shop I bought my bike from every now and then, but he just upgraded to a fancy carbon fiber racing bike so I don't think I'll be able to keep up with him on my heavy hybrid. I still prefer to ride solo, where I can stop, slow down or pedal hard whenever I feel like it without slowing down or losing anyone in the process.

I'm just saying most of the time, roadies like to ride with other roadies no matter how fast you can ride on a Hybrid. And around here, most of the riders I see are roadies who are out of my fitness level.
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Old 08-15-13, 12:17 PM
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Originally Posted by MikeRides
they didn't seem very interested in me joining their group since I ride a Hybrid.
That is concerning. Wonder if there are hybrid groups?

Originally Posted by MikeRides
Not everyone that rides the MUP wants a friend so don't be surprised if you just get a nod or wave.
I get about 50% waves on my local MUP and about 1% if I ride a trail in Dallas.

Originally Posted by MRT2
I guess I am saying, don't count on finding a group ride perfectly in synch with your ability and riding style. And if you do, keep in touch with those people and coordinate your schedules so you can ride with them more.
Sounds like great advice. I find it hard to find someone that rides the exact speeds I like to go. When I go to the bigger MUPs, I just find a random rider that is doing my same speed and pace with them. Hopefully that's not too creepy
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Old 08-15-13, 12:41 PM
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Originally Posted by MikeRides
The problem I found with my local cycling club was the beginner group had riders a lot slower than I was which is pathetic since I only average 15-16 MPH on my hybrid
15-16 is quite fast, there are many ways of finding and average from distance over time equation to bike computers which may or may not dismiss stops and anything under 5mph, and ALL these can vary widely in their interpretation.

Like someone else said, ride your local MUPs - I occasionally have other riders talk to me at rest stops or ride along side me and strike up a conversation. Not everyone that rides the MUP wants a friend so don't be surprised if you just get a nod or wave.
Never know until you try. Give it some time, some may view it as creepy for a grown man to ask "Hey, you wanna ride bikes?" while others may be delighted. In this work a day world finding someone with a schedule remotely like yours can be a challenge too. Once caveat is to make sure they don't lead you down a path you can't follow. I'm afraid I got a little to far from home on two rides by the same fellow and the last time he bailed on me pretty far from home leaving me to go home alone. So check 'em out and take a few test rides and don't hesitate to say NO when asked about something you may not be comfortable with. I wish I had said NO the last time
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Old 08-15-13, 03:09 PM
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mikerides.....where in upstate NY are you?
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Old 08-15-13, 06:12 PM
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Originally Posted by Rootman
15-16 is quite fast, there are many ways of finding and average from distance over time equation to bike computers which may or may not dismiss stops and anything under 5mph, and ALL these can vary widely in their interpretation.
Yeah, it's quite fast to me for sure. I'm huffing and puffing running about 13 mph, but then I'm also on a POS Walmart bike. Riding with a coworker sometime next week and he said we'll swap bikes, though I'm sure he'll want to swap back after about 2 minutes, LOL. He's not riding anything significant, just one of the $500 jobs at Bike's Direct. Nice bike that I can see though and it will give me a chance to see what it's like riding a non-Walmart POS.

He's either peddling his tail off because he stays on the middle chainring and I think 7 out of 8 on the rear and says he runs about 12-13 mph. Must be vastly different than mine because there's no way I could run 12 mph on the 2nd chainring or my legs would launch me up like a helicopter I'd be spinning so fast. I'm on a relatively flat rails to trails along the river by myself and I thought I was cruising pretty good at 12-14 mph on the ever so slight uphill at the top of my gear ratio. Heading back which is ever so slightly downhill, I'm hitting around 15 mph and that's a good cadence for me. Any more and my legs will be flying way too much. I sprint the last half mile and can only get 19 mph peddling as hard as I can (without standing, too much torque and the chain starts jumping around somewhere.)
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Old 08-15-13, 09:30 PM
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Originally Posted by IAMAMRA
Really wish I could find a riding buddy, but haven't seen any Clyde's in the area. Any suggestions for finding one?
No. That's a problem.

But, what I found...
First off, in a big metro area (Dallas area here), there's lots of charity rides, where you go pay your $40 and you and 2,000 other people all go ride. So you're not riding with buddies, necessarily, but still not riding by yourself, either.
Secondly, the local bike shop here has a non-drop ride that I rode on pretty regularly on Saturday mornings.
Then if you ride fast, ride hard, ride long, eventually, you get less slow, then you do find more people you can ride with.
So that's where I am now. Weekdays, mostly riding by myself. Weekends, riding 200k on the tandem with a friend, with other friends along. Lots of fun.

You might contact local bike shops. You might try placing an ad in the bicycle section of Craigslist.
Good luck, and hang in there!
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Old 08-16-13, 09:45 AM
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You may also want to look on meetup.com, here is what returns for you area. https://bike.meetup.com/cities/us/wi/platteville/

Also, if none of those are appealing, you could do what I did and start your own ride. May take awhile initially to find people, but you will be surprised how many folks are looking for a group. In the case of my group we have five people, two are slower beginning riders who average 8-11 mph and the rest of us are in the 18-20mph category. How we organize the ride is the slower folks lead the way for the first 5-10 miles (depending on their strength and how far they want to go). The faster riders then split off and put in their miles at their pace and we all wind up meeting again towards the end of the ride. For example, two weeks ago the slow group did 20 miles and the fast 40 of those the first and last five were ridden together. This seems to work pretty well for us, since we are all very encouraging of each other and don't mind taking it easy part of the ride to help others get better/more fit to join us on the longer faster rides.
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