metalchef87

Hi. I have been seriously thinking of starting a local biking group in my town. The only type of cycling group around is a critical mass group that meets on the last friday of every month and slows traffic. I just want to start a group to take rides and get more people into cycling. I was wondering if anyone has any experience starting something like this?

I would like to focus the group on commuting as well, giving classes or even just tips to help more people to get into commuting. If anyone has resources that would help please let me know.

Thanks

Artkansas 

Well, I haven't started any bicycling groups, but I have started a couple of computer graphics groups. Here's my recommendation.

Make up a name. Then, find a place to meet. Restaurants, libraries and churches work. I've noticed that places that serve beer are popular.

Then find 3 or 4 people who might be interested, at least enough to get their picture in the paper. Write a good press release that explains the who, what, where, why, when and how of your group. Send it to all the papers in your area. Odds are that one of them at least will pick up on it and at least want to come out and interview and photograph you and the founding members. Make sure they get where and when you are having your first meeting and the contact address, email and phone number.

It helps to figure out what kind of structure you want and summarily create a constitution for the group. Keep it simple. Assume that 3-5 people will do all the work.

Have a really exciting first meeting and the rest will take care of itself. Be sure to send off publicity releases for each meeting. Get an email list and use that to keep the membership up to date with what is going on. And delegate, delegate, delegate!

Good luck!

littlefoot

Go to your local bike shop, talk to the owner, maybe post a flier if they will let you. Got craigslist for your area? post a message on there, free local paper, see if they will give you an ad, most will. Local college? post a flier or two there. talk to your local library see about getting a meeting room or church or eatery as has already been said. Resturaunts can be suprisingly helpful and might give a nice fat discount as well if they know you gonna have some #'s.

The local library along with one of the hospitals where I live has run a few more or less commuting by bike seminar type things. Which were publicized in the local paper. I've gone to both on my rig done their rides and talked to some people, really I was rather suprised the amount of interst people show at first then kinda go blah, after realizing hey this isn't gonna be easy. But at ea of these things I've been to I've met one person who is pretty diehard.

Recreation roadies almost always have a club, while not always into commuters, I sometimes believe they look on us all as DUI'rs, generally they are pretty well organized and might be worth sitting in on.
Mtn Bikers as well generally have good clubs, and like better beer. If you got either I suggest sitting in on a meeting while it might not lend itself to your commuting cause, you may find that one like minded individual that can be a great asset.

There are tons of books out there on making a non profit as well, if you are gonna go whole hog, do some searching in the local library when you look at getting at meeting room.

Start small, dream, have fun.

RedC

While not focused on comuters our bicycle club has had some success in attracting new members for a "casual" group ride largely do to the efforts on one woman's efforts. She's new to the club (had some previous experience elsewhere) but she has selected routes with printed turn by turn list for everyone, she has called people who rode with us before, contacted the local paper and personally made it a point to make sure to ride with each new person on the group. Our club has a "fast" group that has ridden together for years but has never been able to sustain a no drop ride for newbies before. Because of the efforts of one woman we've succeeded for four months and growing[/LIST]

riddei

Contact BikeForums.net member JohnBrooking. John is the organizer of the Portland Maine Bike Commuter Group. He uses a bulletin board from Meetup.com.

He is a wealth of information.

JMRobertson

Our local club (SLO bike club) has between one and four rides a day going 7 days a week. They tend to eat really good food on their rides, either pot luck or at a resturant destination. They maintain a pretty detailed website, you could look them up. I'm not sure of their membership, but it's well over 100.

JohnBrooking

Hi, metalchef. I don't hang out here all that often anymore, but I got your personal message asking for followup on this thread, so I thought I might as well answer publicly, assuming that other people might benefit as well. (A big assumption, maybe... )

As riddei says (he is a member of my group), I used the Meetup.com site to start a group, first online and then offline. The Meetup.com site is not dedicated to bicycling; rather, it is a general social networking site connecting people with common interests in common geographical areas. You sign up, enter your zip code (in the US, not sure how it works outside the US), choose your interests, and you can see what local groups exist that you might be interested in. The central organizing tools are a calendar with RSVP and reminder features to set up meetings, and the ability for people to find your group by the method I described earlier. (I've also had people say they found me online through search engines, so that seems to work pretty well too.) Other features of each individual group include a message board, custom pages area (with limited formatting and no scripting, but oh well), and storage for files and photo albums. There are also promotional tools to easily generate business cards, tear-off flyers, and other offline promotional tools, as well as the ability to copy calendar items to other online calendar such as Yahoo and Google.

I started the group in February 2006, out of a desire to meet other bike commuters, since I am primarily a commuter, not so much a recreational rider, hence was not plugged into the "cycling community", which as you know often centers around recreational riding. The growth has been gradual; it took me a year and a half to get to 100 members, but in the last twelve months that has more than doubled to almost 250! (Now, that's online members only. I still tend to get only a dozen or so to offline meetings, and there is a core group of about a half dozen who make up most of the messaging and meeting attendance. Riddei is part of that group. But, we are reaching a lot of lurkers, and that's part of the point.) Gas prices no doubt have something to do with the membership, but we've also gotten good coverage from some local newspapers, community radio, and even one television spot (on saving money). After a while, a lot of it is word of mouth. Also, this summer I've been advertising our "beginner seminars" in the local media, which can attract new people and also have the great side effect of alerting that media to our existence, so they might think of us when they want to do a related story.

It's also been good to get to know our state Bicycle Coalition, which is well connected, and has been the source of some of the media referrals as well as new members. Likewise, one of our members is a bike shop employee (as well as a Bicycle Coalition board member) and also a very outgoing guy, and he has referred a lot of his commuting customers to the group. So those kind of personal relationships are useful. I also have flyers up in all the bike stores. For a year or so, I attended meetings of our local Bicycle/Pedestrian Advisory Committee, a citizen's advocacy group, and met a lot of like-minded people there.

Last year, an organization called Green Streets started up here, to promote green transportation in general. I had met the founder a few years back in a bike safety training course, and we decided to combine many of our general membership meetings, since we have a similar mission, promoting environmental transportation options. That's another example of generating more momentum by collaboration with other groups. As with a lot of advocacy, it's a lot about networking. It's also sometimes slower than you would like, so don't get discouraged. If you build it, they will come, but only if you keep at it.

I should mention that Meetup.com does charge to organize a group, but not to belong to one. The charge to the organizer is ~$20/month (maybe more, I got a special deal for being an existing organizer when they first started charging), but you can organize up to 3 groups on that. Also, if you want to charge your members to attend the meetings, the calendar software lets you indicate that on the meeting notice, and even accept online payments. Personally, I usually just call it an optional $5 donation and set out my helmet at the event to collect any money that people want to drop in. I also buy red taillights and copies of Bicycling Street Smarts at a wholesale price and resell them for cheap, as enticement and also because I think those are both important commuting accessories that everyone should have!

So, I'm not saying you have to do it just like this, but this is my experience with my group. Regardless of the tools you choose to build your group, online or offline, I think networking with other cycling groups is key, especially those who are interested in the commuting or advocacy angle, which of course not all clubs are. Feel free to write back with specific questions, and good luck!

JohnBrooking

Meetup just happens to be offering a deal where you can get $15 off for being a new Meetup organizer from now until next Tuesday. Details here. Please let me know if you do this, because I can also get the discount by having referred you!