downtube42

In my city of 35k, between the two bike shops and a number of individuals there's at least one organized ride daily. There is no organization between ride leaders other than keeping their events on different days. Most everything is organized on Facebook. We have a Wednesday evening ride with 300 people in the FB group and up to 100 on any given week - maps and Dan Henry's provided. Although no official SAG, if someone has a problem they will be taken care of. Heck, we have people delivering food to a guy who was injured in a bike crash a week ago.

Now there's talk of forming a club.

Fifteen years ago I was involved with a big, well organized bike club. It seems like 90% of what that club accomplished is already being done, partly enabled by easy communication via social media.

What would a club do for us, other than consume time? Are bike clubs still relevant?

bikemig 

Organized rides are fun. There is no substitute for real time interaction when it comes to passing along knowledge and motivating individuals. It can be hard finding riding partners; clubs supply that.

Edit: it sounds like there are individuals who do most of the "lifting" of a club in your town. Not every town or city has indviduals doing that work. Also what happens when they lose interest? With clubs, it is easier to get new people to take over some of the work.

Machka 

What about insurance? How do these organised rides handle insurance?

berner

In my area the bike club does more than organize rides. Club resources, money and time, are spent on charity work as well as cycling advocacy with local and state government agencies. The advocacy work results is more and better bike lanes and a heightened level of awareness by motorists so that over time riding a bike becomes safer. In my opinion, advocacy is the is the most important of the clubs activities. I can say the riding a bike here is a great pleasure. No one is throwing beer cans or soda bottles at me and motorists are courteous.

Mobile 155

Yes they are still relevant but maybe redefined. Social media has replaced some of the interaction and organization of the traditional bike club. In order to circumvent some of the legal problems created by our litigious society many bike clubs has assumed a more coalition form with only a few people doing most of the work. But even bike clubs with regular meetings can do that simply by having a signed waver by their members. And yes I know that doesn't always work but in most cases it does. Still Facebook, Google groups or Yahoo Groups even Strava clubs a bike club can be redefined. But what they also do is provide more support of an LBS. Most bike shops are willing to give a discount to local bike clubs almost like advertising. If the bike shop treats a few members of one of these social media bike clubs nice or gives them a discount then more than likely more of the club will use that bike shop.

So I guess there are now two different forms of bike club, formal and informal. The formal clubs still have a relevance because they are normally the feeder group to our racing cyclists. They do more for charity, they put on more organized and advertised rides and they more often have some political representation at least locally. The informal clubs often feed into the formal ones. Still even with social media or informal club someone has to put together the route or even have a ride leader and perhaps someone to ride sweep. So in effect it is still a bike club.

downtube42

The shop rides are probably covered. The individuals are either oblivious or carefree or have personal coverage.

Robert C

I went riding with the local club two nights ago (they ride on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday nights). I would estimate we had about 40-50, which is the usual crowd. We typically only ride about 40km.

I see it as being largely social; but, it does encourage many people to get out and ride (China is definitely no longer a nation of bicyclists); further, it encourages people to ride in an athletic manner. We require helmets and lights (but not really, a more realistic statement is that we strongly encourage helmets and lights. . . this is China, no one does what they are told).

There is a lot of communication on QQ (a low quality copy of MSN). As far as insurance, insurance is not common here even within the boundries of a club activity, the decisions a person makes are their own, as are the consequences.

I consider it to be largely social for me; as without the clubs I would have have little contact with the people in the cities I have lived in.

downtube42

Thanks, about what I thought.

Machka 

I'm having a bit of difficulty imagining your situation as I'm reading it, so I'm just going to clarify ...

If I were to visit your area on any given day ... there would be an organised ride I could join?

And on Wednesdays, I could expect to ride with 100-300 other cyclists?

(I'm having trouble imagining that because I've never lived anywhere with so many cyclists!)


When you get 100-300 cyclists together, insurance becomes quite a significant issue, but permits also become an issue. And that's where an organised club approach can help. The organising people within clubs can get the permits from the local government for so many cyclists to be on the road in roughly one place at one time (it is often an "event" or "parade" permit you'll need). With that many cyclists you also need to notify the police, and again, the organising people within clubs can do that.

knobster

I wouldn't say they are irrelevant, there are just more options available. More options is good. I belong to a couple clubs but I don't actually ride with them. Too big and they really seem to only ride the same rides over and over again. I do, however, belong to a couple meetup.com cycling groups and have participated with a few of their rides. It's not overly formal but the rides vary pretty heavily so you have plenty of variety in ride options and the rides are capped at 12 riders. I like that. They also do sweeps and regroup at certain intervals so a lot of different riders can join. So far, I like this type of setup.

aramis

Yeah 100-300 cyclists.. sounds crazy. I can't imagine so many people on a weekly ride.

In my area there is a social club that has slower rides (I think there are 4 rides a week) , with one longer ride on the weekend and then there are 4 non club rides during the week that are faster, one is a lunch ride. The big fast weekend ride gets 50-100 people and the other ones might only get a dozen or so, sometimes less sometimes a little more, maybe 20-30. The biggest town population is only 60k people though.

Mobile 155

Well in the US Critical Mass gave some an example to follow. If you have no recognized leader you don't get a permit. The Occupy movement is based on the same theory. Another example was this week when the 2,000,000 motorcycle riders decided to ride to Washington on the same day as the Million man Muslim march was supposed to take place. The Motorcyclists were denied a permit while the Muslims were granted theirs. Turns out the march was way less than expected but several thousand motorcyclists decided to go anyway. Their reasoning? "We have a right to the road and we wanted to see the place as a group of individuals." No one was arrested or turned back. It is almost the same as the concept of a flash mob. Someone sends out a text and 500 people show up at the mall, park, fountain or warehouse. Not saying that is what the OP is talking about but the principal is the same. I mean lets face it how many of the 1000 people someone has listed as friends on Facebook are "Friends"? Most are just people with like interest.

I once belonged to a binocular astronomy club and only met some of the people once a year for a Star party. Only found out about the party from social media where I also got directions to where everyone was going to set up.

downtube42

There are 300 people in the Wed night fb group... meaning the online group has 300 members. On any given Wednesday the number who show will vary from 30 to a max of 100. Typical is 40ish. There is in fact a shop ride the same evening, and they typically have 20. I've never heard an insurance discussion.

softreset

Here in the greater Sacramento, CA area there's more organized cycling than I've ever seen anywhere else in my travels. By greater I'm referring to Davis (West), Elk Grove (South), Folsom (East) and Roseville (North). For those unfamiliar with this area, it's about 20-25 minutes to get to each of those 'corners' from Sacramento. There's got to be 50+ clubs that I've stumbled across via various search engines and I have no doubt that there's significantly more. There's an organized ride, from one of these groups, 7 days a week (365 days a a year). It's also one of the 'perks' of living in this area, we can ride year round and there's a lot of opportunities for road/mountain bikes as well as hills, rollers and flats.

My problem with clubs is finding the right one. Because there are so many it can be difficult to find the right one. Most of the clubs have 'tiers' based on ability on interest and they're usually very up front about what is expected if you ride with that particular group. I went to a 'welcome new riders' club ride for a particular club several weeks back with an advertised speed of 14-17 MPH on flats, something that I felt comfortable doing for the advertised distance. I'm 31, 265 pounds and I don't kid myself that I'm overweight and out of shape but I've really enjoyed cycling the past several months and I can keep that pace/distance. At the 5 mile mark of the ride our average speed was 22.3 MPH, I was cooked and dropped. Thankfully two other new riders (who expected 14-17) and I formed a 'mini group' and got in the miles at our own pace.

A second group (different than the first) is very active with bike advocacy in the area and I applaud them for that. I went on the ride that was led by one of the club's leaders, introduced myself as a new member and made sure to pick an appropriate distance and speed. This group held to the speed (as advertised) but I ended up getting a 118 minute lecture about how to lean into a turn, how to position my hands on the hoods and how to god knows else what. Had I been unsafe or shown the visual appearance of being unsafe I could have seen the lecture or if I had asked for the advice, that's something else. I ended up dreading every mile and have yet to return to either club/group for a follow up despite their frequent inquiries.

TL;DR - I'm very fortunate that i live in an area with so many club choices. But oddly enough find myself in a position where too many choices have made choosing the right group to be extremely difficult.

Velo Dog

Boy, do I hate it that these discussions always devolve into insurance problems. If I fall off my bike, do I have to sue somebody, or can I just get up, put on a bandaid, straighten the handlebars and ride away like I've done for 40 years?

wahoonc

You and I will do that, but unfortunately there are quite a few people out there who refuse to take responsibility for their actions, either towards themselves or others, and there are plenty of lawyers ready to take on a contingency lawsuit if they think they can make a buck.

Aaron

Robert C

The trouble is that it isn't just individual decisions. If something is serious enough to become a medical insurance claim the insurance company is going to be looking for who they can pass the bill on to. Even if everyone involved has the same insurance company they will spend an inordinate amount of time trying to pass the cost to a different department.

The current medical insurance environment in the US is a classic example of market failure.

Back to group rides, it seems thet they are a common component of the Giant bike shops here in China, I have wandered into Giant shops in random cities in China while traveling and gone on group rides that evening.

carpediemracing 

Let's say you are paralyzed due to a fall. Who pays for your medical bills? Your care costs? After you lose everything you have, like your house, your car, your credit rating, who will pay for your medical care? Your estate's obligation is to get you your care. It's not personal, it's just trying to take care of business.

carpediemracing 

To address the original question, I think that bike clubs, in certain situations, are extremely relevant. The fact that there is even a Bike Forums indicates that people want to discuss cycling, in whatever form, and they can't find an outlet in real life or in some reasonable local proximity (on a schedule that meets their needs).

When I started riding I was fortunate to have a number of very experienced and smart riders around me. Through the various flavors of attitudes I tried to learn what I could, I applied relevant-to-me lessons, and I thought about ways that I needed to improve at an individual/personal level. It's very hard to have that kind of environment without going on a ride with at least one other person.

Most riders ride with folks similar in ability/skill. This doesn't promote learning. A bike club will usually have a wide range of rider abilities, both in strength and in skill/knowledge. Although it's easy to work on strength/fitness, relatively speaking, you can benefit a tremendous amount by learning skills, techniques, and tactics. For example there's a clip of an innocuous fall in a race someone posted recently. I saw, from my limited perspective, two glaring errors that may have helped the rider hit the deck. Without those two errors the rider may not have hit the deck. Without riding with that person regularly, without the opportunity to lean over and say, "yo, do this" or "hey, try not to do that", it'll be hard for that rider to learn how to ride better.

Finally it's literally impossible to work on actual skills virtually. Even with clubs it's difficult to get riders together to do something other than ride, like working on group riding skills (not "practice group riding", I mean work on "group riding skills"). Such an effort would have virtually guaranteed that the innocuous crash mentioned above would not have happened, at least not to the person that posted the clip.

Unfortunately it's hard to organize a club and do all that. As mentioned in an earlier response you need those "lifters" to carry the club. I happen to be in a club with a number of "lifters" and it's still difficult. I used to be one of two "lifters" in various clubs, and I'm basically the sole promoter of a two decade old race series. I tend not to spend much time giving energy to training/teaching new riders except as part of a clinic I started specifically for new racers in the race series.

Jseis 

A buddy and I are debating about forming a local club for all of the typical reasons, A&S, Health, Organized Rides. But I doubt we'd ever have more than 20-40 out of a surrounding population say 10K. Events are another matter. We'd likely organize under League of American Bicyclists.

Mithrandir

As someone who just discovered a bike club last year I have to say that if the club ever disappeared I'd be sad.

We offer 3-4 rides each day across my city. If you want to ride, you can just go to a ride start, sign up, and go for a ride. It's so unbelievably convenient, and there's no messing around with stuff like facebook. It's also great for out-of-towners trying to satisfy the addiction. I can't tell you how many times we've had someone visiting family for a few days come to a ride and just... well... ride!

Clubs aren't irrelevant. They're very relevant.

StephenH

Here locally, we have a ride that is supposed to be a club ride, only none of the riders seem to be in contact with the club itself. Result is I don't know who to contact to find out if they're riding, when they're riding, etc. So I'm sure communication is wonderful if you happen to know who to contact and get in their email/facebook/whatever loop, otherwise, they are completely out of touch.

gpsblake

We have the Palmetto Bicycling Coalition. I think they try, our Dept of Transportation gives them lip service, then completely ignores them on almost every road policy including rumble strips on state bicycle routes.

njkayaker

You are making this up. It's individuals that will sue the club.

??? What the heck are you talking about? Club insurance is usually just for liability.

carpediemracing 

Exactly. If someone goes on a club ride and falls and gets really hurt, how will the club insurance protect the club organizers? What's the limit? Who pays when the limit gets exceeded? How do you protect the club organizer's assets? This isn't even thinking about the rider who fell, I'm just thinking of the folks that, out of the goodness of their hearts, try to organize a club and organize some group rides.