Machka 

1. Get insurance. Most cycle clubs who run rides have insurance ... talk to your local cycle clubs to see who they get their insurance from.

2. If you are going to clog up any roads with cyclists, get an event licence/permit from your local city hall and/or the police. You need permission from the officials to hold up traffic or you can be ticketed and fined.

3. Go ride other group rides and see how they do it. That one group ride you did sounds odd ... go on some others with other clubs and see how they run their events.

4. When you go on other rides, you will likely discover that many clubs require you to sign an event waiver prior to riding with them. Talk to the club officials about those waivers.

There is a lot of legal stuff involved in organising a ride.


Once you've got your insurance, done up your waiver, got your licence/permits etc., then consider the route.

Pick a route with the least amount of traffic as possible. Go ride the route on the day of the week you're considering at at the time of day you're considering. Some routes can be very busy during the week, but light on the weekend or just the opposite. Some can be busier at certain times of the day and not at others. Find out.

Do up a cue sheet and map for the route so that riders can find their own way there, and indicate that they can ride at their own pace. Don't require riders to stay together in a bunch ... that's just asking for an accident.

Incidentally ... 10.5 miles to a park and 10.5 miles back is not an epic ride. It's a very short ride that would not likely appeal to "A" riders. The type of event you're talking about would most likely appeal only to very casual recreational cyclists. I doubt you'd have a problem with fast riders showing up to something like that.

One of the unfortunate things of a ride that short is that riders won't have a chance to spread out. However, maybe if you have a start time of 8:30 to 9:00, and allow riders to go when they are ready between that time they'll spread out on their own. When riders are spread out, you don't have to worry about intersections etc. ... it'll be no different than when you and the other riders are out riding on your own. Just follow the rules of the road like you normally would (and put that comment on the cue sheet and map).

And if you have in mind that riders will park their bicycles at a park and go off and do other things during the day, you'll need to ensure security for the bicycles ... more than just locks. Something like, perhaps, a designated bicycle watcher. The last thing you need to deal with is stolen bicycle(s).