I’m in need of a bit of help from anyone out there with experience of writing guidelines for club rides. I’m in charge of the Uni Cycling Club for the forthcoming year, and it has fallen on me to write some guidelines to be adhered to, and I’m struggling with how to approach this… Obviously a few things such as “must always wear a helmet” (not starting the helmet debate, but we’re not insured if members don’t wear one whilst riding) and “bring your own water and food” almost go without saying, but how much further do I go? This is the University Cycling Club, where many of them will be quite new to group cycling (on or offroad) and I’m trying not to scare them, it’s not the local road group full of CAT1+2 racers with seasons of experience so I don’t want to alienate people.

Any help or ideas?

The time posted is the leaving time unlike mtb rides were everyone sets off 10 minutes later.
Guide to hand signals.
Mud guards on wet rides.
Warning against half wheeling.
List of local cake stops 🙂

something like this?

Or this?
http://www.ilkleycyclingclub.org.uk/index.php?page=ride-rules-etiquette

Obviously written for roadies but same rules apply.

Bike safety check is the first thing on any group ride….
http://www.performancebike.com/bikes/Content_10052_10551_-1_BicycleSafetyCheck

Your club or riders may not be insured of there are no qualified leaders 💡
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/coaching/article/leader-Level-2-MTB-Leadership-homepage-0

The piss will be ripped out of you.

Obviously my post was for road rides. For mtb you don’t need as many.
Always have a tail end Charlie not the weskedt rider at the back.
Bring spare inner tube.
Make sure bike is working before turning up.
Bring get me home lights if finishing at dusk.

cheers_drive – Member
Obviously my post was for road rides. For mtb you don’t need as many.

This is the most important one 😆

This is the University Cycling Club, where many of them will be quite new to group cycling

Lots of kids starting off on Go-Ride clubs at primary school age so you may be surprised. I know lots of fit teenagers not at uni yet!!

Route Recces, map trace, First aider, when out, if you leave from the Uni at XX time then tell some one that you will be back No Later Than XX time, leave them a copy of the map trace and if nothings seen or heard then raise the alarm and they should activate the emergency process as outlined from the recce of the route that you conducted which is logged on the map trace with ERV’s, Rest stops, obstacles etc. it sounds a pain in the arse but if you are riding in a club and you have insurance these are the things that they will want to see if something goes belly up ?

If its a Club and the same peeps are riding week in week out then write in some refresher stuff.
Say as a basic level of competance then you will be at X level by X time / date etc and tested at certain times.

Make a kit list and ensure that individuals have have the bare minimum, failure to do this results in blah blah blah ! Extra Kit like group shelterif you are venturing into the wilds needs to be distributed between the club riders,
I take groups of disfunctional Kids out in some of my spare time and thats a proper nause, not omly from an admin & legal point of view but also trying to stop them setting fire to each other and stabbing each other !

Good Luck,

Route planner can be downloaded here

Leaders kit list…or shared amongst group

Obviously my post was for road rides. For mtb you don’t need as many.

FTFY

Sorry, mtb rulebook

1) Have fun
1.1) See above

List of local cake stops

😆 😆

FTFY

Sorry, mtb rulebook

1) Have fun
1.1) See above
Obvious stw “humour” 😉

mboy has been tasked with doing something that if there was a “club” before he arrived at uni should have been done?
Education 🙄

Trekster, that kind of thing yeah, cheers. As for the “new to cycling comment”, I met all the new intake at the Fresher’s Fair yesterday, of about 35 new recruits (a record incidentally!) about 5 or 6 were pretty serious cyclists, another 8 or 10 go out reasonably regularly, another 8 or 10 have recently got into it and looking to do more, and the remainder had literally just got a bike. I expect nothing, other than for there to be a considerable range of abilities.

bruneep, don’t follow… These are 18/19 yo kids, many of them need someone standing behind them saying “breath in, breath out” most of the time! Last year for the initial MTB ride, there was 10 of us, 7 of them didn’t even turn up with anything to drink, let alone a spare innertube or a bike that was even remotely safe… 😕

discoduck, cheers but probably quite a bit more involved than I need to go right now hopefully!

Rule Number 1 will definitely be, as suggested, HAVE FUN!

mboy has been tasked with doing something that if there was a “club” before he arrived at uni should have been done?

One of the reasons I think the club has been a bit disorganised in the past I think. And I’ve not so much been tasked with it, more I decided as (very reluctant, but nobody else wanted to do it and they all looked at me to do it) club Chairman to actually try and give the club some sort of stepping stone to half decent organised rides.

I’m hoping to get the club quite quickly to the point where organised rides just happen, there is some structure, and that I can rely that even though I may not have been there myself that the ride happened, safely, and that everyone enjoyed themselves and wants to repeat the activity… That’s the plan anyway!

7 of them didn’t even turn up with anything to drink, let alone a spare innertube or a bike that was even remotely safe…

This is why you see group leaders with huge bags…full of extras such as clothing, water, tubes, first aid kit etc 😐

It looks like you have 3 separate groups and it might be worth discussing with the other “good” riders if they would mind leading a “beginners” group for a while and others to take out an “intermediate” group??
Start and finish at same place and/or maybe meet somewhere on the route?
Presume you have routes planned, recced and risk assessed for all abilities?

Done the club start-up thing a couple of times and don`t plan on doing it again if I can avoid it 😕

How do you intend communicating with your group? Lack of/poor communication was the downfall of the last club I was involved with…
Are you familiar with the Bogtrotters?

I ran the uni mountain bike one year. What a thankless task that was.

You really do need to spell everything out as you’re very likely to get someone who’s at a complete loss without mummy to pack their bag for everything.

Your start time should state “wheels roling for” and stick to it. Once your ride is up and running, leave no one behind but don’t worry about leaving people in the car park before you start. Either that or accept that it will always start later than specificed and get gradually later and later.

Make sure everyone knows how many are in the group and when the first person reaches a gate, they count everyone through and join on the rear. This gives you a faster rider as tail end Charlie and should mix it up rather than picking on one person to ride at the back all day.

Give people a full list of kit to take and don’t be affraid to check before the start. Include a change of clothes for the drive back. I’ll never forget the guy who thought he could just climb back in my car covered in shite after a winter’s ride in the peaks.

Don’t expect everyone to say thank you.

The uni I was at wanted me to write a risk assesment, route plan and escape plan for every ride. Make sure you organise for idiots because like most organisations, they’ll look for someone to “scapegoat” if ever it goes wrong. Just make sure it’s not you.

Sorry if it sounds bleak. Best to plan for the worst and never have it happen. Good luck.

How things have changed. In my day you went to the pub to discuss where to ride next. You then all turned up for a ride, maybe puked up on your way round, and finished at the pub.

No rules or regs, and no one one died horribly.

Which is what I expected when I agreed to run the club. You can imagine has disapointed I was.

this is from motorbike trail riding days – so may or may not apply so well, and we went all over the place(ie often nobody knew the area), often picked up complete strangers etc, so we could see different scenery rather than sticking local

-appoint a navigator/leader and a tail end charlie, make sure EVEYBODY knows who they are and take a headcount and make sure everybody knows.
– anybody leaving early MUST inform group leader
– navigator/leader doesn’t open/close gates etc etc – the currently 2nd in line nips ahead (others may wish to help/share task).
– if you can’t see/make DEFINITE eye+signal recognition contact with the man behind at a junction/direction change you stop – and wait till you can.
– if you get lost go back to the place you last definitely saw other people on same ride and wait (but you should have stopped at a junction).
– navigator leader should adjust pace so that people aren’t getting left behind (but let people blast etc ony any obvious bits with rule that they waited at end/1st junction of any exciting bit

to be fair I think with a bunch of mates in a known area it’s different and mtbs are a lot slower so the distancing will be less*

ps – I went on an advertised/organised club mtb ride once – they left me behind – r soles.
ps – I went on another advertised ride, really nice bunch, they waited for me but rode so close together 10 of them went down at once………..

edit – clubs work when a few people work their botties off for the can’t be bothered vast majority.

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”

HTH

Emergency info to be carried by all the riders, next of kin sort of stuff (ICE number on phone).

How things have changed. In my day you went to the pub to discuss where to ride next. You then all turned up for a ride, maybe puked up on your way round, and finished at the pub.

No rules or regs, and no one one died horribly.

This^^ I hate all the risk assessing/who’s liable/are we all insured stuff creeping in to social rides .

🙁