A plea for knowledge from the STW massive.

About 12 months ago, a group of us who ride together decided to get a little more organised and call ourselves a club. We email round a list of rides that we're going to do in the month so we know when & where to meet. We've put all our photos on a Flickr site so we can share them and laugh at each other. Now there's about 20 of us who appear at varying regularity. We've set an age limit of 16 (age of legal responsibility here in Scotland).

Now the question is, do we have to affiliate to the CTC or similar body?

If someone gets injured on a ride, can the sue the person 'leading' it?

If we're just a bunch of mates who meet up and ride and no ££'s are involved, can we avoid lots of legal codswallop?

Any insights much apprecated. One of our clan is doing his MBL and is worried he'll be in the lawyers crosshairs if someone was to get hurt on one of our rides.

Many thanks,

Rob

register with bc

K I S S

If it's just a club with no subscriptions or benefits and you all know each other, then just call yourself something and leave it at that. Print the T-shirts or whatever and just get on with it.

The complication happens when others want to join the club. At the very least, they need to sign a waiver saying that if an accident happens, although they are part of the club, the club cannot be held responsible for any loss or accident, regardless of the circumstances.

I'll gladly draft something for you as and when you need it.

Insure the club for £50 per year through the ctc and thats it. Then if your out and hit someone then if they sue 'the club' then no worries.
Through this membership with the ctc you get get individual/personal affiliate membership insurance for £12 each which also insures you abroad aswell i think.

Your home insurance may offer similar but for £12 its worth the peace of mind.

So apart from the insurance and website fee's thats all it costs us to run our club.

I don't think waivers have any legal value. The CTC covers club officials for £50 and individuals for £12 each.

following on from the above post the insurance only allows 5 non members out at any time.

As regards getting sued, anyone could sue you whether you are leading a ride that caused them harm or you crashed into them they could sue you. We had an instance were a member crashed into a car, i suspect if he had the £12 insurance offered through the club that he would have been covered.

only allows 5 non members out at any time

to clarify this, the CTC cover for non members indemnifies these 5 people if they're sued by members as a result of an accident:

the CTC can now offer limited third party insurance to invitees up to a maximum of five per ride. The third party insurance protects invitees against claims by CTC members on the ride but does not give protection against claims by fellow invitees or members of the public.

Loads of info on the British Cycling website here:
http://new.britishcycling.org.uk/clubs/article/clu-20090615-club-news-Useful-stuff-for-clubs-0
click on the top link, useful info for clubs, tells you all about registering a club. You automatically get a free Bronze membership (or you can buy Silver/Gold at discounted rates), tells you all about the insurance cover etc.
Affiliated clubs/officials can then organise club events (if you want to organise a local MTB race say) and be fully covered for all the insurance gubbins that goes with it. With Silver or Gold membership you are also personally covered for accident anywhere in the world while riding your bike.

Also covers invited riders, ie non-members who turn up for a club ride.

Agree with even SFB on this one, in today's litigatious crocodile swamp if you encourage someone to do something if it goes wrong almost anyone connected with that person could sue you even if they choose not to. Crazy Legs' answer is good and I recommend you not only cover the officials but you encourage the members to take silver membership if they do not already have 3rd party cover

I recall one situation where a guy in our club died on an organised cycling thing, at the funeral his wife told me she was at least comforted he died doing something he loved and she blamed no one. Later his parents sued the ass of everyone in sight, not because they blamed anyone, but they were astute and wanted what ever money they could find to be invested for his children in later life after they were no longer around, He had a very good company death cover and nobody could say they were not all covered well by that.

I know one local biker who was riding off-piste / in cheeky and hit a horse, he was not insured and the vet bills were substantial and he is still paying it off, So i also have BC silver insurance to give me 3rd party cover

Thanks everyone for the info, much appreciated. The BC site is indeed very useful. Looks like we'll be getting offical.

Cheers,
Rob

Do NOT register with British Cycling.

Next thing you know is you'll be ordered to attend the regional meetings and ordered to supply marshalls for time trials. And it costs money. You'll also have to have your AGM within two weeks of Scottish Cycling AGM and crap like that.
(if you have roadies that race you don't have much choice)

Affiliate to the CTC instead.

Technically if there's subscriptions involved you'll need a constitution etc. Your local council's sports dept will help with this.

Crispin
(Former chairman of Stirling Bike Club)

We were CTC affiliated once, and are going back to that now for the reasons stated above. It doesn't need to be onerous from an admin perspective, and it's buttons between a few of you for a bit of extra peace of mind, plus you get a voice in a cyclist campaigning organisation which can't be a bad thing.

For a MTB club none of that applies though…

StirlingCrispin – Member
Do NOT register with British Cycling.

Next thing you know is you'll be ordered to attend the regional meetings and ordered to supply marshalls for time trials. And it costs money. You'll also have to have your AGM within two weeks of Scottish Cycling AGM and crap like that.
(if you have roadies that race you don't have much choice)

Affiliate to the CTC instead.

Technically if there's subscriptions involved you'll need a constitution etc. Your local council's sports dept will help with this.

Crispin
(Former chairman of Stirling Bike Club)

Eh? We're affiliated with BC.

We've never been ordered to attend meetings. Invited, yes, as I'd expect but never ordered

We've never been ordered or even asked to supply marshals or anything else.

We don't hold an AGM

We have roadies who race

We don't have a written constitution and have only one rule – When racing, try hard but don't be a miserable git while doing it.

Phone calls at work demanding marshalls for a time-trial.
Threats of having all club members banned from races. "Told" to have a representative at Mid-Scotland Section meetings or riders would be banned from races. Road riders not getting a licence because one of the other clubs within the region hadn't renewed their membership in time.

The Clan Alba downhill team got treated in a similar manner many years ago.

I HATE British Cycling/ Scottish Cycling/ the Mid-Scotland

Mmmmm, food for thought. Been looking at CTC website. Does seem more, er, friendly.
Keep the insights coming.
Thanks chaps.

Rob

If someone gets injured on a ride, can the sue the person 'leading' it?

As others have said, it's got nothing to do with being organised in a club or otherwise.

If we're just a bunch of mates who meet up and ride and no ££'s are involved, can we avoid lots of legal codswallop?

There is little in the way of codswallop about legal stuff. How do you think lawyers like me pay the mortgage? 🙂

Why would you get a phone call demanding that you marshall a TT from British Cycling?
TT are regulated by CTT (Cycling Time Trail)

There are circumstances in which it is not possible to contract out of liability for personal injury. The rules are different north and south of the border, although I would be surprised if there was any material difference. I'm not 100% certain whether or not this is such a situation.

I might look into this, as this is probably something that would be of interest to a lot of people involved in unincorporated associations. Not just bikers.

There is a very definite way to limit your personal liability – incorporate (set up a limited company). This can be done very easilly and, so long as the company remains small, the year-on-year obligations are minimal.

I did this:
faq

and this:
Sussex-MTB is run entirely as a low key group of freinds who ride together, there are no fees involved, and we accept no responsibility for anything you may do to yourself on a ride. Ultimately you are responsible for your own actions so don't ride beyond your limits! Even the most experienced riders do make mistakes and the number of broken collarbones we share between us is amazing! So know your limits!

Yes mountainbiking can be inherently dangerous and although we will encourage you to develop your riding skills further it's up to you not to bite off more than you can chew. Our rides usually involve some challenging singletrack, drop offs or descents in some form. It's up to you to make an educated decision on whether you would want to tackle a trail obstacle or not. If you think it is beyond your skills there's no shame in saying so, it's better to finish the ride in one piece!

The only rule we actually insist on is: HELMETS MUST BE WORN if you turn up and you don't have one you're not riding with us, simple as that!

We're in the same situation in as much as we're an informal club. I don't lead all the rides by any means, but I do have the CTC's insurance for leaders.

Later his parents sued the ass of everyone in sight, not because they blamed anyone, but they were astute

Astute? Don't you mean selfish money grabbing bastards?

Astute? Don't you mean selfish money grabbing bastards?

Oh, I dunno, if I were injured on a ride in circumstances where blame could reasonably be attributed to another member I would sue, as I know they'd be covered by the club insurance, and it's win/win, either I get some money, or if the case is lost it serves to discourage litigation by others 🙂

"Why would you get a phone call demanding that you marshall a TT from British Cycling? TT are regulated by CTT (Cycling Time Trail) "

In Scotland Scottish Cycling has a bureaucratic regional mid-layer, in SBC's case it's the Mid-Scotland CA.
A club affiliates to Scottish Cycling via their region. When the Mid- holds a time-trial every affiliated club must supply marshals.

Simon, if you were injured on a ride I'd put money on it not being an accident 😉

Simon, if you were injured on a ride I'd put money on it not being an accident

listen, on a ride I'm more preoccupied with a) not falling off b) photography than being confrontational :o)

🙂