And yet under English common law there is no criminal liability for failing to act in the event of another person being in danger (exceptions apply eg a contractual or statutory duty to actor you caused the situation in the first place).
but criminal liability isn’t the concern - it’s civil liability; essentially you lead me on a ride, I screw up a big drop and end up in hospital for weeks/months and lose earnings etc. either my personal sickness insurance sues you or I do for my loss. The court then has decide if you owed me a duty of care - which will apply a three part test to determine if you did. I think there’s a good chance that they could if: the injury was forseeable (which will depend on what happened to me, how and why - but given people do fall off mountain biking and do get hurt it’s forseable) you organised/planned/promoted a group ride (even more so if that ride was billed as being open to all / new members / people who haven’t ridden those trails before etc) but there is proximity between anyone in the same club.
It’s a genuine question by the way, everyone bands around ‘you must do this’, ‘you must do that’ and yet every time I go looking for the ‘why’ or ‘else this will happen to you’ I come up completely blank…
I get really annoyed by people of the internet who make claims about things being illegal, or invalidating your insurance, or the imagine answering to the coroner etc, so I understand your issue but I’m sure there is definitely a risk of being sued. Of course not everyone who gets sued loses - but going through the process a lot of pain and stress.
So what is appropriate to expect from the point of view of the club member that his/her leader will carry?
A tube for every size, a quicklink for every groupset, snacks for the whole group?
no I don’t think you will be getting sued for not having a 29” tube with you! But I think a good club would remind people they need to bring their own spares and has a plan to deal with problems that can’t be sorted at trailside.
<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">now if you didn’t have a map with you, or a phone to call for help, or a way to keep a casualty warm etc - then I’d say you’ve neglected your responsibilities for forseeable risks. It’s probably also forseable that someone will forget something so a means to deal with that (pooling group resources?) rather than leaving a less experienced rider to walk home alone as punishment is probably sensible.</span>
which is a potential worry – someone whose closest wilderness experience is slicing into the rough on the 12th hole – is making a decision.
why do you think there are no Judges who ride MTB? After all mountain biking is the new golf! But I can assure you there are judges who do (or did) all sorts of outdoor pursuits. There are also Judges who have been club committee members, volunteers etc so they’ll have a feel for what is reasonable.
It all sounds very early 2000's. Like 'friends reunited' LOLz.
Is anything more than a Facebook group needed these days to arrange a ride with some like minded individuals?
^ even a cursory read of the thread above would answer that for you, Daveylad.
Important and worth reiterating, is that i/ even if you had disclaimers all over your invites / FB group / at start of the ride, then that doesn't discharge any duty of care thereafter; and ii/ even if everyone on the ride subscribes to this, it may not in the end be their decision.
Imagine the case for example where the self employed electrician comes off and dislocates their shoulder or breaks an arm. They can't work and decide to claim on their insurance. The insurance co asks how it happened, and on hearing it was an 'organised' ride their ears prick up. As said, you might not be held liable but having the wherewithal to defend the claim and the documentation about appropriate training / suitable RA considerations, etc. then become very useful.
@davead
It all sounds very early 2000’s. Like ‘friends reunited’ LOLz.
Is anything more than a Facebook group needed these days to arrange a ride with some like minded individuals?
I think you probably just need a what’s app group now if you are just a network of extended friends riding together. Presumably in 5 yrs WhatsApp will be dated too and it would need to be reborn again.
but a club is more than just a ride with some like minded individuals, usually a good club:
- welcomes riders with different experience levels (so are not all like minded)
- has some sort of structure/governance so it doesn’t pivot round one person who may throw a tantrum, stop riding, leaves the area, turn out to be letcherous to the female members and take the whole club down when they go
- has some sort of plan for the year rather than the next two weeks
- establishes positive communication channels with other local groups/clubs/landowners/organisations/councils which is easier if it has some sort of official “status” as a club
- has links to governing bodies and access to training/development/funding for those who want to improve (or even do things like first aid)
- may get discounts in LBS or coordinate group buys.
As a result they often end up handling other peoples money and this is best in a club account.
if like the OP they are particularly focussed on some health issues funding may be available, but will be much easier with a formally constituted group. It almost certainly needs promoted to reach that target audience than just word of mouth and so will have costs.
one thing the MAIB were quite scathing about the paddle board accident was that they didn’t have contact details for the “next of kin”. I suspect lots of informal friends groups suffer that issue - “we just call him Dave, I think his missus is Louise - and the live in that new estate on the outskirts of town” and many clubs may not be much better (certainly I’ve been on road rides where nobody knew me/my details so had I been killed the membership secretary might have had quite a job unpicking a description from just a (fairly common) first name, rough age etc. Assuming of course anyone could contact them in the first place!
Join BC as a let's ride club. You can advertise your ride and put the route up, facility for risk assessments. Beauty is you will build a bank of rides. I would definitely recommend a couple of folk get guiding/leading tickets or at the very least first aid certs.
The suggestion to swap the committee around every couple of years is a good one but in my experience,of several decades with two clubs, it will be a very small minority who have the committment to do anything. No one will put their hand up and it will soon end up at an AGM where someone proposes that "we all stay as we are because the rest of the club are too lazy to do anything". You'll also find that this committee will soon become rather middle aged as this is when people get more of a communit spririt and also have a touch more free time (once the kids have gone)
Thanksfull not universal but enough that ou should be aware of it.
Depends if people are in it for themselves or looking to do something bigger.
I've seen good clubs do a whole variety of things *as well as* riding bikes - negotiate for better access, fund trail improvements (replacement bridges/gates etc), pick up litter, plant trees, cut back brambles, fix local kids bikes, organise beginners rides, school holiday kids groups, charity film nights - all sorts.
Perhaps the world would be a better place if more people took the same approach...
Great ideas and it does happen but we live in a world where people pay for someone else to do the donkey work. Hence the rise of sportives, commercial hare and hound motorcycle races etc.
If you want the structure, back up etc of a governing body then affiliate and do things formally. If not 8just go out with your mates.
My only question is this
does it need to be a club?
I run a MTB group on FB with over 6000 members, we take out rides multiple times a week.
It's just. mates. riding bikes.
For disclosure, i am MIAS 5. but that. has little. difference on the rides.
Is it possible your MIAS training/experience has a lot of this stuff covered with the stuff you do so it is all done as just what you do for a ride?
Asking as the training I've been doing a lot of it seems to be what I do already - some needs to be more formalised but most is already done/considered...I'm just curious to know if all your experience/training is used as just what you do.
Missed the edit button timeslot due to trying to cook food!
I'm asking as I'm hoping it does as I suspect the more I do the more it becomes second nature...a lot of the stuff I was already doing (to some degree) but I wasn't really aware of why other than it seemed sensible to do. The more I do the more I hoping it becomes better and sleeker...
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I used to be part of a very welcoming and friendly club the reason it worked (imo) was because everyone was in the same boat and looked out for each other. Over the years we had the discussions about ride leaders, insurance etc.
My thoughts are you need to be clear on the limits of your club and if it is going to be a club. If you run it as one (and take membership fees) then people can reasonably assume you have a certain level of competency. If you end up taking someone down a trail that they arnt capable of riding and they have followed you blindly then if you are a ride leader you can expect to be in a world of pain. Pre flights checks, meeting points, peoples capability, peoples expectation all fall into this.
Once you get to kids being involved you have an even greater expectation of a duty of care. Are they safeguarded etc. Its all potentially worrying stuff but we had a few people say can we drop our 14 year old off with you for a ride. Yes they were more capable rider than anyone else but if they had an accident who would have been held responsible?
Riding as a group of friends removes a lot of this. but you still need to be wary.
As the groups of regulars get faster you end up with people wanting different things. The regulars don’t want to look after the newbies as they want to do the rad stuff. Then the newbies get scared off. It’s a balancing act.
I would stick to specific start and end points and not change the day of the week. 1 to 2 rides a week max as people will then migrate to different groups on different days. Then it all falls apart and becomes just a few friends as opposed to a club that will attract new members.
Stick to one communication stream. We used to use facebook but due to a lot of the facebook members not going on rides people were worried about getting their bikes nicked so various other methods were used. FB is the easiest imo but others will disagree.
Remember why your doing it. When I used to ride out it was because I needed the exercise (still do) and I liked helping folks out. If your doing it to promote mental health or just to get folks together be clear on that from the start.
