On The Road
by: Bill Oetinger 7/1/2003
The Power of Many
In my last column, I wrote about the joys of riding alone. This month, just to balance things out, I want to write about the joys of riding with a group, or more precisely, I want to write about bike clubs.
I had planned to write a column a year or so ago urging y'all to join your local bike club(s). But someone beat me to it with an essay in a bike magazine. Pretty much everything I was going to say was said in that piece. I didn't want to seem like too much of a copycat, so I shelved the topic for awhile. Now, I figure enough time has gone by that I can resurrect the theme without it seeming too redundant. I have searched through the stacks of old bike periodicals stuffed into boxes under my desk, trying to find that article again...not to plagiarize it, but to give credit to the author for articulating the points so well. I can't find it though, so, to whoever that author was: a tip of the hat for a job well done. I hope I can say it as well...
I love riding alone, as noted in my last column. But riding alone, for all its charms, will only take you so far along the path to becoming a complete cyclist. There are so many ways in which riding with a group will enhance your cycling experience, I hardly know where to begin to itemize them all.
First off, there is the simple socializing: the interaction with one's fellow club members on a ride. I rode alone for many, many years. Typically, I would get up early, go out by myself, and ride hard, non-stop, for two or three hours. I'd be home before noon, with plenty of day left for other activities. On my first club ride, I was introduced to the concept of regroups...of stopping periodically to let riders catch up. Initially, this struck me as a collosal waste of time...just standing around for ten or fifteen minutes, several times during the course of a ride. I didn't get home until mid-afternoon! It took me a few rides to get to know some of the other riders and to begin to mingle and schmooze with them during these regroups (and also before and after the rides). Over time, I came to cherish this social aspect of rides...the opportunity to chat and laugh and exchange ideas (about bike lore and about life in general). I had no idea bike riding could have a social component! It does, and it has become one of the most important social outlets for me (especially as I work alone at home). How much you like interacting with your fellow human beings will determine how much you enjoy this aspect of hangin' with the homies, but unless you're a complete misanthrope, you will derive some measure of pleasure from bike club society.
Most clubs will also have monthly meetings and assorted other social functions scattered through the annual calendar...dinners and picnics and lunches...so there will be many other opportunities to be gregarious and social.
Next in importance are probably the bike skills one picks up from the group. Cycling at anything approaching an advanced level demands a fairly high degree of skill and experience. Folks who aren't serious about cycling assume we learn everything we need to know about riding a bike when our dad lets go of our saddle and we first wobble off down the sidewalk without the training wheels. It's this same, simplistic assumption that makes sportswriters sneer at the accomplishments of Lance Armstrong and Greg Lemond. For more on this topic, see my column That's why they make the big bucks.
Even if we're not riding at the level of the pros, there are still dozens of subtle little techniques and judgements required for pack riding, pacelining, climbing, descending, and so forth. None of these skills is natural. All have to be learned and honed over time, and there is no other way to do this than by riding with and emulating other, more experienced cyclists. There are also fine points of bike etiquette and protocol that can only be absorbed and understood through interaction with the group.
Just one example: put someone who has rarely ridden in a group into a rotating paceline. Watch them suffer and muddle through the changes of tempo from pulling through to dropping back. Give them a few pointers, until finally you see the light bulb go on...as they find the rhythmn and flow... It's always a pleasant moment when that happens; when they see how effortless and efficient it is to share the load this way, and how much fun it can be!
If you're a beginning rider, you can--and should--seek out bike skills clinics put on by professional instructors. But these are not readily available, and failing that, your local club will be the next best source for acquiring these skills. You can also learn a little of this, at an abstract, academic level, from articles in bike magazines. But nothing can really replace day-in, day-out riding with other cyclists for polishing up your abilities and general bike smarts.
Another benefit of riding with a club is what I might call motivation. If you ride alone all the time, it's altogether too easy to let the riding slide...to find reasons to leave the bike in the garage and do something else this weekend. It all starts to be the same old same old after awhile. But if you belong to a club, several things will happen to keep your biking enthusiasm on the boil. First off, you'll get your monthly newsletter, which will contain your monthly ride calendar. Look at that! There's a cool ride this weekend, all laid out for you on roads you might not have thought of doing, and all your friends are going to be there. If that doesn't get you to put down the remote and lever yourself up off the sofa, I don't know what will.
Then, when you get out on the ride, you'll be motivated by the natural dynamic of the group. Even if you don't think of yourself as a competitive person, just being in a group will get your juices flowing and your cycling will perk up...maybe only a little or maybe a lot. You'll build fitness without even noticing it happening, and before long, you'll be riding at a whole new level, mixing it up with the faster riders in your club. I'm not assuming everyone wants to turn into a racer, but even at a relaxed, recreational tempo, riding with the group will jazz up your fitness and friskiness.
Over time, you'll probably become better friends with some of your fellow club members, and your little sub-club of pals will slap together rides to supplement the official weekend club rides...little weekday capers of your own. At the other end of the spectrum, your new friends will encourage you to join them in traveling to centuries and other bike events far from home; to go on catered tours or even to organize tours of your own. Once you're plugged into the group, there's no telling where it will take you...a long way from the solo ride, or worse, the solo not-ride...the I-don't-feel-like-riding-today not-ride.
Bike clubs have a sort of critical mass of energy and resources that individuals can never muster. Bigger clubs with active members and dynamic leaders can be powerful engines within the community, for both bike-related activities and for outreach to the larger community. Most big clubs sponsor rides for the larger public...annual centuries or doubles or something similar. These are a staple of the recreational cycling calendar, and the best of them are terrific events. Most of these events have two goals: to entertain and support the participants and to raise money, typically to be passed on to some good cause. A third, trickle-down benefit of these events is that the hundreds (or thousands) of participants who do them leave a lot of dollars behind in the communities where the events are held...lodgings and meals and gas and touristy purchases. One way or another, club-sponsored bike events enrich both the cycling community and the local community.
Another nice by-product of club-sponsored events is that the sponsoring clubs tend to acquire scads of equipment for putting on the events, from ice chests to first aid kits to canopies and folding tables, and most clubs will allow their members to borrow this stuff for their own campouts and tours when not otherwise in use. It's just one more little way in which affiliation with a club can benefit you.
Lots of other organizations try to stage bike events as fund raisers. But no one does it better than a big, active club. Why? Mostly because of all those active members, who will be called upon to volunteer a little of their time at one of these events. If you see yourself as too busy to volunteer a little time now and then to make one of these events happen, then perhaps joining a club is not for you after all. (But if you do feel that way, ask yourself how many of the centuries, doubles, crits, and other bike rides you like to do would happen were it not for volunteers. Answer: none.) Most club members do volunteer to help out, and I feel confident in saying that most find the experience enjoyable and rewarding...giving a bit back to the community one or two weekends a year so that they can then go to other clubs' functions on all the other weekends of the year.
Clubs can be a political force too. With their newsletters, websites, e-mail lists, and phone trees, a large amount of information can be quickly disseminated throughout the extended cycling family, and a large number of highly agitated activists can be focused on whatever the issue of the moment happens to be. I noticed a great case in point recently. Men's Journal magazine had published a rather irresponsible piece on great roads for going fast in sports cars. At least one of the roads so highlighted happens to be one of the favorite, quiet backroads of the Grizzly Peak Cycling Club in Berkeley. Well, the editors of the magazine might as well have stuck a stick in a hornets' nest. The Grizzlies mobilized their members, and within a very short period, the magazine's offices were under seige from an assault of e-mails and calls criticizing them for recommending that reckless speeders be directed to their favorite backroads. The uproar was significant enough that the point was made, and the magazine printed a retraction and apology in the next issue.
That's a rather colorful example of a way in which a club can channel energy into an issue, but there are numerous, more mundane ways in which the same thing can happen: pressure brought to bear on city councils, county supervisors, state legislators; appointments to bike advisory committees; contributions to bike lobbying organizations, etc. No one in government or business is going to do a thing for cyclists' rights or cycling infrastructure without having their arms twisted, and no one does that better than the collective members of bike clubs.
I could probably itemize another half dozen general headings and trot out an endless inventory of anecdotes to illustrate the various points (about why joining a bike club is a good thing), but I think I've at least hit the highlights here. If you're already in a club, you can undoubtedly add some other reasons of your own that I overlooked. If you're not in a club, check one out in your neighborhood. Cycling is popular enough that most towns of any size will have at least one club and sometimes several, each with its own, slightly different spin on what makes a club run. If you can't find a club to your liking, you can always start one of your own. It's a long haul from nothing to a big club, but all the big clubs started from nothing once upon a time. Let's hope you don't have to do that though. Let'as hope you can find a welcoming and nurturing club just around the corner from you.
Bill can be reached at srccride@sonic.net