charleston / summerville, sc

[hawatc]

Any riders out there in the Summerville / Charleston area? I have been riding off and on for about a year...still consider myself a "newbie" in terms of skill/speed!!!

[profàvélo]

Check out the Coastal Cyclists' web site. They have quite a list of regular group rides, and they are classified as to speed.
http://www.coastalcyclists.org/

In fact, I'm jealous of all of your ride options! There are even several in Summerville.

[flyingrhino]

We have a group that meets for several rides in Summerville weekly. Saturday and Sunday mornings we meet at the Jumpin Juice and Java at the corner of Bacons Bridge and Dorchester at 7:30 am. We usually end up splitting up into several groups. We have riders in the 17-18 mph range and up. Distances this time of season usually are 50 miles and up but we also have people that do the shorter loops of 20 up to 50 miles. It's a fun group. We have several females that ride with us and are regulars. The Sunday ride is usually shorter and slower because we often over do it on Saturday! We finish the ride with social time at the 3 J's for coffee or smoothies. The owner loves us and treats us well!

New riders are always welcome but you should be able to maintain at least an 18 mph pace in a paceline. If you are not used to riding a paceline, if you can ride alone at 15 to 16 you should have no problem holding 18 in a paceline. You can usually find someone that will do a leisurely 16-17 mph ride.

There are also two evening rides starting at the YMCA on Doty Ave. These are on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The start time for those is 5pm. Those tend to be a bit faster.

We have just started a Wednesday/Thursday evening ride at Bushy Park to Pimlico. This starts at 6:30. Pace is around 18-20 mph for 28 miles.

We love to ride so we are always looking for new rides and riders. New riders are always welcome and you will NEVER ride alone. There will always be someone to ride with you so don't be intimidated if the speeds sound too high for you. We enjoy training up newer riders and many of us started out in this group as newbies.

I would recommend you come out on Saturday morning and meet the group and ride with us.

Feel free to contact me at rhino@sc.rr.com. If you need my cell number I'll give it to you in an email. You can also look at www.coastalcyclists.com or our very new website at www.summervillecyclist.org. That has several other contact names and numbers.

We look forward to riding with you.

David Ebeling