Cycling for enjoyment - forming a group.

Has anybody got any suggestions regarding forming a "cycling for enjoyment" group? I'm thinking of something for the over 50 age group. Would it be better to have a female group or unisex one? Would be interested to learn of similar groups elsewhere, how they work and the pitfalls to watch out for. I'm not sure if there'd be much interest in our small country city of 14,000 people, but our community is very sport orientated i.e. Aussie football, soccer, tennis, softball, baseball, cricket, squash, competitive cycling, golf, table tennis, lawn bowls and ten pin bowls etc are all available. :)

What about contacting your state (aren't you in SA?) cycling authority & see if they have any regional contacts? Is there a local cycling board?

What about trying the BNA forum??? http://www.bicycles.net.au/forums/index.php-i'd go there as there has to be someone in your region that can help.

btw...are you interested in partaking in Maidei's world tour??? If so, contact Maxxie & perhaps you can show her some of small town Australia! http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=35039

I can think of a few different ways to get the word out, depending on what you are comfortable with. One would be to go on-line and start a new group on Meetup.com. Another way would be to post a notice at your LBS or any other community bulletin boards. If you have a local cycling website, you could also put a posting there. You can describe your group to attract riders with similar interests: it is for enjoyment, not racing or training...

Many riders are intimidated by groups, so you might want to include what you anticipate your average speed to be and if you will be doing any pacelines or drafting.

We started a group at our church that has slowly grown by word of mouth over time to include friends and neighbors of our original riders, so if you can just get a few core riders, you will see it grow.

The only issue we have had is new riders sometimes don't follow the same safety rules the rest of us do, so any time we have a new rider, we start with a little rules of the road talk.

It is great to have someone to ride with. I know some people enjoy the solitude of riding alone, but I will only ride when I am with at least one other rider. We have built up to enough riders now that we all can usually find someone to ride with when we want to go for a ride.

Good luck!

I would start by asking at the LBS if they know of any existing groups that would work for you.

Here in Chicago there are a lot of cycling groups, clubs, teams, etc. However, members of the chicago cycling club (CCC) formed an on-line listserv sort of thing through Multiply.com. The members of the multiply list are members of the CCC, or friends of members, etc (it just grows by word of mouth). The purpose of the multiply list was to be able to meet up for more informal rides not officially sanctioned by CCC. It has worked really well. Anyone who wants to ride in a group posts his/her tentative rides plans a few days in advance, sets a starting location/time, and people can post their intentions to join (or make suggestions on distance, route, pace. etc). This way, we have been able to get regular group rides going even well into the winter months when the local club rides are few and far between.

I ride with a group that is a subset of a large club. Their rides are listed weekly on line and in the newsletter in a general way, i.e., as in every Wednesday, the average speed, includes lunch/socializing. But, you have to call (yes, speak in a human voice), to get on their e mail list to receive a notice every week about the ride, meeting place, etc.
This is more of a "cycling for enjoyment" group, although most of the people are strong riders. Sometimes, there is a "spirited" group, who ride a little faster or longer than the regular pace and the 2 groups meet up for lunch and part of the ride.
It's a very unique set of people, who are riding not just for training. A couple of years ago, I went on one of their rides that was lead by a man who was 85 years old! This was not the usual, but, it was amazing.

Back in May 2008, my husband and I started riding the "Rails to Trails" bike trail that was fortunately built in our town just to try to lose some weight. Shortly we found the LBS (The Bicycle Shop) and made some great new friends and the next thing I knew, I was asked to be a ride leader for the bike trail rides. Our local bike club already had scheduled road rides and mountain bike rides but there wasn't anything for the 50+ crowd that wanted to get exercise plus have fun riding but not at 25 mph. Now the LBS takes down names and email addys for me and I email the schedule out to almost 100 people monthly! We have ages 23 to 79 in our group and have a great time riding! We've gone to other places together for rides and we always make sure our rides include a lunch break or the local donut shop for coffee. We even did the MS Ride together this past September for 25 miles each day and we are planning on doing 50 miles each day for next years MS Ride. A few of us do ride longer rides (50 miles) together every once in while just for fun too and I've even done my first century. That was wild!

All in all, we lucked into the sport, the group rides and our great friends. My suggestion would be to stop by your LBS because they will know more about your local rides and the groups to join. I hope you will be as lucky as we have been! Have a safe and happy holiday season!

Thanks for all the great ideas. It hadn't occurred to me that there would have to be a "ride rule talk on riding safely" - thanks. Unfortunately the LBS is in the process of closing down - we'll only be left with K-Mart when it does.:eek

I really like the idea of ending a ride with a coffee or tea break. We have a local produce market held on a Sunday morning once a month and there just happens to be a great cafe/bakery just across the road too. Something for everybody! It might only take an eye-catching advert placed in the bakery window to get the ball rolling.

Out of action for the moment due to 2 fractured vertebrae - probably perfect time to do the setting up.

Thanks to all who responded to my thread. :D