Questions about bike or triathlon clubs

[Crankin]

The liability issue is a huge thing with the AMC. I am the secretary of the bike committee of the Boston chapter and my husband is the treasurer. The liability rules changed a couple of years ago; in addition to signing the release, all rides must a have a sweep and we have to account for everyone when we return from a ride. We have to keep the group together (between the leader and the sweep). Now, I do this anyway, but this is not the practice of most of the clubs around here. The rules we have are based on hiking trip rules, where they make sense, but a few bike leaders have quit over the keeping people together thing. If we don't follow these rules, the AMC won't support us in a lawsuit. I had my crash last month on a ride with another club. Although this was a "stay together" ride, they pretty clearly left us on the road, fixing my bike. The leader said they waited down the road, but no one rode back to check on us, figuring we were experienced riders. Yea, and we rode our bikes to the hospital, when my husband's arm started swelling! It was the worst example of following common sense liability rules.

[silver]

The liability issue is a huge thing with the AMC. I am the secretary of the bike committee of the Boston chapter and my husband is the treasurer. The liability rules changed a couple of years ago; in addition to signing the release, all rides must a have a sweep and we have to account for everyone when we return from a ride. We have to keep the group together (between the leader and the sweep). Now, I do this anyway, but this is not the practice of most of the clubs around here. The rules we have are based on hiking trip rules, where they make sense, but a few bike leaders have quit over the keeping people together thing. If we don't follow these rules, the AMC won't support us in a lawsuit. I had my crash last month on a ride with another club. Although this was a "stay together" ride, they pretty clearly left us on the road, fixing my bike. The leader said they waited down the road, but no one rode back to check on us, figuring we were experienced riders. Yea, and we rode our bikes to the hospital, when my husband's arm started swelling! It was the worst example of following common sense liability rules.

Yikes! I need to see what the USAT requires, but like you said this sounds like common sense to me.