Want more out of your cycling...
...then Join the Club!
By: Stuart Wright
Posted: 27 June 2008
I began cycling, like many in London, in July 2005. The fear of the manic roads of London paled next to the threat of suicide bombers. Through adversity, a love affair with two-wheeled travel has positively flourished. Almost three years on, I am joining my local cycling club (Lea Valley Cycling Club). It took me a while to get here though. Like the internal debate I endured for five years of should I, shouldn't I cycle to work, I applied the same kind of indecision to joining a cycling club or not. Let me explain.
My first bike was a hybrid - the 'people's bicycle', or so the sales assistant said to me after I returned from an enjoyable test ride of the Specialised Crossroads. By September 2005 I was commuting the seven miles from Leyton in the north east of London to Tottenham Court Road in the west end most days. It was brilliant! Having let nearly 20 years pass by since riding about with friends as a school kid, I was now rosy cheeked and revelling in my discovery of such a simple pleasure.
A year later, fuelled by the miles of tarmac I'd ridden and a new ambition to ride in the Etape D'Tour, a premier cycling sportive that uses a mountainous stage of the Tour De France for its route. I visited Condor Cycles in London. My budget almost doubled when I plumped for the Condor Squadra. I got out on my new bike only a couple of times before I put it in mothballs for the winter. You wouldn't call it training to be honest.
During January 2007, although still racking up the commuter miles, I was frustrated by my lack of activity on my road bike. Using the online forum, Bike Radar, I asked if there were people looking for company in my area of east London. Five or so people replied and one Sunday morning soon I met up with two of them. Half way through and constantly holding up these two, much fitter cyclists, I felt I had picked the wrong sport. Nevertheless, a handful of other Sunday rides saw me improve. However, the Etape d'Tour was clearly beyond me. So, I signed up for the Wessex 100 and the Autumn Epic sportives in the UK.
This all came to nothing when I was knocked off my bike by a car on a roundabout in Walthamstow. Recovering from my injuries I stayed off the bike for the rest of the summer 2007.
Late July I started commuting again, but having lost touch with my online cycling friends I was without ride partners - and lacking confidence I was reluctant to get out for miles of cycling. This inertia remained well into 2008. Occasional weekend rides with work colleagues or on my own the only exception. One time I teamed up with a really nice guy from a local cycling club in Woodford. He was on a fixed wheel bike. So although he was a Class A rider, I was able to keep him within sight. He convinced me that his club was always on the look out for new members. Initial contact revealed that autumn rides began at 7am each Sunday. With part-time studies and a full-time job to do, it was enough to put me off. If I'm honest I was pretty non-committal to it all at this point.
In April 2008 I got back on the Bike Radar forum and explained the dilemma of my nice bike gathering dust. Nagging away at me was a growing lack of road confidence, fuelled by latent fear from my earlier crash. Therefore, solo rides focussed on the ten miles from my house to the Essex country lanes, fraught with traffic heading for the M25 or M11, and not car free reward at the end of it.
One of the first responses was to join a club. In fact, it was more direct than that. It wanted me to join their club. Sadly it was near Croydon, a little far for someone without a car to be going for a Sunday run. After asking for clubs nearer my Waltham Forest home, Lea Valley Cycling Club came up. I Googled them and come across a blogspot page with details of a regular Sunday ride starting at Waltham Forest town hall. Only a mile from my house, it couldn't get any more convenient. The main message I took from their site was that LVCC were very much about the social aspects of a cycling club as much as the riding. Much less intimidating than details about chains gangs, category of rider et al that I expected to read about. Although it still took me a couple of weeks and any old reason to finally get down there.
I promptly arrived at the meeting point just before 9am. Two others were already there. Surprisingly, one, like me, was going out for the first time with LVCC. Four others eventually arrived and after handshakes, introductions and some haggling over the eventual destination we headed out to Ongar for our first stop. Following their lead, the busy main roads I'd usually adopt for rides were largely ignored as we meandered through quiet back streets that eventually brought us out in Chingford.
25 miles or so into the ride we finally emerged onto Ongar's high street with the pre-chosen bakers at the top of the road our first stop. As is tradition, resting involved tea and cakes all round and bloody good chinwag.
Some of the group headed on into Essex, but I decided not to be too ambitious and make my way home with one of the others who had to be back for 1pm. When I got finally got through my front door, the tired legs couldn't detract from how re-invigorated I felt about cycling. Throughout, traffic was no less aggressive or dangerous, but feel that going out with a group of like-minded people certainly deflects attention onto enjoying ride together and not every metal box on wheels that comes close.
I've gone out a few more times since then; I am now committed to making more Sundays than not and formally join LVCC very soon. If you're a recent convert to cycling, or an old head looking for inspiration, I can't recommend high enough joining a local Sunday club run. It's arguably the heart of the cycling community where you live. Their knowledge of bike friendly routes is priceless to enjoying the ride and being with a group immediately bolstered my confidence. Plus, they were all thoroughly nice people who couldn't have been more welcoming to their new riders; promising to drop no-one who couldn't keep up.
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