A question for forum ride organisers ...

[trio25]

Haaving been on Colin's ride I can vouch for them being friendly. But I suspect a lot of females will think twice before turning up on their own to go for a ride with a bunch of blokes into a remote area! A lot of females who ride often seem to ride with their partners so more likely to come on a ride with their partner than seek out their own rides.

Oh and obviously more men ride than women so I would expect more men on the rides.

 

[User10119]

Colin's rides are just too lumpy for me to attempt in a group. Have to see how I get on this year now that I am back on the bike and have a certain number of weekends free from childcare responsibilities.

I've organised a couple of forum rides in the other place where there were nearly as many women as men along. And our regular-ish pub run last year did, on occasion, have a majority of women in attendance. Don't know why, to be honest!

I think childcare responsibilities are often a factor for a lot of mums. One thing that has enabled me to get out on a couple of group rides since becoming a single parent is the fact that I could take my kids along - in one case because somebody else acquired a kiddy trailer for the day and towed my youngest!

 

[marafi]

Well there are fourm rides named the Breeze want to start going on those and those seem not bad.

 

[ColinJ]

[QUOTE 1681597, member: 10119"]Colin's rides are just too lumpy for me to attempt in a group. Have to see how I get on this year now that I am back on the bike and have a certain number of weekends free from childcare responsibilities.
[/quote]
Interesting - you don't say that they are too lumpy for you, but are too lumpy 'in a group' which sounds like you'd be frightened of slowing the group down. Well, I slow my own group down anyway so we were riding pretty slowly on yesterday's forum ride, for example. Of course, some people's idea of slow is other people's idea of fast so let me download the tracklog from my GPS so I can give you the actual numbers.

Okay ...

We took 45 minutes to climb the first hill which is about 4.5 mile long so we averaged 6 mph on the climb.

It took us 3 hours and 10 minutes to get to the cafe which was after 22.4 miles so we averaged 7.1 mph to get there.

We stopped for an hour at the cafe.

It took us 1 hour and 15 minutes to get back from the cafe, a distance of 10.1 miles so we averaged 8.1 mph on the last leg, but there is a long descent into Hebden Bridge to bump the average speed up.

Some of us walked up some of the steeper climbs, and down some of the slippery-looking steep descents.

Total distance just short of 33 miles and total elapsed time 5.5 hours, so overall average speed was 5.4 mph. Average speed when moving was 7.3 mph.

It's true that ice on the roads slowed us down. I think we would have been about 15% faster without that.

I think a lot of people who are frightened of slowing a group down could actually ride faster over that route than we did yesterday. I've had people make apologies in advance for their slowness before riding with me but they turned out to be much fitter and faster than me. Give it a go and see!

 

[User10119]

There's very very rarely anyone slower than me on the climbs on any ride I've been on. Well, I usually manage to beat Arch up a hill. When she's on the trike... and when I was riding between 100 and 200 miles a week... before I broke my elbow and had a three month lay-off. I reckon she's probably have me even if she was on the blinking maximus at the moment!

I've accidentally collected a small group of cycling mates who genuinely don't give a stuff about how slow I go, including a few scary-mile-munching-audaxers and odd bods who actively seek out the hills. Since my standard group ride strategy is 'pedal and follow' I have as a result bimbled very very very slowly or walked up, among others, Carlton Bank, Commondale, Killdale, up to the Tan Hill Inn (once each from each side) and assorted pretty places in the Wolds. And as we all know, the best way to get better at climbing is to do lots of climbing - last summer I actually dropped someone going up Commondale, which was a bit shocking.

But I didn't ride for the best part of 4 months, did my first 30 mile day since the break on Christmas Day and while my elbow is massively improved, hills now hurt there as well as all the usual places! So mebbees later in the year

 

[ColinJ]

Breaking an elbow and having 3 or 4 months off a bike certainly wouldn't help!

Blimey - 100-200 miles a week - I would get really fit on that kind of mileage!

I was talking to Bokonon on a forum ride last autumn and he shocked me by telling me how little riding he did. It's a short fixed wheel commute each way in Leeds (I think he said about 3 miles) and a decent ride at the weekend when he could get one in. Will is one of the fittest riders who comes out on my rides.

I am amazed at what a difference the regularity of the rides makes. I tend to go a week or 2 weeks between rides, and then do a ride which is too hard for me - I call them 'forum rides'!

 

[User10119]

Well, my standard commuting week was between 40 and 60 miles, the pub run once a week another 20-30 (although I did once manage to get out of work early and ride up to Northallerton for the start, 25 miles to the pub, then on to Darlo for the train home - 100k for the day, after work, I thought wasn't bad at all!) a weekend ride of between 40 and 100 miles most weeks and sometimes a weekend bimble (maybe 20 miles for him and then he'd get a lift home and I'd ride back) to my mum's with my 10 yo on the other weekend day. Mostly in the flatlands, and all on a sturdy flat-barred hybrid, tho! Yes, I got a lot fitter and (relatively speaking) faster but when you're lugging an extra x stone of rider around hills are just slow. To put it in context - I'm under 5'2", female, and even before putting weight back on since I've been off the bike, I outweighed you! And being the last up every hill and the slowest one there can get dispiriting. I often see rides discussed where people talk about the fact that they are slow, and the ride will be social, but then looking at the ride reports afterwards I can see that the pace would have been well beyond me. Some of us have a different definition of slow....

So, whilst I've got relatively brave about group rides, there are still not a lot of people I will knowingly go on a hilly ride with. But one of these days I'll turn up in Hebden Bridge. Probably with a pannier full of cake

 

[phil_hg_uk]

Did someone say cake ....... have you ever thought about doing the Spring into The Dale Audax User10119

 

[ColinJ]

You can obviously cope with the hills if you go slowly enough, but TBH, I think that there are a lot of people who wouldn't consider my rides even if we set off early on a summer day and were willing to take all day so I should try and think of something less scary, but it is difficult when the only reasonably flat roads round here are busy A-roads.

Hang on ... I've had (what I think is) a good idea for a much more inclusive summer forum ride! How about riding from Settle to Waddington and back, along the Ribble Valley? It's a 32 mile round trip with a good cafe halfway and plenty of cafes & pubs back in Settle afterwards? It's not completely flat so it would be quite challenging for some people, but hopefully not horribly so. The scenery is great and most of the roads are very quiet.

I'll start a separate thread suggesting this in May or June when we should have decent weather and will have plenty of hours of daylight so we wouldn't need to rush.

 

[eltelio]

Hang on ... I've had (what I think is) a good idea for a much more inclusive summer forum ride! How about riding from Settle to Waddington and back, along the Ribble Valley? It's a 32 mile round trip with a good cafe halfway and plenty of cafes & pubs back in Settle afterwards? It's not completely flat so it would be quite challenging for some people, but hopefully not horribly so. The scenery is great and most of the roads are very quiet.

Really like the sound of this one Colin,(especially the cafe bit) Just itchin to get back down that neck of the woods again.

 

[ColinJ]

[ColinJ's Settle-Waddington-Settle idea ...]

Really like the sound of this one Colin,(especially the cafe bit) Just itchin to get back down that neck of the woods again.

I think I might be on to something with that idea. I mentioned it to a friend who owns a bike but never rides it and her ears pricked up. She asked if I thought she could manage that route. I said yes, if we took our time, so ... we are going to take our bikes to Settle by train in the spring and will give it a trial run.

 

[LouiseL]

Interesting - you don't say that they are too lumpy for you, but are too lumpy 'in a group' which sounds like you'd be frightened of slowing the group down. !

I think this is a very real concern for a lot of women, myself included. I know that on any ride I will be in the minority, possibly even the only one. That is not a problem for me but I know I will likely be the slowest person, by virtue of being female and therefore inherently weaker. The only question is how much slower?

This doesn't stop me from giving rides a go. I bring a GPS so I won't be lost if I get dropped and if speeds are very incompatible I would expect the group to leave me to my own devices by mutual agreement. I don't want to ruin anyone else's ride by being too slow, but neither do I want to be going eyeballs out the whole way in an attempt to keep up.

I do however enjoy rides that are just a little bit too quick for me and can usually keep up fine in a group on the flat. If there are even small lumps though I will always fall behind. Once you lose the wheel of a faster rider you will never catch up unless they wait. I just don't have the leg strength yet to keep up with most blokes on a slope so know that at some point people will have to wait for me.

I will also get tired quicker as I will be putting in proportionally more effort than the chaps, meaning I'll go even slower, earlier etc... It's no wonder few women join in on these rides.

 

[ComedyPilot]

I have organised a few rides round these parts and a young lady joined us. We didn't go all out, and had nice enjoyable night rides to a local pub. We spent the rides chatting away on almost-deserted country lanes.

Not all cyclists are testosterone-fuelled, sweating-like-a-racehorse-on-speed, breathing-out-yer-arse speed freaks. Some of us like the gentile approach.

 

[User10119]

I just tend to do lumpy rides with a small group of people that I absolutely know beyond a shadow of a doubt don't mind waiting for me, and who I trust absolutely to tell me if the ride is too hard or the group that is riding are looking for a faster-than-Crinkly-speed ride. Shared expectations and all that....

In fairness I gained this knowledge and this trust by taking a risk by going on a stupidly hilly ride up to the Lion Inn in the North York Moors with them back (first time I'd met nearly all of them!) in the summer of 2010, armed with a large amount of cake. And they walked up the hills with me (I suspect I walked more than I rode!) and waited at the top of all the hills for me, and sunbathed halfway down Little Fryupdale for absolutely ages whilst we dealt with the minor catastrophe of my front brake cable snapping part-way down the descent, and put up with my descending being a terror-fuelled squeaking-in-terror snail's pace almost slower than my climbing from that point onwards. People missed trains, and appointments, and were late home for their teas, and it was pretty much all my fault.

And then they invited me out again, so I thought they probably didn't completely hate me and went.

Then this summer we repeated the ride, and I only had to walk a few hundred yards up Kildale and one short stretch on Commondale and discovered that going down Little Fryupdale with two functioning brakes is simply glorious.

Sometimes the risks are worth taking and the gambles pay off

 

[ColinJ]

Yikes - a front brake failing on a steep descent is something I have had nightmares about! I try to tell myself that the best thing to do would be to lay the bike down and slide before any more speed is picked up but it would take a lot of nerve to do that.