This was, in some respects, a bit of a triumph. Yes, it is possible, after all these years, to put a new route to familiar places together. It takes a lot of staring at maps, at Google Streetview and a lot of reconnaissance, but, as this trip and last month’s ride to Felpham demonstrate, it can be done. Just as it took three years to get London to Paris right, it took six or seven years to make the best of London to Southend.
In other respects it highlighted our failings, failings that are pretty much inherent, and have become more pronounced in the last couple of years.
I’ll start by thanking Chris Sketchley. I’ve been watching what was probably the first internet based cycling club in Britain, and, certainly one of the most inclusive fall apart these last two years, but I’ve not really been able to put my finger on the nature of that falling apart. Chris’s post-Felpham analysis was illuminating, and his reward – a night with the best view of the ride you can have – was really a test of that analysis. I’m sad to say that his original estimation was smack on the money.
Chris puts it this way……after six years a process might be refined and might be robust, but it will mean different things to different people. Here’s the rub. The Fridays is about process and not about culture. A Fridays ride is, and always has been, a product. We don’t have the culture that one finds in a club – anybody that thinks differently should go for a day out with the Cheam and Morden to see how it’s supposed to be done. We rely on a rigid (but adaptable) Plan and the willingness of a portion of the riders to put the Plan in to effect. In 2011 that’s exactly what happened, but, sometime in 2012/2013, people got it in to their heads that they could improvise, or, perhaps, not bother with part of it. And here’s the beauty of Chris’s analysis – the people who took it upon themselves to set aside some of the essentials were, oftentimes, some, (but not by any means all), of the people who were most familiar with the ride because they didn’t work out the consequences of not sticking with it because, again, those consequences had been avoided or disguised by the Plan.Hence delays on the Felpham ride, a lack of communication on the Southend ride that might, had it not been for one relatively new member, have lost us the back portion of the group.
Still and all – the front of the ride got to Stock Village Hall on time (by which I mean to the minute) and to the Rose Restaurant three minutes behind time. Which is not bad for what is not really a cycling club.
People enjoyed themselves, as they do when the weather is kind. And the source of that enjoyment is not hard to work out. We set off from town, we headed in to the suburbs, it all went quiet, we turned in to the darkness (made even more luscious this time round by the cemetery), we found, as if by magic, a bright, warm, welcoming spot, we looked at our companions with a fresh and friendly eye, we set off again in to the darkness and reached The End, which the sea most certainly is. Kind of like a symphonic structure with additional post rondo piss-up. Big clash of cymbals, a theme or two (first con brio but then repeated adagio), and then a tinkly-winkly cheery bit at the end. It is almost disturbingly simple.Then again, any fool can shoot fish in a barrel, but (if I may cast modesty aside) it takes a bit of a genius to shoot the same fish 140 times.
At the heart of it all, which is to say the sad decline of the Fridays, is the nature of the beast. Part of the trick is that people don’t have to make decisions. It’s pretty much on a plate. And that, as I’ve said, breeds a kind of carelessness. And, sometimes a bit of presumption. And occasionally a bit of outright liberty-taking. Some people will never get on with each other, but one of the hallmarks of a proper club is that you don’t get people going off on one about each other. With the wisdom of hindsight I realise that the Plan’s simplicity and ‘apparent’ reliability affords fertile ground for the occasional outbreak of feral hostility. If the Plan sweeps up after the mess then where’s the harm?
Would I do it again? In a heartbeat, despite some distinctly unrewarding features. Would I recommend the Fridays as a schooling ground for ride leaders? Never. It was a jangling, messy beast that requires constant sifting in order to find the balance between letting people do what they want and keeping them in check – and, to be clear, I consistently erred on the easygoing side because, just like everybody else, time and time again I got away with it. Would I tread the same hypnocratic line again? Of course, but anybody with pretensions to running a club of this size or close to it is going to have come to terms with a whole bunch of human failings, and, looking through the 2015 thread it’s apparent that some of those with ambition simply do not have a scooby. One big tip for Olaf and Martin (not that Martin needs it) is to work out rapidly who you can rely on and who you can’t and to be ruthless in relying on those you can and equally ruthless in avoiding relying on those you can’t. And, for all the times I forgot to thank the people we relied on, I apologise.
It was great to see Des. He was singlehandedly responsible for the death of the Martlets rides. And I mean that in a good way – a very good way. He and I were riding at the back of the 2011 Martlets ride somewhere west of Horley and Des said something like ‘the thing is, Simon, we’ve got an organisation that could deal with over a thousand riders, and you’ve only got three hundred. Where are the rest?’ Quite. By contrast, Chris’s contribution wasn’t a factor in the end of the monthly night rides, but he did tell me why things happened the way they did, for which I'm grateful. I only hope that a night organising the back of the ride was reward and punishment enough.
