Cycling Club Advice

mccutchie

Guys,

I just want some advice so i'll keep this brief. I'm a member of a cycling club, joined late last year. So far due to the weather, i've been out for 4 training cycles, i've been using the cycle trainer at home inbetween.

On 2 occasions I was dropped off the group, on the 3rd occasion i was advised to turn off at a certain point as I was stuggling to keep with the pace and on the 4th occasion I was the only one to turn up, no notification. Pace was around 30-32kmph on the flat consistenly.

It seems unless your an elite cyclist forget about it. I'm peeved as it was advertised this wud not be the case.

what would you do ?

Raam

mccutchie wrote: »

what would you do ?

Train harder and then drop the bastards on the next spin!

jimmybob1

good advise lol

Possedion

yeah it su(ks, had a similar experience with a well known club. leave no one behind. think you need to have good pace for some clubs. quite competitive.,

CrankyCod

Train like a lunatic; don't give up, it will bug you later.

Once you're able to stick with the group you can quietly move on to a different club, head held high.

there's no doubt that some clubs are a bit too macho, and the worst culprtits are guys that missed the boat competitively.

We have a small club in Cork, a bit like Lilo and Stitch, nobody gets left behind:)

kennyb3

The first thing to understand is that everyone gets dropped at some stage or another, its nothing to be embarrassed about. They key is to try hang on a bit further every week until eventually you can get around.

Also use it as motivation to work harder. work on your limiter - be it speed or endurance.

Also dont take turns, hang back and save your energy if you can.

You just need to get around one and you ll be grand.

CheGuedara

+1 on what Kennyb3 says - I stay stick with it.

I know this story from both sides of the fence. When I started cycling I initially went out with a pretty elite club and found that they weren't inclined to welcome new riders by allowing them to stay in the group (read as that tactic seemed to be 'kill the new guy'). A few years down the line and now as a club organiser I've seen how it can often be a challenge for novice riders to get to grips/pace with a group of more trained riders and for a club it can be a challenge to accomodate riders of sometimes signicantly varying ability. On one hand you must attempt to bring along new riders and integrate them into the club as best you can but on the other hand it's nigh on impossible to tell a group of stronger riders that they'll have to sit up and take it easy if a less able rider enters a group, (sometimes even when they're cool with it they forget half way through a ride when the gallop for home begins anyway!)

Some clubs will have a 'mentoring' type programme to help build up new members before they get stuck in with one of the training groups and then there might be 2-3 training groups of different average speeds (so something to suit most levels of ability). A club will probably leave it up to the rider to cut their cloth to suit them when picking what group they want to go with, but if they get it wrong it's not the group that's at fault!

Best advice is stick with it; keep getting the training in and you'll improve as time passes. If there's new member or mentored spins (or whatever your club might call it) try them out too, they might give an opportunity to improve without going out and getting wrecked trying to hang onto faster riders. If you still find that you're simply not able to match the pace of the group it might be worth having a talk with someone in your club comittee if there are any other groups that train at a more relaxed pace that you could slot into more easily or if they have any other suggestions. Good luck!

spokeydokey

Do you enjoy the competitive aspect of the group or are you more into cycling for leisure and general fitness?

If you're competitive I'd say stick with it too. If you're relatively new to riding in a group your fitness levels may be closer to the other lads than it seems now. It may be just that you need more practice to become as efficient as them.

It's your club as much as anyone elses.

fat bloke

Some clubs will have graded spins. I know Orwell do, they'll have a fast group and a steadier group.

The problem with this time of the year is that the other club members can smell the oncoming racing season. The ideal time to start spinning with a club is around October. Everyone's had a hard year training or racing and no one is interested in pushing the pace, you just get friendly pace controlled spins to keep the legs ticking along. That's fine until after Christmas and it's then the pace starts to increase a little bit at a time, and before long they're hooring along.

Ideally you'd have someone else with you in your position so that when you get dropped you're not completely on your own. Try not to get too demoralised, keep up the training, you'd be surprised how quick you'll get into it yourself, particularly if you're pushing hard to stay with the group. But it's a hard to square the circle - from their point of view, maybe it's not fair to expect 15 or 20 others to plod along to match your pace.

victorcarrera

+1 on Kennyb3's advice above. And be prepared to stick with it for 3 to 5 years and build up slowly.
30<32 Km/h over 3+ hrs is not just for elite riders at this time of year. I know A4's and some average vets up to 65 Years old who are doing that now on their winter hacks just to burn fat.
There may be some competitive riders in that group who have limited time to train and want to use it effectively.
I would say that you should have been capapable of that pace before christmas, because they will probably start adding a few hills to that spin in Feb.
I trained with a club where it was understood that if you got dropped or punctured the others rode on. There is nothing wrong with this provided you carry a phone, chain tool and multitool as a minimum.
If you have some to spare though the quickest way to get up to speed with them is to loose a few kilos.

lukester

mccutchie wrote: »

On 2 occasions I was dropped off the group, on the 3rd occasion i was advised to turn off at a certain point as I was stuggling to keep with the pace and on the 4th occasion I was the only one to turn up, no notification. Pace was around 30-32kmph on the flat consistenly.

It seems unless your an elite cyclist forget about it. I'm peeved as it was advertised this wud not be the case.

What exactly did they advertise?

If they said no-one would be dropped, regardless of their pace, then I'd ask for your money back and find another club. The two clubs I've been for spins with waited for everybody, unless you moved to a group where it was advertised this was not the case. The pre-requisite for a first spin with the beginner group was advertised- being able to complete 60kms, but not at any particular pace.

Spins being cancelled without notice is pretty shoddy- certainly not very newbie friendly. The club sounds disorganised.