Cycle Club @ Work - advice sought.

Thunder typed:

Quoted message said:

I'm in the process of starting up a cycle club at work here in South
Wales. So far about 20 people have expressed an interest in joining and
the employers seem keen to discuss options (we have major car parking
problems, so I guess they have a vested interest).
Anyone with experience of starting / running a cycle club that can give
some advice on the dos and don'ts?

I'd guess a lot depends on what the club is for and what you want to do with
it .. touring, off-roading, racing etc etc ...

I've found that most people will want _everything_ organised for them.
You'll have to arrange runs, routes, maps, times, feeding stations etc etc
and they'll all moan about things that weren't _quite_ how they'd do things,
but will still decline to help ... 😉 There are a few people who'll help
and a few who'll promise help ...

I found it easiest to work everything out on my own, get feedback from
others, and beg for help only when required.

Route-making by committee gets just a little tedious ...

--
Paul ...

(8(|) ... Homer Rocks

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 23:26:00 GMT someone who may be Thunder
<[email hidden]> wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

I'm in the process of starting up a cycle club at work here in South
Wales. So far about 20 people have expressed an interest in joining and
the employers seem keen to discuss options (we have major car parking
problems, so I guess they have a vested interest).

What is the objective? Reduce the number of people driving (or just
cap the growth in the number of people driving)? Leisure?
Everything?

Commuter cycle groups tend to be called BUGs, bicycle user groups.
Perhaps ther best known example was Hewlett Packard "in" Bristol.
They are actually not in Bristol but in a field on the outskirts of
Bristol and face the usual problems of car parking, when people
manage to struggle through the traffic jams to get to the car park.
Transport 2000 and CTC should have information on them.

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me using the RIP Act 2000.

Thunder said:

I'm in the process of starting up a cycle club at work here in South
Wales. So far about 20 people have expressed an interest in joining and
the employers seem keen to discuss options (we have major car parking
problems, so I guess they have a vested interest).
Anyone with experience of starting / running a cycle club that can give
some advice on the dos and don'ts?

TIA

Assuming this is a 'Travel FOR Work' club, rather than leisure cycling
there is a website that gives advice on setting up a 'Bicycle User
Group' (BUG) at:
http://www.tfw.org.uk/cfe/
It's primarily a 'Cambridge' site where some 25% of people cycle to
work, but it should make a good starting position

Jim Chisholm

Firstly, thanks for the comments. Much appreciated and I'll check out
the links.
Initially it was intended to be mainly as a 'commuter' type club, but
with a social side. However, the people who've responded and said they
would like to join, cover just about all areas - commuting, road,
off-road, track, TT. So I'm now thinking about trying to cater for all,
if possible. I'm quite keen on all aspects so that's no big deal for me.
I thought to keep it mainly 'commuting' so we can get things like decent
bike sheds, shower facilities etc and that they are used to their full
potential (to be fair the facilities we have at present are pretty
good). And the spin-off would be as a contact point for evening or
weekend rides and such. As we're based in Newport we have the new
Velodrome, Maindy track in Cardiff, The Taff Trail, Cwmcarn, Afan Argoed
and 101 other forestry trails to utilise so if we organise ourselves
properly it should be excellent at getting more people into cycling.
We have further problems (for car commuters) with major road works due
to take place at the M4 Junction 28 roundabout soon. This should mean we
're in a position to tempt more people to cycle work - hopefully.
At this point there seems to be a lot of goodwill from the cyclists and
the employers so I'm keen to get this off the ground.
Thanks again.

On Wed, 21 Jul 2004 23:26:00 GMT, Thunder <[email hidden]>
wrote (more or less):

Quoted message said:

I'm in the process of starting up a cycle club at work here in South
Wales. So far about 20 people have expressed an interest in joining and
the employers seem keen to discuss options (we have major car parking
problems, so I guess they have a vested interest).
Anyone with experience of starting / running a cycle club that can give
some advice on the dos and don'ts?

Do make sure there's someone moderately senior from
Premises/Facilities on the netnews group/ email group / ebulletin
board for the club.

In fact, do make sure there is a netnews group/ email group /
ebulletin board on the company's computer systems for the club.

Apart from anything else, the size of the circulation list will give a
clear demonstration of how many cars are being taken out of
contention for parking space, or could be.

The most major thing I remember at Scottish Widows HQ was when the the
bike parking facilities were being moved, the architects had got
'place your wheel in the slot' racks, and after a quick raising of the
point on the issue on the relevant ebulletin board, and a concerted
(but very brief) email-writing campaign to the Facilities manager,
Sheffield racks were retained.

Other than that, teh main use was giving new joiners a first point of
contact to find out how to go through the arcane process of getting a
car park pass for their bike. (the bike parking was sheffield racks
placed in several of the regular parking bays in the fairly large
secure car park.

(Secure as in only accessible through full-height pass-operated
steel-barred electrically-sliding doors from the road side. IIRC,
full-height pass-operated turnstile on the office side.)

Car-parking slots were available on a "dead-man's shoes" basis only.
Points were awarded for length of queueing, and to a lesser extent,
seniority. Bike-parking slots were unrationed.

--
Cheers,
Euan
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