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Club Member Spotlight Mike Northrup on How to Plan a Perfect Ride We had 15 riders on today's sunny, warm, breezy, moderate pace "Monday Morning Recovery Ride", including Paul, a first time brisk-pace rider. That I was able to talk to Paul during the ride made me realize that I was using some of the time honored tips I learned from many different Club ride leaders (Darryl, Brad, Al, and others) to let us all ride together and make the the ride more enjoyable for me, the ride leader, and the other "moderate" riders. These tips are all geared to ride leaders who, like me, think that "leading from the rear" is an art form, that "moderate" is a goal and not a dismissive term, and that a ride leader must proactively lead from the rear at a moderate pace the older and more out of shape he is. I pass on to you the following tips: 1. Traffic lights are your friends, so plan for a lot of them. Played properly, they let the ride leader catch up and scoot past the "off the front" group before they can even clip back in. Of course, once past them wave them on, suck their wheel, and drop off before the next light. Repeat until one of them whine, and then declare the "No Whine Ride" rule and get yourself a free cup of the delicious coffee beverage of your choice. 2. Evoke "Darryl's Rule" at the beginning of each ride, especially the flat ones with a lot of overpasses. When the fast ones fail to come back down for the slowest rider (which is you, the ride leader), call them on it. When they whine, remember--I created the the No Whine Rule for the benefit of you, the ride leader! 3. Repetition is your friend. Lead the same ride every week, making sure that there are plenty of regroups at the same spots and handing out the "invisible" ride sheets at the beginning of the ride. After a few rides complacency will set in and the brisk riders will ride ahead to a regroup point. If the route is planned properly, you can ride right past them when they regroup and they won't even see you. Proceed to the coffee stop, have a relaxing cup of coffee with the other moderate riders and wait for the brisk riders to arrive. Then see Rule #4 below. 4. No dawdling--now there's a tip I can get behind! Of course, since the definition of dawdling is to say the least, flexible, as a ride leader it must be used judiciously. A good example--wait until the brisk pace coffee hounds get about a third of the way through their coffee, yell "two minutes", and see what happens. Since by this time everyone is leery of saying anything that sounds like whining, graciously offer to leave first and ride slow until they catch up. If the route is planned properly, at this point there will be no traffic lights, all right turns, and a tailwind for the rest of the ride. All kidding aside, volunteer to lead a ride--it benefits you (you can never be dropped, can get free Club clothes, and everyone thanks you for a great ride when it's over) and the Club! |