We are happy to see any regular rider lead a club run and indeed encourage it. It isn’t as daunting as it sounds and there is plenty of help available. The club owns a Garmin GPS which may be borrowed by members who volunteer to lead rides or who plan to submit routes as well as for personal riding projects. If you are happy to lead a ride then the steps are as follows:-
- The rides are organised by the ride secretary up to three months in advance so initially you just need to supply the date when you can lead. If you already know the destination then let the ride secretary know.
- Some time before the ride you need to decide on the destination. You do not have to provide a digital route beforehand but most leaders now do.
- Assuming you want to put together a digital route there is plenty of help available. The Café Map will help you find a destination and Route Archive will often have a route available that you can simply reuse.
- Alternatively have a look at our Café resource page which will show you literally hundreds of cafés marked on a map.
- If the exact route is not already available then there will usually be one that goes near your destination. You may already be familiar with route editing software in which case you can download the chosen route from Plotaroute and upload it to your chosen editing software. Editing a route using Plotaroute is not difficult and is free. Alternatively either the webmaster or ridesecretary will be happy to produce a route based on your specifications but you should probably ask for help 2 or 3 weeks before the ride.
- In the week before the ride you should send an email to riders@congletoncyclingclub.org.uk informing people of your destination and, if you have chosen to do so, enclosing the digital route.
- It is possible to cancel a ride by sending another email to riders@congletoncyclingclub.org.uk up to an hour before the start. Normally you would do this if the weather is forecast to be so bad that it is either dangerous or thoroughly unpleasant.
- Lead the ride.
- Usually a photo will be taken during the ride – typically at the lunch stop. The ride leader will often produce a small report on the ride which ends up on facebook with the photo. Alternatively to using facebook direct then put the information in an email and send it to either the webmaster or ridesecretary.