Many years ago in a dark time before we were know as Chilkoot Velo and I still rode steel, I joined up with a group of people to spend time on bikes riding up and down the St. Croix Valley. We would show up on Saturdays to ride hard and on Sundays to recover and share coffee.
On Saturdays, some were faster than others, some raced, most did not but may have harbored the idea that one day they just might try this racing thing. On Sundays we were one unit, riding at the pace of whomever was the slowest, no one was dropped.
The rule of the day on Saturday’s was that this was a drop ride. If you fell off the back, aloha. The reality was different, the group would fracture, the faster would head up the road, the not quite as fast would regroup as necessary and continue on, together. One guess which group I was in...
This characteristic of the Saturday ride carried on as the club formally known (ironically perhaps?) as Bikery Racing Team crossed the street to Chilkoot Café and Cyclery changing our name as we crossed Churchill Street to the aforementioned Chilkoot Velo, CV. Our mission continued. The Saturday Fitness “rip your legs off” Ride (SFR) and the Sunday Coffee Ride (SCR) continued on and all were happy (if you don’t count those 10 minutes of route planning that immediately preceded EVERY ride). So happy in fact we’ve expanded our ride options even further as CV grew! This is wonderful.
The priority of this group was camaraderie.
Over the last few seasons there has been a subtle change within the club and our rides. Discussions of what is up with the ole club have been more frequent, but never anything specific, nothing anyone could really nail down. The gap between the fast and the not quite so fast has, at least figuratively, never been greater, to the point the coffee ride was spinning people off the back as we raced through the country side. Not so good. This reshaping has been bothering me for a couple of seasons now but I’ve never been able to put my finger upon exactly what was happening. (And, perhaps I’ve not now, but keep reading anyway!) edit: It should be noted, the actions occurring on those early season Coffee Rides, the droppings, have since been corrected! The action of dropping or a group riding off ahead of the Coffee Ride however is a part of what has been weighing on me.
For me it all came to a head on an Saturday Fitness Ride in late April. Our lycra clothed band of pedalers rode out of Stillwater, heading south to the mountainous region known as “Afton" for day of ups and downs, and who knew this would also be metaphorically true?
About 4 miles into this adventure one of the group flatted. I stopped to lend a hand and while it was a very experienced rider, he was new to the club. The group rode a short distance up the road, made a left turn disappearing around the corner. The group must be getting off the busy section of road and waiting? Not a big deal. Early in a ride we wait for each other, we are in this together,
But not today. The group was gone. There was no waiting. And it was on that ride, my last with the club so far this year, (which some might be very happy for, after all, so many LESS adjectives being wasted, right?) that it occurred to me: If we’re going to be leaving our friends behind 4 miles into a ride, why bother with the group? The way we’ve gone forward with every rider for themselves is, to me, a very different path than we used to travel.
Since then I’ve been off riding the roads of the St. Croix Valley mostly on my own, and I’m growing weary of my stories, how do you put up with that drivel? But in this “me time” I’ve put a lot of thought into these last few seasons and I was finally able to describe what I’m seeing: Our priorities as group have changed, we have shifted to a “Go Fast/Every Rider for Themselves” priority first and everything else is of less priority, most disappointingly for me, the camaraderie of the ride.
All things change and evolve. If this is the new face of our club so be it. But we need to be clear that this is what our club is. Today there is much confusion as evidenced by the chatter of the 7:30am versus the 9am ride, fast riders at 7:30, the not quite so fast at 9.
Are we about the camaraderie of the ride or being the best racers we can be?
A big part of camaraderie is “RAD”, and really, who doesn’t want to be rad? (I hope that means what I think it means.)
I suppose a cycling club founded around something like “Off the Back” could solve this, but we’ll save that for another day.
Your’s in beer,
J. Sully
edited 9/1/2016 to reflect the Coffee Ride dropping has been corrected! Fear not for ye shall not be dropped if you go out for the Coffee Ride with the group on a Sunday.
edited 9/3/2016 to correct typos.
