Cycling Clubs?

-steves-

I have been riding for 3 months now, usually do around 20 - 30 mile trips when I go out at the weekends, with 10 - 20 mile loops during the week. I looked at a couple of cycling club websites around the Cambridge area and they seems to do 50 mile rides out as their average runs. I generally run at about 17.5 ish mph on the flat, though I dont do so well up hills or head wind due to the short time I have been riding and get out of breath pretty quickly. :oops:

Anyway, it appears that the average speed for one of the clubs is only about 13 mph which to be fair, will be too relaxed for me to keep pushing myself, although distance wise, it might help my knees handle the miles better as the one 50 miler I have done thus far seriously hrut from 30 miles onwards on my knees. The faster rides tend to be longer and I already know I could not cope with those kind of distances at the moment.

So....

1) Should I join a cycling club?

2) Will a cycling club benefit me? What is the general advatages of a cycling club?

3) Anyone know of a cycling club in Cambridge that do shoerter maqrginally faster rides or am I just too winpy to join a club at the moment? :oops:

mattshrops

just go along and have a chat with the people there. 99% will go out of their way to try to help and give you good advice. the best way to improve is to try and keep up/increase distance. if necessary you could do the faster run and bail out at a certain distance? whatever youll get better, im pretty new to my club and im really glad i joined. get ur @rse down there

u05harrisb

1-YES!
2-It will improve you loads! you will push yourself more because there are others with you and they are pushing it too, you get to go in a group sop your avarages will be far better. you will learn to ride in a group (a valuable skill if you want to do anything like a sportive or race) you will have sombody to share you passion with. you will commit mroe to going out because if its just you there isnt anybody you can let down etc. the list goes on!
3-unfortunatly not my way

seriously though bud, DO IT! you will never regret it
Ben

Dmak

I can't seem to able to get my ass out of bed early enough on a Sunday morning!

My local club, FCCC do Cafe runs easy peasy 60 miles 15-16mph and quick runs 17-19mph for 60-70 miles.

I do intend to alternate between the 2, sounds good to me. Just got to have an easy Saturday night.

popularname

yup - do it. I waited too long before joining my club because I had similar worries. I started out with the slower ride and learned how to ride in a bunch and a chain gang. People are really friendly too. There are people in my club who were struggling first time out (40 miles) but within a couple of weeks were leading the pace (really).