Your region's cycling "enthusiasm"

burnthesheep

I was thinking the other day............how freaking pitiful that the company I work for is the named/primary sponsor of a pro team (natl, intl, jr, and dev teams).......but not a single damn person out of about 1500 local employees cares to join a work cycling club. Not one.

This made me want to ask, what's the level of enthusiasm with cycling in your regions for others who post here from Europe or other parts of the world?

I'd say, I am quite fortunate for my immediate city since it is a fitness city as an oasis in the otherwise obese and rednecky woods of the south of the US. There's a few pub-clubs, a few low-mid level Cat racer teams. Not bad.

Even so......it was a little telling to have our own company sponsor a pro team and nobody seems to give a rat's about it. Nobody follows it. No interest in a club. No interest in group rides. No interest in visiting a race to watch/see them if they race within a 2 hour drive. Nothing. Worse yet, the company's charity going to be the primary sponsor of a major sportive within a 2 hour drive of our US operations.......no volunteers, no riders, no interest.

I can't accept that this would be the norm for the UK, Belgium, France, or pretty much many other countries represented on this chat forum.

What say you?

shirley_basso

Central London. Mental cycling community.
Moving to Cambridge (50 miles North). Pretty similar.

Inside my organisation? I am not sure. We sponsor the most prestigious race in the UK and come to think of it, I don't even remember receiving a single email about it last year. I may try get in touch with the right people and head up there with work next year though.

burnthesheep

Shirley Basso wrote:

Central London. Mental cycling community.
Moving to Cambridge (50 miles North). Pretty similar.

Inside my organisation? I am not sure. We sponsor the most prestigious race in the UK and come to think of it, I don't even remember receiving a single email about it last year. I may try get in touch with the right people and head up there with work next year though.

Our international operations have good communication about the team and what they're doing. The international offices also pretty much all have a regional club within the organization.

I find it interesting that in the "core" of a mental cycling community, your work place didn't send out anything either.

I guess on my end, it's a bit of jealously seeing all the photos and events and participation within the company outside of the US. It's Europe, China, even in South America.......there seems to be something going on. But here in the US, I bet maybe 1/2 the employees don't even know there is a pro team.

With young kids, it's hard to train and make time for a club or team based in the city. They meet at times people without kids can meet, not people like me. So, if my company bothered to leverage it's cycling interests.......I'd have something within my own workplace. But, I don't.

sancho_panza

Western Switzerland - right on Lake Geneva. Massive local enthusiasm. Unsurprisingly. Great place to ride!

cooldad

Plenty of people riding in Surrey. road and Mountain biking.

bristolpete

Devon here. 4 years now.

Hard riding. Hard riders.

Some really strong bike riders here along with big ego's in Mid Devon and the like but riding in and around Dartmoor does make you a strong rider. Watch the Tour of Britain stages in Devon, hill after hill after hill.

A very average selection of bike shops and one of the things I miss about Bristol, along with decent broadband LOL.

Lots of family riding in and around Ex estuary and of course the Cornwall trails camel, tarka and co. Have a local mecca for the MTB riders in Haldon Woods, some serious off road terrain.

trivial_poursuivant

Gods country. We love it up er. Aye appen

gethinceri

Company HQ on Lac Leman, quite a few keen cyclists, I often ride out with colleagues.

adam0bmx0

I'm in Brisbane, massive cycling community here, both recreational and racing.

Within a 30km cycle I can ride 4 different dedicated crit tracks. Then there are 2-3 crits in the year on closed industrial estate roads.

We have a 'twilight' crit series mid-week on a wednesday after work.

Most weekends I can ride a crit on both the Saturday and Sunday.

Then throughout the winter, there are road races most weekends (either point to point or laps), some are closed roads and some rolling road blocks. We have time trials and and a number of race series', catering for Elite riders and CAT1>4.

Having emigrated from the UK and central London, Brissy cyclists don't know how good they've got it!

diamonddog

I am based in Spain so there are several large groups riding past my house, quite a few ride up from the coast at weekends and holidays.

davep1

I live very close to the South Downs in Sussex. It is fantastic country for both road and off road riding. Within 3 minutes of leaving my house I can be climbing the South Downs Way and mucking about on the trails, or on the road bike I can be off on country lanes. I have never been to a trail centre, and really resist putting the bike in the car to drive somewhere else.

There are a few cycling nuts at work, but everyone else thinks we're mad. Work would never sponsor any organisation, never mind a bike team!

bigmitch41

Here in the Isle of Man cycling is very popular, we have great landscape routes and roads for mtb and roadies, the weather can be a little unforgiving and so we have produced some tough top level pro-cyclists over the years....

burnthesheep

OP here.......begin rant......

So, I'm done trying to organize a work club. We've got at least 20 people who routinely ride recreational here and at least one other I know of who races.

The company sponsors a pro racing team. Nobody couldn't give less of a damn to have something organized. I offered if they put up the $200 yearly club/team fee we would buy our own team kits and promote at events or races we went to and post up a lot of stuff on the company website. I offered for the team members themselves to maybe try to collect the money among themselves.

Nothing.

I get the feeling in the US we're a fairly non-committal group of folks.

Just really disappointing I guess. I'll put my enthusiasm elsewhere.

kawaspresso

My club is in the french alps, our primary sponsor is the city where the club is based, and they are interested about races results, about kids in the club and they let us access to space for general meetings.
There are not a lot of local races and no crits, but there are tons of sportives in summer, and a "hill" climb season in autumn before snow (alpine hills )

milemuncher1

In London, it’s very easy to get people out. Where I live when not in London, the majority of people have a vitriolic, pathological, hatred of cyclists. There are a few ‘clubs’ but they are perceived ( rightly or wrongly ) as HDAU, and not massively well subscribed, compared to London.

sgt.pepper

Wellington has a growing cycling culture, certainly quite large in proportion to its relatively small population. Decent amount of races and clubs (though still growing my personal involvement in these). However NZ as a whole is still generally very anti-cyclist. It's a young and relatively Americanised country, so car culture remains dominant, both in terms of politics and mindset. This also isn't helped by how sprawling it is compared to the UK - Wellington's 'suburbs' stretch for well over 15-20 miles, with my own 10 miles from the CBD. By comparison, my commute in Brighton was never above 4 miles.

My organisation is in the public sector, and relatively eco/bourgeois, so provides absolutely excellent facilities - multiple showers, full underground bike lockup and advertises occasional cycling events - more kid/social related than competitive though. NZ is generally great for providing showers, but rarely any sort of cycling facilities. It is still very much a 'recreational' activity here, as a opposed to 'mode of transport.'

Exumanewbie

Bahamas. Really small, semi divided community expats vs locals. Even more fractured local community. Tiny racing community (12-15). Minimal support from cycling community involving races from the aspect of volunteers, sponsorship etc. Despite the fact that several companies sponsor us cycling organizations. Seems like its on the decline especially among the youth. There's a misconception that its a "white" sport so there's a stigma. But I'm almost two years in and really loving it.

dstev55

I've been cycling for 3 years now. I come from a town called Ilkeston in Derbyshire - those of you that do know it probably refer to it as a sh*thole, but it's my town and it's generally full of friendly and loyal folk.

I could never believe it didn't have a cycling club. You often see Roadies out and about and it is surrounded by some of the best cycling terrain the UK has to offer. I mean you want hills? 10 miles from the edge of the peak district. You want flat? Go the other way and it's flat as a pancake. You want that undulating type of terrain that the UK is famous for? Surrounded by it.

Well, we didn't have a cycling club, until last year when a group of us finally got together, led by 2 super enthusiastic and committed guys to finally get one up and running. It all started in April with a few of us gathering outside a local pub at 6am on a Saturday morning for our weekly "smashfest". You see we were all Dad's and some had jobs to go to. We were back by 9am.

By July Ilkeston Cycle Club was born. Multiple organised rides per week, the Sunday social rides often attended by over 50 people.

6 months down the line and we have nearly 250 paid up members. That's right. 250. In 6 months. And 1 very prestigious "cycling Sir" can be counted in this too.

Within this 6 months the club has attracted a very diverse type of member, from under 16's to 60+ females. The club is all about diversity. Everyone and every level of riding is catered for.

In it's first 6 months it has also raised thousands of pounds for a local charity, organised numerous track sessions at the Derby velodrome, organised a charity hill climb on Boxing Day, created a full range of club kit via Endura and held it's first annual awards evening.

The club is going from strength to strength and I'd urge anyone who lives in or around Ilkeston to join - but then again I'm sure you've already heard of us!

Matthewfalle

dstev55 wrote:

I've been cycling for 3 years now. I come from a town called Ilkeston in Derbyshire - those of you that do know it probably refer to it as a sh*thole, but it's my town and it's generally full of friendly and loyal folk.

I could never believe it didn't have a cycling club. You often see Roadies out and about and it is surrounded by some of the best cycling terrain the UK has to offer. I mean you want hills? 10 miles from the edge of the peak district. You want flat? Go the other way and it's flat as a pancake. You want that undulating type of terrain that the UK is famous for? Surrounded by it.

Well, we didn't have a cycling club, until last year when a group of us finally got together, led by 2 super enthusiastic and committed guys to finally get one up and running. It all started in April with a few of us gathering outside a local pub at 6am on a Saturday morning for our weekly "smashfest". You see we were all Dad's and some had jobs to go to. We were back by 9am.

By July Ilkeston Cycle Club was born. Multiple organised rides per week, the Sunday social rides often attended by over 50 people.

6 months down the line and we have nearly 250 paid up members. That's right. 250. In 6 months. And 1 very prestigious "cycling Sir" can be counted in this too.

Within this 6 months the club has attracted a very diverse type of member, from under 16's to 60+ females. The club is all about diversity. Everyone and every level of riding is catered for.

In it's first 6 months it has also raised thousands of pounds for a local charity, organised numerous track sessions at the Derby velodrome, organised a charity hill climb on Boxing Day, created a full range of club kit via Endura and held it's first annual awards evening.

The club is going from strength to strength and I'd urge anyone who lives in or around Ilkeston to join - but then again I'm sure you've already heard of us!

Cool kit. Big black orange and black hat to that.

thistle_

Work in Cheshire (UK).
Well served by various cycling clubs.
No work based cycling club. A few of us go mountain biking at the weekend, in the summer some of us go for a ride after work.

burnthesheep

dstev55 wrote:

Well, we didn't have a cycling club, until last year when a group of us finally got together,

Bravo! Good work!

Glad to see some folks with success.

I could scab on to a Facebook group team local to me pretty easily, but wanted to try to do something nice for the company and our charity first. Promoting the charity and company at the events, fund raise, etc..... I see what doing something nice often gets you. I mean, if I ever did win something it would be like $50, but I even offered for all team winnings to go to the sponsored charity.

I'm betting there was somebody back in the day before I worked there that made a dickhead move and did something not very moral and now they "can't have stuff like than anymore" but aren't bold enough to come out and tell the truth about it.

Frank Wilson

East Algarve Calling.

When I first came here 11 years ago and bought a "shopper bike" from the local supermarket (29 Euros!!!) I seldom saw another cyclist.

We have always had a Continental Team under many differing names dependent on sponsorship (currently Sporting Tavira)

https://www.procyclingstats.com/team/sp ... avira-2018

as backed by football team Sporting of Lisbon. In the town there is also an old concrete (outdoor) velodrome and a few local cycling bars. I think cycling was enthusiastically enjoyed by a few not the many.

However fast forward now when I go for a ride (on a better bike, the 29 euro shopper is no more) I meet lots of cyclists, expats and locals. (Sporting Tavira riders buzz past you sometimes and invite you to jump on but not for long!!) There is a local club which organises monthly rides and socials, also various groups of riders who you see on regular rides.

All in all it appears to be growing here (not to the extent of what I have witnessed in the UK) but certainly on the up.

The quiet roads, good weather and numerous coffee bars make it a very pleasant place to cycle.

triggersbroom

Hi all. Bristol here.

A very strong cycling community ranging from regular commuters throughout the city to cycling clubs invloved in racing, touring and audaxes. Bristol was one of, if not the first of the UK's cycling cities. It's just a pity the local council don't see fit to provide roads of a half decent quality to ride on. Other than that we have a thriving cycle scene and economy in the city.