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Don’t want to become a “cycle club” – whats wrong with that?

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  • December 1, 2015 at 10:45 pm #25114
    Stef Marazzi

    Hiya, 

    myself and a few people and friends from the neighbouring villages – sometimes anywhere between 3 to 20-odd people (depending on who turns up) have starting regularly going for rides in the local area. We are quite happy doing this, and have absolutely no desire to race (we’re a bit old for that), we just like going for a 35 mile ride every sunday and having a nice chat and a coffee. We all have British Cycling membership to cover us for 3rd party insurance. We dont really have a “ride leader”, we just make a route on Strava, most of us download it to our Garmins and help plod our way round a route. It sounds simple and that is how we like it. A few people have commented that because of our regular Sunday rides, that somehow “we must be a club, and should become a club, because then we’d be insured”. But – we dont want to. We dont want the hassle of a committee, we dont want to collect any subscription money, we dont want to have to start a “club” bank account, we don’t want to bother affiliating to anyone, we don’t want any “club politics”, we really don’t want to be THAT organised.        

     As far as I can see, a “club”, by definition, has to “club together” to pay for membership, such as “club” affiliation to British Cycling or CTC. We dont want to do that. We just want to ride our bikes for 35 miles every Sunday and have a chat. Whats wrong with that? If thats all we want to do – can we just keep doing what we do?

    If we are all members of British Cycling with Ride membership, so are therefore covered for 3rd party insurance in case we somehow ploughed into the back of a car and damaged it, surely thats fine isnt it? I’ve read back to front the terms and conditions of the British Cycling insurance, and basically it seems that as long as you are not racing, you are covered for cycling a bicycle.

    I’d be interested in others opinions, as I bet there are thousands of loosely organised “village group cycling friends” that find themselves in the same position.

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  • December 8, 2015 at 3:32 pm #863605
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    Judge dreadful

    I’m in the same position as

    I’m in the same position as you (pretty much). I set up social rides on the Skyride site, then see who turns up. My rides vary in length from 10-15, to over 150 miles, and for the most part, it works very well. I don’t want to be a ‘cycling club’, I have sampled one or two in the past, and they have mostly been the antithesis of what I’m about. As you have found, there are some people, who just have to have a club structure on their rides, which is fine, if you like that sort of thing. I don’t enjoy that sort of thing,  I just like finding new and interesting routes, and I’m not remotely interested in ‘Cadence’ or ‘power’ or riding fast. I guess it’s different strokes for different folks, but I do get irritated by people expecting me to form a ‘club’.

    December 5, 2015 at 5:26 pm #863603
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    CommotionLotion

    You don’t have to join a club

    You don’t have to join a club, just do what you want.

    December 5, 2015 at 1:40 pm #863601
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    Man of Lard
    Leviathan wrote:
    SPLITTER!*

    Get the other two to ride with you instead.

     

    *People’s Front of Judea

    At least one of them might do that on the basis of he & I being serial “bad eggs” and racing off – well matched to me in fact… But frankly I can’t get agitated about it.

    December 5, 2015 at 10:08 am #863599
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    chrismday

    There’s an exclusion

    There’s an exclusion contained in BC’s insurance that I wonder how many people are aware of:

    “One member against another in a cycling competition, race, time trial or timed event”

    A timed event is clarified as : “Typically, but not exclusively, a Sportive or other such organised mass participation event where times are recorded”

    In other words, if the guy you bring down is also a BC member, you’re on your own.

    This doesn’t apply to a club ride situation, but the exclusion applies even if you’ve taken out one of the “Race” levels of membership.

    December 4, 2015 at 11:45 pm #863597
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    SteppenHerring

    I’m fairly involved with a

    I’m fairly involved with a club and its administration so I know what’s involved.

    If you just want to go for a ride then go for a ride.  Getting into the whole business of running a club is a faff. If you’re not road racing then no need to have a club affiliated to BC. If you’re not time trialling then no need to have a club affiliated to CTT. 

    If you don’t need to bureaucracy then don’t do it. Club politics and committees lead to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to the dark side. (e.g. triathlons). 

    December 4, 2015 at 1:57 pm #863595
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    Choll15

    Interesting thread, and by

    Interesting thread, and by the look of things, a lot of people these days have at least had a brief chat about it to their ride companions. Having just started up a cycling club we have decided to become affiliated to British Cycling, but unlike the original poster we have a few members that want to race and time trial under our new name so it seemed a no-brainer. We only have 30 or so members so far but if it grows, the BC website offers some good tools you can use to help the day to day running of the club. We don’t intend to become bogged down in officialdom, but in my opinion having some structure to the club gives our riders some degree of comfort that we are ‘doing things properly’. How the club runs and the safety of each ride is very much down to the attitude of everyone present, and we encourage unselfish riding and thinking of others as part and parcel of signing up. The subject of accidents, insurance, liability and litigation fills me with dread and I am at as much of a loss as the next man as to what I would do should any incident on any of our rides turn into something sinister and costly.

    Our club mainly consists of members who used to belong to a cycle club in our area that was based from a shop. Initially they were part of BC, but when the annual subscription lapsed, they did not renew. Charging a membership fee as they did and having a few of us act as ride leaders, navigating and leading each group made up of differing people each week, some completely unknown, made a lot of people nervous about what would happen and worried about safety and the liability issues being in charge involved. The fact the club charged a membership fee but appeared to give nothing in return other than the priviledge of using the shops coffee area (Which was open to Joe public for free) seemed to be the last straw, hence the splinter group.

    Did people feel a bit safer knowing the club was BC affiliated? Down to the individual I guess. Were they actually any safer in real life? Probably not. Having attended a BC ride leadership course (geared more towards your Sky-Ride type non-cyclists experiencing riding to be fair), it soon becomes apparent that if you nominate yourself as ‘leader’ the only way to enjoy full BC legal protection is to run your ride in the manner that BC dictate for a beginner type ride(Briefings, nominal role, Next of Kin form, Risk Assessment..) which no average club ride would ever do.

    December 4, 2015 at 12:32 pm #863593
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    CXR94Di2

    Danger Dicko wrote:

    Danger Dicko wrote:

    Shit, does this mean that me and my partner should form a club to protect us when we go on an afternoon jaunt around the lanes of South Yorkshire?

    What is the numbers required for a club?

    Why didn’t we have clubs when I was 13? I wasn’t insured at all for a good 35 years of my life. How dangerous was that?

    I suppose it’s individuals who form a group. You probably weren’t dangerous but the world has changed and it has become more litigious. Odds are you will never need to claim or be defended by insurance. Actuaries/are reasonably good at assessing risk, hence low premium for cover.

    December 4, 2015 at 11:21 am #863591
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    Danger Dicko

    Shit, does this mean that me

    Shit, does this mean that me and my partner should form a club to protect us when we go on an afternoon jaunt around the lanes of South Yorkshire?

    What is the numbers required for a club?

    Why didn’t we have clubs when I was 13? I wasn’t insured at all for a good 35 years of my life. How dangerous was that?

    December 4, 2015 at 10:44 am #863589
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    Cyclespeed Tours

    Here’s a scenario;

    Here’s a scenario;

    You’re riding along happily in a group of 10, when the guy in Position 2 hits a pothole and has a catastrophic wheel failure, causing him to fall. 

    He brings down 3 or 4 other riders behind him causing both material and physical damage.

    To my mind, this falls under the ‘sh1t happens’ category. Things can and do fail. Maybe the rider should have avoided the pothole. So be it. You were riding only 30cm from his back wheel, so you’re as much at fault as he is.

    Insurance shouldn’t be involved in situations like this.

    December 3, 2015 at 9:18 pm #863587
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    Leviathan
    Man of Lard wrote:
    I recently dropped out of the local village ride group here for exactly this reason – that one person (who liked to think of himself as the ‘leader’) started to impose (for want of a better term) “regulations” for taking part arbritrarily and riding on public roads.

    Bear in mind this was a group of 4 (maximum) chaps, often 3, sometimes even 2 just out for a Sunday morning bimble. All individually insured. Now they’ve lost 25% of the regular attendees.

    In the email announcing this to me (and he knew only I was going to take issue) he said there’d been pressure from the other “members” (of a club that I had no idea I’d joined, and nor did the other two) to impose it. Both confirmed to me that they had not agitated in any way to impose any conditions.

    I still go out on a Sunday morning and since pulling out of the clique, I notice that they are riding even more slowly than before and not as far. Maybe that’s the reason for the regulations being introduced…. hmmmmm

    Their loss, not mine.

    SPLITTER!*

    Get the other two to ride with you instead.

     

    *People’s Front of Judea

    December 3, 2015 at 6:27 pm #863585
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    Simon E
    austinpowers wrote:
    CXR94Di2 wrote:
     

     Weigh up the cost a few quid to be a member and have cover or potentially face an ambulance chaser after your life savings over a silly little acident.

    Yes, but a member of what? A member of British Cycling (Race or Ride cover) will cover you for liability but will being a member of a cycling club?

    Read the discussion, it’s been said already.

    December 3, 2015 at 5:18 pm #863583
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    Stef Marazzi

    Exactly stay on the point
    Exactly, stay on the point here, the question is “Do we need to become a “club” to have 3rd party liability, if all we are doing is going for a Sunday rides?”. And the answer is: Being a member of a cycling club does NOT cover you for ANY third party liability. It only covers the elected officials of that ” club”. Don’t pretend that it is anything that it isn’t. It is right there in the small print. It does make me wonder, how many people have been coerced into joining a cycling club, thinking it magically covered them. It doesn’t. They would need BC ride membership, or CTC or LCC equivalent, IF they want that 3rd party cover. And, as is quite rightly pointed out, there is nothing that says you “must” have it, either.

    December 3, 2015 at 4:55 pm #863581
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    austinpowers
    CXR94Di2 wrote:
     

     Weigh up the cost a few quid to be a member and have cover or potentially face an ambulance chaser after your life savings over a silly little acident.

    Yes, but a member of what? A member of British Cycling (Race or Ride cover) will cover you for liability but will being a member of a cycling club?

     

    December 3, 2015 at 4:55 pm #863579
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    Simon E

    CXR94Di2 wrote:

    CXR94Di2 wrote:
    Weigh up the cost a few quid to be a member and have cover or potentially face an ambulance chaser after your life savings over a silly little acident.

    I don’t have a problem with this while it is a genuine choice.

    However, this creeping need to protect oneself from an unlikely situation is like people pushing helmets & hi-viz, using fear to sell a product. Once these things appears to become the norm then it’s harder to argue the case for someone without it when they are in fact doing nothing wrong.

    December 3, 2015 at 4:35 pm #863577
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    CXR94Di2
    Simon E wrote:
    But surely if you are riding as the Highway Code instructs then you could not ever be considered at fault?

     

    When it comes to litigation,  has common sense or being right come into it.  I have seen normal, placid people ripped apart emotionally/physically when having to deal with a litigant trying it on. It cost them more, alot more than the thousands in solictitor fees to defend themselves.

     

     Weigh up the cost a few quid to be a member and have cover or potentially face an ambulance chaser after your life savings over a silly little acident.

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