Sunday Club Run

[Del]

I'm looking to start the Sunday Club Run up again.

It ran for nearly 3 years until my accident earlier this year in March. Since then, the Training Group have met on some Sundays and others have set up rides on an ad-hoc basis, but the regular CR at 09:30 from CSS has been suspended.

I have had a brief chat with Jon and also spoken to a few of those that used to ride on Sundays. The consensus seems to be that we should restart the Sunday CR, but I have suggested a few changes to spread the organisational load and make it easier to organise this time round. I'd like to get away from the reliance on any one individual having to organise the routes, regardless of whether that's me or anybody else.

So, I'm suggesting that we keep the departure time at 09:30 at CSS and that we continue to advertise the ride as suitable for people who can ride at 17/18mph. If people also want to set up a TG standard ride on Sunday, or an easier paced ride on any given week, that's good, but at least the Sunday CR will be there again. Running it at 17/18 mph average was pretty successful at catering for as wide a group as we could without things getting too stretched out.

I''ve proposed to Jon that we copy what the Over the Hill Gang do and set up a calendar of rides. To get enough variation I'm thinking we pick about 9/10 destinations and then organise them on an even and odd month basis, i.e. Even Month 1st to 5th Sundays and Odd Month 1st to 5th Sundays.

We can pick destinations with cafes. The routes don't have to be too prescriptive, as most destinations have various alternatives to reach them. However, if people want to save routes, then we could share them via GPS or route planning sites.

Of course, if people turn up on a particular Sunday and want to ride to a different destination from the one on the calendar, that's fine, but having the calendar in place means that there's always a default destination and means that we can actually get more people to suggest a route and lead.

So, as a possible example, just in case this is in any way unclear, the calendar could look something like:

Month 1

1st Sunday - Four Elms via Pilgrims Way
2nd Sunday - Abinger via Box/Ranmore
3rd Sunday - Tanhouse Farm via Box and Leith
4th Sunday - High Beeches via Rusper and Handcross
5th Sunday - Henfold Lakes via Box and Leith

Month 2

1st Sunday - Ide Hill via Edenbridge
2nd Sunday - Borde Hill via Rusper and Staplefield
3rd Sunday - Four Elms via Bletchingley and Tilburstow Hill
4th Sunday - Redhill Aerodrome via Box Hill and Newdigate
5th Sunday - Henfold Lakes via Box and Leith

I've written those down without too much thought, so we can change things around if people have other suggestions and the destinations can always be reviewed and changed from time to time.

I'd like people's views on this. If we can get this up and running again in September, then we can see how it goes and develop it from there.

Del