True, you don't need a club in order
to enjoy riding your bike. So what is the point of joining? We
are always glad to have you join us on a ride, member or not.
You have full access to ride information on this website if you
want it. Yes, there is a slight reduction in fee at Bite
the Bullet. But that doesn't amount to much. And yes, we do
charge $5.00 at the club pizza feed, the barbecue, or the post
I-Made-th- Grade picnic. You could make back your membership fee
just eating, I suppose, but $5.00 just isn't much of an argument.
So why join? I'm not a joiner by nature.
I'm never dismayed to find myself alone. But I was dismayed to
find that I no longer had any running or cycling partners with
whom I had practiced this odd addiction for 20 years.
I was addicted to endurance exercise
but I also knew I wouldnl't be motivated on my own to go out on
the bike as frequently as I liked.I went looking for someone to
cycle with and that's when I discovered TRC. I went on a couple
of short rides (I thought they were pretty long at the time--30
miles including the Grade) but then I found a club member who's
fondest wish was to cycle across America for the second time.
I knew immediately that what I had
thought was training and distance hadn't really counted. Soon
I had done my first club century. I had ridden STP in 2000 but
it was a goal. Suddenly I found myself going out on a weekend
for a century without a particular goal in mind. Sometimes it
was two centuries.
You don't have to ride centuries.
We have lots of group rides at shorter distances. The point is
you find not only someone to ride with, but you find out something
about yourself.
I scoffed at the suggestion of doing
STP when I first heard about it. "I don't want to spend that
mcuh time on my bike," I said. Now I have discovered that
being on the bike is one of the most gratifying experiences I
can have.
It's not just the wind in your hair,
and the motion of a silent, smoothly rolling bike, though that
is part of it. I'll go out on a century by myself now though I
would never have thought to do so before I joined. That isn't
it either.
Friends. All sorts of people find
they share a love of the bike no matter what they do for a living.
We complement one another, share rides and bread and our lives.
Joining is making friends. You can never have too many.
But joining to find riding partners
will only work if you become an active participant. We need young,
not so young, and old. We need the fast and the not so fast. Don't
be intimidated by the expensive bikes, the lycra, the flashy shirts.
Most of us are moving down the other end of the not-so-young continuum,
but, what the heck? We've got good friends.
Come join us. Be active. Be alive.
--Corrie
