Have you ever thought about leading a ride with CRW? Do you have questions about what is involved? We are now offering Ride Leader Training for anyone who wishes to learn more about what it takes to lead a club ride.
CRW is best known for its weekend rides, but they don’t happen in a vacuum. It takes volunteers to develop the routes, secure a ride start location and otherwise arrange the event. These are our ride leaders who are at the core of making CRW an outstanding bike club.
Some routes originate from the ride leader’s own experience as a neighborhood ride that becomes popular with friends. Other times a ride leader takes over an existing ride when the current leader moves on. In any case, leading a ride can become a rewarding experience.
It’s fun, easy, and a great way to get involved with the club. Use the link below to join us on on Zoom: Note that registration is required. You can start at 6:45 for BYO cocktails and to mix and mingle with other club members. The presentation will start at 7:00.
Ride Leader training Tuesday April 27th at 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM over Zoom (Registration required)
Learn about how you can become part of the wonderful community of over 100 Ride Leaders. Note that the term “ride leader” comes from the early days of the club when the leader was actually out front and led the group. We retained the title but it is more accurate to say “ride organizer” who makes all the arrangements and may or may not lead the assembled riders.
Existing ride leaders that would like a refresher are welcome to join, as well, but this training is not required for existing ride leaders.
Anyone who would like to lead any ride for CRW this season (including weekend rides, Devo, Adventure, Hubs, etc.) is required to attend ride leader training, then co-lead two rides before becoming an official ride leader. A recording of the Zoom session will be made available.
Ride leaders are the heart and soul of our rides program and CRW would not exist without their contributions! We hope you can join us to find out more about leading rides.
Robyn Betts is a member of the CRW Rides Committee.
Elizabeth trains by heart rate because she likes the well-defined zones. Mark trained by power last year but didn’t like it so this year he switched to rate of perceived exertion (RPE) on his mountain bike. RPE, heart rate and power are all work. The effective method is the one you’ll use.
The problem is exercise is better known for helping to maintain fat loss than for contributing to fat loss itself. Reducing body fatness depends more on reducing food intake than on increasing exercise. As you likely know, the more you exercise, the hungrier you get, the more you eat. If you are an already-lean athlete who under-eats, your body will protect itself from wasting away by conserving energy the rest of the day. That is, after a hard workout, you might (subconsciously) choose to do deskwork instead of run errands. 
Dedicated athletes will likely answer “no change.” They follow a training program geared toward achieving a specific performance goal. Collegiate athletes at the D-I level have little choice in how much exercise they do. They have to perform—particularly if they have a scholarship. Athletes in sports that demand lightness would likely cut out cardio done specifically to burn off calories and instead eat a little less. Fitness exercisers might do only workouts they truly enjoy. Compulsive exercisers with a high drive for thinness—which can include any of the athletes mentioned above—may want to take more rest days, stop getting up at 4:30 every morning to do a killer workout, or do fewer double workouts. But anxiety about “getting fat” would undoubtedly force them to relentlessly exercise hard, day after day, to burn off calories and “look good.”.
Weight is more than a matter of will power. People, like dogs, come is assorted sizes and shapes. No one size or shape is “best.” Is it time for a cultural change, so we can focus more on athleticism and performance, and less on body looks and weight? 
Note that the law requiring you to pull aside and allow motorists (and other bicyclists) to pass when that is safe still applies where "bicycles may use full lane" signs have been posted. On the other hand, there is no requirement to allow unsafe passing. In fact, the rules are the same with or without the sign. The sign serves only as a reminder of what the rules are everywhere. No sign was posted where I shot the video,
Yesterday morning I went for a ride. It was very nice. I was dressed for 41 degrees or so. Turned out I was overdressed. The temp was 47 by noon.
It’s no secret that technology has influence biking, but some technologies have been pushed aside so that many of you don’t even know they once existed. I believe bicycle rollers, which are nearly as old as the bicycle itself, fall into this category. A word of explanation. 
Fred was already a member of cycling groups on Facebook and decided it was just the place to form a new kind of bike club. “The whole purpose of this group is to encourage each other to get outside and ride a bike in a safe, appropriate, socially distant way, or to pedal indoors,” the SDCC group description states. “When you get outside and pedal in the fresh air, or cycle indoors, please share a post with a pic, the location and some encouragement!” From there, things took off in a way Fred never expected.
A member from Pittsburgh posted photos that her mother and a college friend took while cycling in Scotland in 1938. Those photos were seen by two members in Scotland who decided they would make a hobby of finding the places in the photos and taking new shots from the same viewpoint to create an intriguing set of now and then photos to post.
Never having biked on beach sand before, it turned out to be a surprisingly stable surface, especially for fat bikes which we were all riding. But, most of our route was below the line of trucked in sand and on the natural shore line which is rock. Lots of rocks.
