Places to Ride and Group Rides
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Vermont Bicycle Club is a great social group where you can meet new people, join group rides, find new routes, and generally have fun with bicycles! Vermont Bicycle Club is focused on creating a community of people to help boost confidence and diversity, and we're interested in bicycles rides with folks who are either new to riding or looking to learn and build their skillset.
Places to Ride
There are great routes published with ride descriptions, printable maps, and downloadable GPS files at the Vermont Bicycle Club Places to Ride page here: www.vermontbicycleclub.com/places-to-ride/
It's important that you be familiar enough with your route so that you could ride it without guidance, and that you be familiar with any up to date road closures and changes. Also be certain you are intimately familiar with the terrain before choosing a route to ride. Many routes in our part of Vermont are very rural and can mean rougher gravel roads in some cases even abandoned roads. If you aren't sure, then it's best not to ride that route.
Group Rides
Group rides are posted to both the main home page of vermontbicycleclub.com as well as to our facebook group at www.facebook.com/groups/vermontbicycleclub
These rides are beginner friendly in pace, distance, and terrain. There may be community members inviting other community members on more challenging rides as well. Be sure to read the ride description before joining.
Important things to know before joining us:
We’re a group of cyclists from all disciplines who live in Barre, Vermont. With the support of Vermont Bicycle Shop we’ve created a casual and loosely formed “club” to organize bikes rides within our community. With the help of Vermont Bicycle Shop we’ve got this great webpage and a dedicated group to help facilitate friendly and comfortable access to bicycling in Vermont.
Is there a membership sign up?
Nope, you can join our facebook group, or you can simply check this website for rides information and more.
Are there any requirements to ride with the group? Yes! We do have a few rules, and we also have a few things we strongly encourage:
Some rules for joining us:
- Anyone under 18 needs to be accompanied by a responsible adult.
- Everyone must wear a helmet.
- Everyone must follow safe riding guidelines and the laws of the road for bicycles. (If you aren’t sure you can always ask).
- Everyone must be able to self sustain the safe working order of their bicycle. We’re friendly and glad to help with many things. We may not have the right tube if you get a flat, we also don’t want to hold the group up and spend an hour in the parking lot fidgeting with some part either.
- Sometimes lights are required, be sure to check, we’ll make sure we mention it. If you aren’t sure, always bring lights, most of us use lights no matter the conditions.
- A cautious respect for riding with motorized traffic. We love to find routes with no cars whenever possible, we also love to exercise an abundance of caution when sharing the road with cars. Interacting with motorized vehicle users in any way other than very friendly and positive is strictly prohibited. Obstructing any other users of the road in anyway is strictly prohibited.
- Leave no trace. Take anything you brought with you home with you, snack wrappers and old tubes and more should all come home with you.
Some good ideas and strong encouragements:
- A flashing rear light and a flashing front light.
- Snacks!
- Some kind of simple fix it tools. There is usually an experienced cyclist or bicycle mechanic on the ride, if you’re bike needs any kind of special tool to adjust things like the seatpost, or the brakes or take a wheel off, be sure you have it with you.
- A flat kit is always a good idea and should include a spare tube, at least two tire levers, a frame pump or CO2 pump and cartridges and a patch kit.
- A cell phone and a card with emergency contact info on your persons or bicycle.
- A cautious respect for riding with traffic. We love to find routes with no cars whenever possible, we also love to exercise an abundance of caution when sharing the road with cars.
- Familiarize yourself with the route and bring a cue sheet or a map with you.