# Starting a cycling Club



## Iainj837 (2 May 2010)

I was wondering how do you go about starting a cycling club ?


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## Hilldodger (2 May 2010)

What do you want from the club and howw formal do you want it to be?


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## longers (2 May 2010)

I think Andy WRX has been involved in setting up a new club recently. It might be worth PMing him for advice Iain.


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## Iainj837 (2 May 2010)

A touring group mainly, nothing to heavy.
G0ing for weekend rides and during the week.
Thanks for the replies


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## mr Mag00 (2 May 2010)

just in the process right now did the first 'club'ride today with 2 of us! 
we have as an existing sports club affiliated with BCF. we are looking at road and mtb. with the idea of getting some coaches and heading for the competitive route as opposed to the touring route.
we will have mebership fees and training sessions with fitness work so there if a formal structure and constitution involved


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## toekneep (12 May 2010)

We've just gone through the process. We already had about thirty regular riders and forming a club seemed the obvious next step really. So far so good, the web site is up and shirts are on order. Only time will tell if it was the right move. 

http://www.freckchaingang.org.uk


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## Hilldodger (12 May 2010)

Iainj837 said:


> A touring group mainly, nothing to heavy.
> G0ing for weekend rides and during the week.
> Thanks for the replies



If you want to make it very slightly formal (ie with a chairman, secretay etc) let me know and I can give you a copy of our old consitution which is very basic but covers everything you need.


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## dellzeqq (12 May 2010)

toekneep said:


> We've just gone through the process. We already had about thirty regular riders and forming a club seemed the obvious next step really. So far so good, the web site is up and shirts are on order. Only time will tell if it was the right move.
> 
> http://www.freckchaingang.org.uk



great site, toekneep. I may pillage the highlights mercilessly.

The answer is that you have to sit down and make a list of the things you want from a club, and then write a shorter list of things you might not want but have to have - which is basically rides leaders insurance. Google crash, cycle club, £370,000 (or something like) and wonder at the world we live in.

You might also want to arrange third party insurance for your members.

The easiest way to sort this is to affiliate to BC or the CTC. Neither, to be honest, offer value for money - they both mark up the insurance cover by about 100%

Don't underestimate the time it takes to keep the show on the road - I probably spend ten hours a week on cycle club stuff, mostly on correspondence, but also sorting rides out.

You may want money. Some clubs manage without, but all clubs have some expenses, and it's usually the case that a small number of people subsidise the club. Think this one through - if somebody drops a bike through the tea-shop window or you have to spend over a hundred quid getting someone home in a taxi after a chute, who picks up the bill? 

Finally, and I write this in part to raise Hilldodger's blood pressure, you have to have some kind of procedure for looking out for people under 18 or those who have a disability.

The weekend ride thing is interesting. Never, ever get yourself in a position where you book other people's accommodation.


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## toekneep (12 May 2010)

Pillage away dellzeqq, I can't really claim much originality.


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## gavintc (12 May 2010)

A minor comment, but I was a member of a new club that formed from a group of mates that wanted to ride together. We had shirts printed and succeeded in getting some sponsorship from local shops etc. Jump forward 2 years and a couple of the members wanted to enter a 4th Cat race. We then found that our shirts were not BC compliant. If you have sponsorship on a race shirt, you have to pay a significant cost per year to BC simply to allow the sponsorship to remain on the shirt. The result, we dropped the local sponsorship and had new shirts printed that only displayed the club name. We protested to BC, that this ruling was killing grass roots level development of a new fledgling club. We relied upon the local sponsorship for our funding and it made the local bike shop happy to have his name displayed on our rides.


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## toekneep (12 May 2010)

gavintc said:


> A minor comment, but I was a member of a new club that formed from a group of mates that wanted to ride together. We had shirts printed and succeeded in getting some sponsorship from local shops etc. Jump forward 2 years and a couple of the members wanted to enter a 4th Cat race. We then found that our shirts were not BC compliant. If you have sponsorship on a race shirt, you have to pay a significant cost per year to BC simply to allow the sponsorship to remain on the shirt. The result, we dropped the local sponsorship and had new shirts printed that only displayed the club name. We protested to BC, that this ruling was killing grass roots level development of a new fledgling club. We relied upon the local sponsorship for our funding and it made the local bike shop happy to have his name displayed on our rides.



Yes we are aware of that. I really don't understand British Cycling's attitude at all. They let us get within a whisker of getting shirts printed before they mentioned the sponsorship 'tax'.


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## dellzeqq (16 May 2010)

to be fair the BC thing is on the website.

Before affiliating to BC why not contact Gavin Gilbert of Willesden CC? He studied the insurance policies of BC and CTC and reckoned that the CTC afforded the better cover - and you don't have to worry about shirt sponsorship. BC's model constitution for affiliates is onerous, and there is a suspicion that they (or Sky) will insist on helmets being worn on club runs.

On the other hand, you might talk to Matt Mallinder of the LCC, which is just opening the doors to affiliates, and may not be confining themselves to London clubs. You may get a better deal, particularly if you want to put 3rd party insurance for members in to the package.


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