Hi Steph, I'll do my best to answer your questions.
Plenty of our members started off riding casually, we all have to start somewhere and as you say, its a great way to get fit and have an something to focus on outside of the 'real' world which is also definitely a lot more interesting than the gym! I think you would benefit in the future from the free circuit time that members get on the closed road circuit at Stourport Sports Club.
As for finding a bike that may be a little more tricky. I understand that you don't want to spend a lot of cash before you find that you like it. We have great relationships with local bike shops such as Echelon Cycles at Pershore, Missing Link at Droitwich and Overspokes at Bewdley, but they will be selling new bikes or high spec used models.
I think either borrowing one or a local sale on eBay may be a good idea to get started. The good thing about bikes is that they sell quite easily, so if you spent cash on a used bike, you wouldn't usually loose too much if you re-sold it on eBay later on.
Your concern about being (quote) '
the slow lagger behinder at meetings' is something that many of our new members worry about. In your case I would strongly suggest getting hold of a bike, getting used to it and riding a few miles so that you are relatively comfortable on the bike before you join us. All cycling clubs struggle getting the pace of group rides right for their whole membership unless they are such a large club that they can run a wide range of separate rides for all standards of rider.
For your general inforation, the club is currently stronger than it has been during its 39 year history and we also have our highest female membership ever. We now have 186 members and run children’s, youth, junior and senior coaching, as well as promoting circuit races, a reliability trial, velodrome trips, Shelsley Walsh Open Hill Climb, administer the Summer Race Series at SSC and the club TT series! We have an excellent relationship with British Cycling and are planning even more activities for the future. As you may have seen from the website there is a club ride most Sundays at 09:30 from Stourport Sports Club, The Kingsway, Stourport. We have members regularly competing in open TT’s and some of our members road race each week as well. Having said all that, many of our members never race or ride competitively, they just like being part of the club, riding with friends they have made through the club or using the free circuit time we have at Stourport Cycle Circuit, the closed road cycle circuit at Stourport Sports Club. Many members ride sportives and organised events, but never actually pin a number on and race. We may be a racing club, but at our heart we are a cycling club.
Unlike some clubs there no expectation or regular commitment needed from our members, we often go from one year to the next without seeing some of them, they just like being part of a cycling club, some may come on one or two club rides a year, or turn up and race every week, it’s very relaxed. We like members to come and help out at our events when they can, but there is not any minimum expectation. (I have been on the committee and Chairman for some time, and there are plenty of members I have never seen!)
If you choose to join us in the future the process is very simple. Head to our main website
www.wfcrc.org.uk there is a big red 'join us' button on the top right of the navigation bar. This takes you to our club membership administration tool at British Cycling to pay and join us. You can pay by debit/credit card. (You don’t need to be a British Cycling member, but we do strongly recommend it).
I have attached a list of club membership benefits, we certainly try to give our members plenty for their membership.
Many of our activities, rides, coaching and club runs are visible on the club discussion forum at
wfcrcforum.boards.net We are also on Twitter @wfcrc and we also run the Stourport Cycle Circuit Twitter at @sscyclecircuit. There is also a dedicated members group for the club on Facebook, see it here:
www.facebook.com/groups/WyreForestCycleRacingClub/We are not a huge club, and like many organisations there is a small group of us that seem to get involved in most of the activities!
Please feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
Cheers
Paul
Paul Darby
WFCRC Chairman & General Secretary
Wyre Forest CRC 2015 Membership Benefits.pdf (147.51 KB)
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