- Could it be the other bike shops are selling a lot more bikes, thus people are more aware of the rides that they "sponsor"?
- Not enough or ineffective promoting of the various rides.
- Older riders have drifted away from the sport, and the newer riders are more interested in the MTB or urban scene than road riding. Newer riders may also be intimidated by group dynamics of riding in a bunch.
- The watering down of the group rides. Every night of the work week seems to have several options, thus without a bigger base of cyclist to draw from, less people per ride.
- The fear of not being able to keep up, though many rides are advertised as "no drop"
I'm sure there is more, but this is what came to mind. For me, it seems SWMBO always has found something more important for us, so I end up riding alone a lot and am hit and miss on the group rides. Any thoughts out there?
3 comments:
so busy all the time, the only time I have to ride is from home to work and from work to home. That and work, I sometimes can't get off in time. I think people have a "view" of group rides too, that they are not for the "average" rider, rather for the road race wanna-be types or something. They probably feel that they wouldn't be welcome as a newcomer to the group. Maybe some sort of special ride for strictly new people, and some leaders or something- who knows.
P.S. I rode from downtown to your brother's Thursday, 22 miles 1:36- 23 min (3 miles) of which was just getting to rice lake road from downtown.
I've been out on a ride and have encountered a lot of riders sporting local team jerseys, and only once have been invited to ride along. I feel kind weird about tagging along. I did have a nice ride a couple of weeks ago with a couple of guys from the cities, but had to turn around all to soon.
Duluth to Fredenberg is a nice ride, especially if you loop around through Taft and back via Pike Lake.
I am solidly in the 'fear of not being able to keep up' group.
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