CLUB TOGETHER

o say the least, 2020 wasn’t a vintage year. But amid all the turbulence, cycling actually had a pretty good run, as sales of bikes hit a global post-war high and a whole wave of new cyclists hopped onto bikes for the first time. So if you ended the year as part of a motley crew of sociable riders, how can you turn it into a more formal structure of a cycling club and why might it be necessary? We asked the members behind some of the UK’s newest and most welcoming clubs for their answers…

CLIQUE AND REJECT

New clubs are often founded by those who find an existing club too cliquey. “My experiences with cycling clubs before launching ours wasn’t welcoming,” says Richard Hearne, who founded PRiDE OUT, an LGBTQ+ cycle group in Manchester in 2019. “Unless you were already riding to a high standard or in with a crowd you didn’t really stand a chance. I’d get dropped pretty quickly.”