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Which cycling clubs were unfriendly and hid behind moody photographs? Is it the same clubs who devote time to running amateur races and coaching kids?
%~}-
To be fair, when I lived in Walthamstow I emailed two local clubs about coming along on one of their club runs, with the idea of joining their club, and didn't hear back from either of them.
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Yeah, I get the feeling they mean RPR et all, which is a yuppie cycling club for the terminally humourless.
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I agree with the point you are making , but I also know of clubs who match the BBCC description .
TurtleRecall
fizzy.bleach
Peter_Carter
I suspect the irony was intentional. Ed didn't quote the rest of their about page:
Why start a bike club? Because it's awesome. But also because when we first thought we might like to join a bike club we couldn't find one that didn't seem totally elitist and unwelcoming.
So we made up our own and gave it a silly name.
It's easy to define yourself as a list of what you're nots. And what we're not, first of all, is a traditional cycling club. We don't demand you buy our kit before you join. We don't stipulate minimum speeds at which you must be able to ride – although we might stalk you a bit on Strava when you first get in touch, but that's really just because we're nosy. We won't even demand you remove the tri bars from your bike before riding with us – although we reserve the right to keep quietly considering them to be an aberration.
We won't ever turn someone away who wants to ride with BBBC.
There's every chance that all those other clubs we thought about joining are full of wonderful, warm, friendly and funny human beings, but sadly they do a really good job of hiding that under layers and layers of unfriendly language and moody ride photos. Or they just never reply to emails. What is it with bike people and never replying to emails?
All you need to join BBBC is the desire to do so. And a bike to ride. Honestly, even that last part isn't mandatory.
Also, guys, lets talk about membership fees. Paying for the privilege of buying our kit and riding your bike with a bunch of awesome people? What's that about? BBBC is free to join. And it always will be.