Newbie Ride Success

Saturday’s inaugural Mid-Valley Newbie Ride was a ton of fun! Fourteen riders participated — a few of which were actually new. One thing that impresses me about the riders I’ve met through Corvallis Bike Night is that they all love to ride no matter what. Several folks tagged along knowing full well that the pace of this ride would be newbie-slow. Didn’t matter. They were there to ride, and we were glad to have them.

Brad posted some nice pictures of the group (plus an obligatory food shot) in the sign-up thread on his blog.

This was the first “group ride” I’ve organized and I learned a couple of things. I’m glad I didn’t try to plan things down to the tiniest of details. I had a general plan, but when things went astray (like the second group missing a turn on the planned route) we just rolled with it. The second group ended up making an unplanned stop at a church bake sale. Several 50-cent macaroons later, they continued on their way and met up the first group at the lunch meeting point a little later than scheduled, but hey, they got macaroons!

The second thing was that I forgot to talk about group riding strategies for riding in town. Fortunately, our start point was on the edge of town so there were few intersections before we really got underway.

I’d like to thank Brad (Troubadour on a Triumph) and Cullen (Ride With GPS) for riding lead and Elton and Kyle for riding sweep. Thanks also to Debbie at Premier Motogear for letting us borrow some space at her shop and for providing some snacks and beverages to some thirsty riders.

So much fun was had by all that there’s been talk about having another newbie ride next month. Stay tuned, I might be persuaded to do this again!