Pacelines April 2002
By Kathy Hoke
As April opens our traditional ride season, we look forward to old favorites and new starts in our ride and tour program. Like the tulips and daffodils we see each spring, Woodstock, SPOT and Mid-Ohio Century provide a familiar start to our tour season. Meanwhile, new weekly rides and leaders have emerged this spring.
We have revised our ride classifications and highlighted them in this issue. Please read them carefully before deciding on your ride choices from the ride schedule.
Our early round of ride leadership training and development ended March 2 with a total of 38 participants in three sessions, not counting myself, Gordon Renkes, Ann Gerckens and Kim Sacksteder.
Gordon Renkes did an outstanding job of presenting key issues for ride leaders in bike equipment, safety, group riding and traffic issues. Arguably our most knowledgeable and practical cyclist, Gordon deserves a huge round of applause for his dedication and time to this topic. I think he has helped tip the scale in the right direction toward a more systematic program for leadership development. Kim Sacksteder, COP's risk manager, and Ann Gerckens, office manager and leadership trainer, also delivered excellent talks on risk management to both veterans and new ride leaders.
Of the 38 participating, 17 are new leaders. The other 21 are veterans of our ride and tour program. A few of the new leaders are relatively new to our organization. Two of the new leaders are sisters who live in the Oberlin area who may be interested in leading special rides or tours in that region of Ohio. All of the new leaders are interested in leading rides that have not been part of our traditional offerings. Our workshop March 2nd at Cyclist Connection in Canal Winchester drew 16 people, including new leaders in Lancaster, Grove City, Pickerington and Canal Winchester. Thanks to member Rick Noland for offering his shop's fine space for our workshop.
Let's keep talking about ways to improve and grow our bicycling program, the largest of COP's many outdoor activities. One way to do this is to attend our monthly meeting in Columbus on April 16 and May 21. The program in April is a swap meet, and the one in May is a discussion of the inspiring effort of member Jeff Stephens in last year's Race Across America.
Send me your stories of what you like or don't like about the way our bicycling program works. We'll do our best to make positive change to benefit the overall ride and tour program. See you on the road.