PaceLines by Kathy Hoke
Can you believe it’s September already?
As summer fades into fall and the days get shorter, our regular bicycling program is nearing its seasonal end. We still
have most of our favorite night rides and several great tours ahead, including Covered Bridge Century, Tour of the
Hocking Hills, Knox County Bicycle Challenge, Columbus Fall Challenge and Fall HOOT. But by mid-October, these tours
and most of the weekly rides will come to an end.
Rather than dwell in the past, I find myself looking to the future of the bicycling program as we begin to wrap up the 2002 season. As I see it, the future of our program is wide open and depends on YOU, not someone else and most especially not on me. I play a key role, but one that is relatively small in the overall program, when you consider the time and effort of several dozen ride and tour leaders. My role is to coordinate, cajole, encourage and take care of lots of details.
If you think something is missing, tell me. If it’s something you can do, volunteer to do it. If it’s something you can’t do, help me think of ways to make it happen and suggest others who can help.
As many of you know, someone else will be writing this column by this time next year. When I took on this interesting challenge last year, I knew that two years would be enough and that I would want to move on to other adventures. I will still be very much involved in the program. If you know of anyone, including yourself, who might like to take on the challenge of being the activity leader, please talk to me about it. Let’s go out to lunch and talk. I believe that the new leader needs to be someone who wants to grow and strengthen the program for a wide variety of bicyclists, has and uses e-mail and wants to involve lots of people. This person also needs to be willing to work an average of three to five hours a week on the project, not counting rides where you invariably will conduct some COP business. You don’t have to be retired. I’m convinced that this volunteer job will seem unattractive to most if we ask or expect activity leaders to give more than this amount of time.
Benefits of doing this include learning a lot about yourself and about human relations, not to mention being in contact with a lot of really great people in our program and in other activities at COP.
One final note: you may start seeing some of our ride and tour leaders wearing a really cool jersey. These jerseys are being given to our bicycling leaders as an incentive for participating in leader training sessions that include a review of risk management issues and bicycling safety matters. I want all of our ride and tour leaders to have a jersey, and I’m confident that this can happen within the next six months. However, I cannot just give them away, as the money to buy them came from the risk management budget with strings attached to the use of the funds. We will have more training sessions in the winter, and hopefully, more jerseys to distribute.
Thank you to everyone who has helped with the bicycling program this spring and summer. See you on the road this fall.
PLEASE NOTE:
THE COLUMBUS FALL CHALLENGE APPLICATION PUBLISHED IN THE AUGUST NEWSLETTER DID NOT CARRY THE LIABILITY RELEASE ON THE BACK. PLEASE COPY AND SIGN THE RELEASE ON THE BACK OF THE KNOX COUNTY BICYCLE CHALLENGE APPLICATION AND SEND WITH YOUR APPLICATION.
A revised CFC application is on the website at www.outdoor-pursuits.org/main/news/0208news/0208a_cfc_application.pdf
THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION ON THIS MATTER.