Become a ride leader
New ride leaders are always welcome! Reach out to a committee member to chat about setting up your first ride or co-leading a ride with an experienced ride leader.
Why lead rides?
MBTC wouldn’t exist without rides, and every ride needs a ride leader.
Leading a ride is a rewarding way to share your favourite routes or destinations with others. If you’ve enjoyed being out on rides with others, volunteering to lead rides is also a great way to give back to the club and keep it rolling.
HANDY LINKS
How to start
The best way to learn is by doing, and to reach out to others – they are here to help.
Read through the checklist and ‘new ride leader tips’ below to get a sense of what’s involved and guide you through the steps. Carefully and consider your capability, confidence level and where you might need support. Most importantly, choose rides that interest YOU.
how to become an ‘organiser’ on Meetup
MBTC uses the Meetup platform for its rides events, and first time ride leaders need to be granted ‘organiser’ status. Contact Walter M via Meetup to arrange this.
The easiest way to create and publish an event is on a PC computer, and once you’re an Organiser you’ll be able to create and edit events on the usual Meetup website. The regular Meetup app does not allow you to create or edit events. You’ll need to download the separate Meetup for organisers app
Ride leader checklist
This checklist is intended as a handy tool for new ride leaders. Every ride is different so use this as a general guide only. View our Ride Leader Guidelines here.
Download the ride leader checklist (PDF)
New ride leader tips
- Seek help from others and consider having a co-leader to to share the load.
- Remember that you can’t control everything or please everyone!
- Don’t be afraid to stick to smaller group sizes as a newer ride leader.
- It’s worth doing a ‘reccie’ (short for ‘reconnaissance’ ) ride to check current conditions
- On your reccie, keep club logistics in mind.
- Thinking ahead about suitable break spots, water availability and toilets will take pressure off during the ride.
- Choose a ride grading based on our club guidelines You might want to increase the grading to take into account factors like difficult gravel or traffic conditions.
- Check and re-check for ‘buses replacing trains’
- Rail trails can also have closures that are worth checking.
- Major events and festivals can affect travel and even camping sites like rec reserves.
- Allow much longer for a group ride compared to riding solo.
- Posting an event on Meetup can be fiddly. To avoid losing your work, we recommend drafting your ride description text in a separate place and clicking ‘save as draft’ a few times.
- Be aware that many participants won’t do a careful read of the ride description, or may forget parts of it. Critical reminders can be given a day or two ahead in the comments.
