Originally Posted by
Lazyass
Try to find an unofficial (non-club) group. I've lived in a bunch of places and ridden with a lot of groups. The best one I ever rode with was in the 90's. Not a club, the leader was an ex cat1 and worked at a bike shop. Those were the coolest rides I ever went on and we didn't have club dues, meetings or club jerseys to buy. We just met up at 9am every Saturday and hammered for a few hours with one 10 minute stop at a store. No organised ride routes, we just did whatever. One day the leader asked if anyone was in a hurry to get home and nobody was so we did a century.
This ^^. I couldn't agree more. I used to ride every Saturday with a group of guys (6 - 10) and we had no dues, no club jerseys, etc. We decided where to ride when we showed up and then went. Very informal and very casual. But also competitive at times too. They were the great rides. So what happened?
Word started to percolate about our ride and more and more people started to show. Then our 'friend' ride was merged with a local club ride (because they were low one numbers) and whammo! Our friendly ride was taken over by waivers, rules, club jerseys/kits, etc. Totally ruined the vibe. I stuck with it for a year after that and then bailed.