Fly2High

In our last club meeting it was stated that the club's membership was down.

Anyone have ideas on how to improve membership?

What has worked for your club?

thanks

bt

hot chicks

RPK79

This would totally work.

You could also give away free bikes.

Bunyanderman

Make a kit, sell it for a wicked deal.

GreenAnvil

Don't be elitist arseholes.

That might not directly increase membership, but it may help keep current and newer members. After all, word of mouth travels fast...

FLvector

I think it would increase a lot of things.....

Machka 

What kind of cycling does your club do?

Fly2High

From what I understand, since I only recently joined, they do both road and MTB. Not sure if they do other kinds but I do see club rides for these.

dave1442397

Having a Facebook page helps. When people post pics from rides or links from Strava, it gets noticed by people who are thinking about riding and decide to tag along on a Sunday to see what it's all about.

If your local bike shops support clubs in the area, that's obviously a great way to attract people, as newcomers tend to ask what rides are going on and which clubs are recommended. That's how I started riding, and I had no idea any of the local clubs existed before I asked at the store.

There are quite a few clubs in my area, and just by browsing their FB pages you can tell which ones are more race-oriented and which are geared more towards social/slower riders.

This club has lots of riders, but while you might have 80+ riders showing up on a Sunday morning, the A ride might only have 5-10 riders, and the A+ ride has disappeared over the past year as most of us started doing harder rides with other clubs on Sundays. They do attract a lot of first-time riders, especially when they promote charity events like the MS150, etc.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-...361417?fref=ts

This club is geared more towards faster riders, with some members racing. They tend to screen prospective members, and usually only allow people to join once they've proved they can handle a fast paceline and can hang for 50 miles or so.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/SummitCycling/

This club is hard core - fast crew, with lots of racers and guys who hold a lot of the KOMs in the area. They do look for new members, but they want serious riders who are interested in racing.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/MAMBO...796007?fref=ts

This is another club that's more social/recreational, and also attracts a lot of new riders. I also see lots of recumbent bikes on their rides...no idea why
https://www.facebook.com/RockItRiders?fref=ts

Square Wheels

THIS!!!

I'm a relatively new rider, been riding a few years. I'm in decent shape and once I learned to ride in a pack could probably ride with them going 20 - 22 mph.

I will likely never ride with a group based on what I've read from one of my local clubs. They send emails expressing frustration that people don't show up for rides, and then a few sentences later say their no-drop rides have too many slow riders and they'll be left behind if they can't keep up. At an event one night at the LBS I talked with one person and asked if they are new person friendly. She told me stories of the veterans getting angry at the new people for "messing up" their pace line.

No thanks

I know this is just one club, and one person's jaded view, but based on these sentiments, I will never ride with them. Plus, I like riding alone or with my wife.

RPK79

What attracted you to the club? What were you looking for when joining a club? How did you go about finding a club? Are there attractive girls in the club, if so can you get more?

welshTerrier2

First and foremost, you have to know exactly what kind of club you want to have.

If you’re into pace lines and training and rolling along at 18+ mph, you might be able to attract the narrow percentage of riders who fit the category. Your “marketing” is what I would call narrow-casting. Your pitch has elements of “Why not ride with the best?” It’s not that clubs with this character can’t grow large but it is much harder to attract and maintain these types of riders than less-skilled, more socially-oriented clubs. I started a club three years ago. We’re growing like crazy. In the beginning, I did all sorts of publicity to attract new members. Now, they just seem to appear.

What kinds of things can be done and what is the club’s “personality”?

From the beginning, I wanted to offer local riders an alternative to the “hardcore” clubs. From day one, the focus was on social and slooooooooow. Not only are all our rides “no drop”, but we do all we can, within reason, to ride the pace of our slowest riders. Some of our good riders enjoy the model; some do not. No club can be all things to all people. Many who ride 18+ mph seem to prefer to ride on their own or with a few riders at their level. So, from time to time, a strong rider will give us a try and won’t return. That’s fine.

We really encourage every rider to meet everyone else. We put special emphasis on socializing with new people. If a new person comes on a ride and no one talks to them, what’s the point of being in a club? In our club, everyone on the ride is likely to spend time with them. They feel welcomed. We also have one of our most sociable people riding sweep. The slow pokes are always encouraged and supported. Sound like adult daycare? Well, it is … and it helps grow our membership. When it’s all about drafting technique and swap meets and $3000 bikes, in my view, you’ve missed the point. When the primary focus is on community-building, your club will grow.

The point of all this is that before you start a marketing campaign, it’s critical to know exactly what product you’re trying to market. There’s nothing wrong with being a hardcore club but you’ll be chasing a much smaller market.

What kinds of things can you do to “advertise”?

Go where the people are. In my town, we often start our rides at our local farmers market. The market attracts more than 1,000 on a weekly basis. We show up with a few business cards. We talk to people before we ride. We especially target those who come to the market on bicycles.

We have a couple of carnival-like town days where our club can get a booth for free. That’s a great place to make contact with lots of people. Maybe hand out a safety pamphlet with your club’s website. Tell people about your upcoming rides. Make your next ride after an event like this something very easy like a round trip on a bike path. Not everyone is willing to ride on the road or ride where there are hills. Tell them you mix in one bike path ride a month. Many bike-path-only riders have graduated to the roads once they got more comfortable. I see spending time with novices as an investment in them.

Consider writing an occasional article for your local paper. Be positive and encouraging. Don’t get into the usual rant about lousy drivers and dangerous conditions. Talk about your club’s well-planned routes on quiet, low-traffic back roads. Talk about the safety talks you provide before every ride. Talk about the thousands of miles your members have ridden and your excellent safety record.

There are also several town committee meetings every month where the public is invited to speak. Attend those. Encourage your town’s residents to get outdoors for some healthy exercise. Tell them about your receptiveness to new members and how your members range from 10 to 80 years old (as our club does). Talk about your club’s focus on safety and how you’re committed to building community and how everyone is welcome to ride with you.

There are many other things you can do to help your club grow. I’ll leave you with this last one. We send out a “ride notice” two days before every ride. If you just slap something up on your website, you’re left hoping people will visit the site and show up for the ride. The ride notice is a great reminder. The ones we send out are almost mini-newsletters. It includes all the basics about the upcoming ride (cue sheet, distance, gain per mile, map, etc) but it also includes safety tips, links to interesting videos, upcoming cycling and non-cycling local events. It also talks about where we are going for lunch and/or ice cream. There’s often even a funny cartoon included or a scenic view that we’ll see on the ride.

Building a thriving club takes a lot of work. It requires clear vision about what works and what doesn’t. It requires consistency including a very regular ride schedule. It requires instilling in all your members what you want the personality of the club to be. Some clubs can succeed with just plain old cycling; in my view it usually takes much more.

FLvector

As mentioned, use facebook or meetup.com to post rides in advance so others can see who is attending. When several riders indicate they are going on a ride, others are more likely to attend. Unfortunately, some like to wait till the last minute to decide, or just show up. You can create a private group on facebook and invite as many people as you like.

Make the routes interesting and do a rotation so the rides don't get stale. Nothing worse than the same ole route.

If the group is large (>20), don't hesitate to break it into two speed groups. This will make those that like a faster pace happy, and those that struggle to keep up content as well. These should be no-drop rides unless those dropping want to ride alone, or have company.

Get a group together after the ride to grab some lunch and spend some time together. Once you have a core group together, have a party and invite several riders to make them feel welcome.

Schedule an occasional recovery ride and make it clear the pace will be lower than the usual. Many are intimidated by trying to keep up with the fast groups, although they want to ride with them. This is a good opportunity to socialize and feel more comfortable with a fast group.

Shuffleman

This really is not that uncommon, especially with clubs with smaller numbers that actually show up weekly. If you have a job and value your time, it can be frustrating when there are only a handful of people there for a ride and one of them is not able to keep up. It can dampen your day or experience. The one guy knows that he is slower and the others are holding back because of him so his experience is not great either. That cuts both ways.

Good advice. Focus on what attracted you to the club and figure out how to get more people like you. Do you work with a lbs? They can typically help feed clubs as they are always being asked. Leadership is important. Find a retired person and have them lead it. They have the time and usually the organization to pull it off.

KantoBoy

Simple: don't drop them and leave them to ride alone.

Someone has to do the "sweep" or broom wagon with them.

You leave them on their first group ride and guaranteed they'll never come back again.

Machka 

That would be the first thing to decide or find out. What is the club about? What do they want to focus on?


I also agree about the online presence. Have a website and/or facebook page so people can look them up. From my perspective, most of my investigation for just about anything first involves doing a google search to see what there is out there. If I'm looking for cycling clubs, and 3 have websites, but the 4th doesn't. I probably won't even be aware that the 4th exists. Or if I look on the state cycling association website, and see that there's a list of 4 clubs, but one doesn't have a website link ... it is immediately crossed off my list, unless there is some deeply compelling reason why I should go to all the trouble of contacting them some other way.

RPK79

Like a really kick ass name?

PiLigand

Ass name?

RPK79

...but, I didn't hyphenate.

Machka 

Nope

Like maybe words in the description along the lines of "endurance", "ultra-distance", "long distance", "century" ... or maybe "day tours".