Podagrower

In 2015, I joined a cycling club (Florida Freewheelers) because I saw they were advertising a "couch 2 century" program. It was one of the best things for my cycling I could have done, I was given the tools, knowledge, and support needed to complete my first century. I've become very involved with the club, serving on the board of directors, and becoming a ride leader (and organizing a series of training rides this summer for a C2C teammate who was injured late in the 2015 season so she could complete her first century in 2016). 2017 is right around the corner, and there is going to be a "couch to century" program for the third time (2012 was the first year of this program) and I will be returning to the team as staff this year. I'm honored that my former couch thinks I have something to contribute and am looking forward to sharing my knowledge with a new team.

bgraham111

You'll be really important because you can probably still remember all the questions and concerns that you had back then. Always good to have a newer teacher, because they remember learning stuff for the first time. I always like a mix of super experienced people and relatively newer teachers to balance each other out. I'm sure you'll do awesome!

Milton Keynes

One of these days I will get a century in. I'm hoping next year. I've already done a couple of half-centuries, next goal is a metric century, then a full century. I'm sure I can do it, my problem mainly is just finding the time to do it.

Black wallnut 

C2C training program, what a great idea!

Bassmanbob

Great job! I had a great time at the HH this year and will be attending the TdC at Lake Nona this year. I'd like to meet you and ask what your club meets about. I recently joined my local cycling club, and I'm not even sure if they have meetings.

StephenH

You get into cycling, and discover some people your age (I'm 56) have been actively cycling since they were kids, while I'm just starting again, and it makes it hard for them to appreciate some of the issues a new rider faces. A similar situation teaching somebody that never learned to ride how to- I was 6 or 7 when I learned and really don't remember the details now! So somebody that got into the sport more recently definitely has something to offer than long-time riders may be missing.

Podagrower

TdC Lake Nona is a very popular event for our club. Last year, our 40 member team raised around $17,000.00 and the team captain said (jokingly) he was going to retire because he didn't want the pressure of exceeding that number this year. I think the only thing we do that qualifies as a meeting (other than the board meetings) would be the picnic rides we do in the summer months when we get together, ride, and eat.

Podagrower

Well, yesterday was team ride #1. So many new riders, some not so new, experience levels all over the place. An hour of information overload for the new riders (I'm a mechanical person, so the number of riders who have no idea what tire pressure is astounds me) followed by a 10 mile ride on a trail (we'll move to the road after 4 rides). It looks like this will be the biggest team yet, probably just over 80 members to start, plus staff. We had enough staff yesterday that I had the opportunity to float around the various groups without being responsible for a specific group. It would have been a lot more fun if I hadn't been sick for a solid week, I felt like my bike weighed 150 pounds. The weather was about as good as it gets, there were smiles all around, I'm really looking forward to watching things evolve from a coaching standpoint.

munkeyfish 

This is an awesome thread.

Where in Florida is this all happening?

Milton Keynes

Just to add on what I posted above, I'm really planning on doing a century this year. Don't know if it will be summer or maybe a bit earlier before it gets too hot, but my plan is to ride a rail trail from one end all the way to the other, about 50 miles, and back again. My sister wants to do it with me since she's also an experienced cyclist, and my wife's sister has also talked about doing a century with me. Gotta get her trained up, though, since I don't think she rides all that often. We've been trying to get together to go on long rides but our schedules don't always cooperate. But I think it will be a lot of fun.

Podagrower

Florida Freewheelers is central Florida based, but we've been using the Endless Summer Watermelon ride that the North Florida Bicycle Club puts on starting in Amelia Island for our group century ride (the NFBC has been awesome in helping and encouraging).

Yesterday was group "ride" #3, I'm going to use quotes for it, because it was a day of skills clinics, with an option to ride afterwards. It was pretty awesome to see a group of actual trained instructors (huge thanks to Cycling Savvy) work with the team and watch the confidence level of the team rise. It was also a great opportunity for the staff to observe the whole team riding at the same time in a controlled space.

Podagrower

And onto the road they went. Last week was the first official road ride for the team. 25ish miles of flat, easy, low traffic roads. I led a group who wanted to go 14MPH average, after a while, they agreed to 15 (we had a slight tailwind), and then they said they were okay with 16 (we had turned into the wind by now). They started breaking up when I got to 17-not that speed is the point to this program at all, but it was nice that the group had picked a speed to ride at that they were all capable of exceeding, it's way too often that riders want to go with groups faster than they are capable of sustaining. Our return was a 5 mile ride straight into a 10MPH headwind, and we are riding in a line-not a paceline, we won't be working on pacelines for another 2 weeks. I pulled at 14 the whole way back expecting the hear "gap", but everybody hung on, I was impressed. While we were riding, it gave me a chance to see all of the groups (70+ team members) riding and it was a good sight. The level of riding skill has increased significantly since the team started.

On the TdC front, the club's 41 member team raised almost $18,000 this year, exceeding last year's record setting total. The group I rode with (lots of the C2C staff) hit the road for the 50 mile route, formed into a double paceline and stayed that way all day, picking up some stragglers along the way. It was (as always) a ride with great support and volunteers, probably the least amount of wind for that ride in the 5 years I've been going, and a much needed ride for me in terms of speed/distance (I wanted to be ready for a metric to stay ahead of the team's progress, but a 16.7 average for 50 miles is pretty good).

Podagrower

Last night was the team's first interval training session. There's always a variety of skill levels at the interval sessions and it's fun to push each other. We did a few sets of timed intervals and then did a couple of distance based intervals into a headwind. For the last set, which was going to be a 3/4 mile sprint into the wind, I suggested that anybody who could catch me or one of the other staff members could draft. And then I let the team know that this guy has some speed. I was complete toast at probably the 5/8 mile mark, but I had enough lead that there was no catching me.

Podagrower

The team has ridden one of the staff's favorite rides, it's terrible and terrific all at the same time. 40 miles, a cue sheet that is a page and 1/2 long, loops, circles, figure 8s thru 3 different neighborhoods. And by cue sheet, I mean written directions, no map, no GPS, and no help from the staff (unless it was a danger issue). I didn't even have the ride file loaded onto my Garmin because I didn't care where we went. And to make it more interesting, we split the team up into groups different from who they regularly ride with and sent them out at timed intervals so they could see other groups but had no idea what part of the route the other group was on. It's a dizzying ride, I couldn't stand to ride it regularly, but it is an awesome ride to test navigational skills on. Watching it later on Strava Flybys and seeing the missed turns and creative interpretation of directions made it even better.

Podagrower

The Florida Freewheelers annual 4th of July picnic ride is in the books. About 1/2 (38, I think) of the C2C team was able to show up and participate and rode together as a team. We usually split into 4 groups by speed, by the decision was made to stick together and adjust speed as needed. Less than 5 miles into the ride, we have a mechanical-somebodies saddle didn't get tightened properly after a bike fitting and started tilting and sliding on the rails. I was close to her and decided to not stop the entire group, but pull off with just her and me to fix it. Then I made the decision to try catching the pack-I pull like a mule, I block a lot of wind, we can do this. I told her to let me know before I blew her up and kept a bit of conversation going so I could check her breathing. She's a 14ish average rider and I was pulling us at 17+, I figured the team would be riding 15+ so we could catch them and we did, but man did running wide open for 6 miles take it's toll at the end of the ride (electrolytes, people). But at least I set a PR for a 4.1 mile segment along that route.

peggyd73

Would you be willing to share more information about the couch to century program your club does? I'd like to approach my club with the suggestion that we create a local version -- bringing more people into the cycling community and providing a group of friends when ridding the various summer rides.

We have two different running stores in town that do a group C25K and I really enjoyed that last summer. Would love to find or help create something similar for biking.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!

Peggy

Podagrower

I'd be happy to share. Most of it is no secret. The easy part is planning the team rides. We have a pretty relaxed training schedule of around 25 weeks total, the first 4 weeks is just trail rides to get the team used to riding with people, calling out debris, stops, everything (we are a very vocal group). We use a lot of the existing club ride routes for the team rides, mileage never increases more than 10% in a week (and might go down if we are in the hills). The team has a training schedule they are expected to stick to on their own for 3 other rides each week. One of those rides is supposed to be interval training, and generally one of the coaches will organize interval training for any of the team interested in doing it together. Like I said, that is the easy part. In Florida, there aren't many organized centuries during the summer months, so we train for fall centuries (which means training in the hottest part of the year).

The parts that aren't as obvious are things like: Finding a staff; each of the three C2C teams have started with around 100 members and finished with around 60. There are obviously different speeds with that many riders, we typically have 4 or 5 different groups by speed, at the beginning we have a ride lead and sweep until the team learns to navigate, then the number of coaches per group varies. We are lucky now in that there is a pool of C2C graduates that is happy to pay it forward. We were very lucky this year to receive support from Cycling Savvy to train the team in riding skills (rock dodge, riding in a straight line while getting a bottle out of it's cage, shifting). All 3 C2C teams have been taught pace line riding by the same person, the same way so we all ride with the same style. In 2015 and 2017 we have had a rider on staff who is waaayyy above everybody else's level who is also a mechanical wizard, and we sometimes have a SAG volunteer to save our bacon on the couple of rides where rest stops are too far apart (more than 20 miles) or for the occasion that somebody cannot finish. Finding the right century is key also, we use the Endless Summer Watermelon Ride that the North Florida Bicycle Club hosts and it is geared toward the first time century rider. There are a lot of rest stops (too many, really) and it's a flat route.

peggyd73

Thanks so much for the quick reply.

Couple more questions if I can:
- How much does your club charge for the team / class ?
- Do you have a minimum distance / speed that someone must be able to ride to be considered ready to join c2c team?
- Are your leaders all paid staff or do you have a mix of staff and volunteers?
- Anything you would set up differently if you were building the program from scratch?

Thanks again!

Podagrower

The club does not charge for the team. But if the team members join the club, their entry fee into the century is waived (club dues are less than the entry fee, so it's kind of a no brainer that the entire team joins the club).
No minimum distance or speed. The first ride is 10 miles, and every year there are people that join the team who have never ridden that far before. We don't emphasize speed, the century we ride does have a cut off that riders have to reach (I think mile 45 in 5 hours) so as long as they can maintain 10, we aren't going to flog them.
The entire staff is volunteer, our entry fee into the century isn't paid. The only pay we get is the thanks from the team and their smiles.
This structure has served the team well for 3 seasons, and has brought a lot of new blood into the club. I don't thing anything needs to be changed.

Podagrower

And they are ready. Yesterday was the team's last long training ride, 77 miles and we finally got a break from the heat (overcast, drizzle, rain replaced the sun yesterday). It was great to get a break from the heat and the issues it brings so that the team members that struggle in the heat got a good strong finish to build their confidence even more. Next weekend will be for short rides and the weekend after is their century. September weather in Florida is still a crapshoot, it could be hot, it could be cool, it could be rainy, it could be windy, or it could be all of them in the same day. I actually realized last week that I was not going to be able to see the team's faces when they cross the finish line since I'll be with them, and it made me a little sad.

Milton Keynes

Wow, that's great. I personally just rode 76 miles last weekend, and have a century ride this weekend. I'm going to be extremely happy if I can ride the full 102 miles on this course.

Podagrower

And now we wait. Pesky little windmaker has popped up and caused all sorts of panic. There are 3 big rides this weekend that will probably all be cancelled/postponed, and 1 next weekend that will be tough to pull off. We already had tapered back the rides last week, and now it looks like we need to ramp them back up for a while. Guess I picked the right year to buy a trainer.

Podagrower

Yeah, anybody want to engrave that in stone. The team thought about getting a ride on Saturday (storm was forecast to come thru Sunday night) but most of the state had already lost their minds. No food in the stores, no gas, people driving for last minute supplies while under duress, evacuees driving on roads they don't know trying to get around the traffic jams-it just wasn't worth the risk. It's Friday, 5 days after Irma had her way with us, some team members don't have power, some have actual damage to their property, but I don't think anybody has serious damage.

I've learned the last couple of years how complicated the ride schedule is here in Florida. It's great that we have good winter weather and it's great that there is an organized ride almost every weekend, but it makes it very complicated as well. Organizers do a good job of not competing (if there are 2 rides the same weekend, they are far apart), they have to plan around other non-cycling events in the same area, permits, volunteers...it takes a village to put on a big ride. There were 3 organized events the weekend of Irma that were cancelled (1 is postponed), a 2 day event this weekend has been cancelled, 1 event next weekend is cancelled, and I saw that an event 2 weeks out has been cancelled. I'm very glad my duties do not include event planning.

snowman40

If it happens all on the same day, they call that a hurricane, tropical storm or tropical depression. Especially if windy. I was in Florida in the middle of July and the high for the day was only 75 or so, with winds prompting windchill advisories...because of a tropical depression off the gulf coast that formed. It was weird, being in Florida and being inside because it chilly in July.

WNCGoater

75 is chilly? That's perfect riding temps.