One of the Best Ideas I've Stumbled Upon........

The first season that we had a team (2005) I hosted a training ride from my house. Afterwards I fired up the grill and we did a big fajita bash / cook out / blow out that folks talked about for the the rest of the summer. It became a tradition instantly and "the ride from MC's house" became a hot spot on the ride schedule from then on - a ride that veteran riders told new team mates to put on their "don't miss this one" lists.

But here's the thing............. since then many of our riders have asked about organizing a ride and 4 years later over 3/4 of our Team Rides are "hosted" by a member (or members) of the team! That accomplishes 2 awesome things for the team and coaches that I never imagined - it makes our rides a bigger deal since after most of them we have a party. That gives the riders and their families more time to get to know each other and hang out together, fostering that sense of togetherness that's so critical to making this whole deal the powerful thing that it can be.

The OTHER giant benefit is that it's taken a lot of the pressure off of Coach Nicole and I - if Tom & Mary are hosting this week's ride then the route and the details are up to them, not us! Oh sure - we give then some framework.....mileage, climbing, what we're looking for as far as roads, stops etc. The ride host folks tend to be riders that have been on the team for a year or more so they know what's what anyway. We also have a Map-Meister dude that gets way into making maps and that provides some consistancy there as well.

Our team is up to 55-ish riders and we're spread over a pretty decent-sized hunk of West Michigan and it'd be a challenge for Nic and I to devise good routes all over the area but w/ riders anxious to host rides in their neck of the woods on their favorite roads I think we end up way ahead of the game.

By the way...rumours that we only consider ride locations w/ access to the Lake Michigan or a swimming pool are just that - rumours!

Like many things that have worked out well for us I sorta tripped over this one by accident...but it's a keeper!

Ride on, MC