Sunday April 18th 2021 saw the first Group Ride Training session of the year. Following the restrictions of the Covid lock-down and the reduced mileage most members have suffered over the last year, it was really nice to get out in the sunshine in a group ride setting.
The Group Rides are held on the second and fourth Sunday of each month. During the summer months (April to October) we meet at Haddon Services on the A605 / A1 junction at 9:30am, and during the winter months we meet at 10am. The group currently offers a short ride option to go along with the traditional 110-130 mile version. The short ride takes between 1 hour and 1.5 hours and ends up at a local cafe no more than 20 minutes from the start. The longer ride breaks for coffee about half distance.
The Group is currently offering 6 spaces per group, in line with the government’s guidelines, however as these groups usually fill up very quickly more groups of six are quickly formed. This means that on any given ride-out Sunday there could be 18 to 24 PECAM members on ride-outs to up to 4 or 5 different destinations.
In today’s training the first half of the session was dedicated to the ‘2nd Man Drop-Off’ group ride system explained here. The full briefing was given and then we set off on a nice local loop covering 25 miles or so. The route was chosen for the good roads, variety of junctions and other road conditions, and for enjoyment. The loop finished up back at Haddon Services where we stopped for a debrief. The second part of the training looked at the Intelligent Buddy System, and again after a full briefing we went out to practice the ride system. This time the local-loop route was reversed.
More about our Group Rides can be found here, and we hope to see you on one of the rides soon. More Group Ride Training is available on request, simply use the Contact Form to let us know you are interested.
