Cycling Club

Susan Littlefield

Cycling Club

OM612

Managing in Social Change

First Assignment

January 23, 2012

Abstract

I have been volunteering for my cycling club the Granite State Wheelmen since 2007 when I bought my very first bike as my friends who say now is “very heavy” it got me where I wanted to go and I enjoyed taking the scenic route on Route 1A in Rye, NH. I was a volunteer at rest stops for the big Seacoast Century event which happened every year after I joined the club in many capacities. I was a board member, I attended meetings in Manchester with the President of the club and I am the massage therapist’s coordinator for the big event in the end of September which is our Seacoast Century.

Cycling Club

Joining a cycling club was important to me because I really wanted to get to know new people who enjoyed doing the same thing I did and I wanted to feel the excitement and camaraderie of the sport. I joined the Granite State Wheelmen in 2007 and along with my memberships dues I sent a note letting the club President know that I would love to volunteer in some way for the club. I got a call from Dave Topham which lasted at least an hour because Dave was excited about having me come on as the Shop Sponsor Coordinator and I would visit shops to help bring in some more business for the club and encourage memberships to grow within the club. Dave loved to talk and I wanted to belong to the club but I discovered he was very long-winded and had a great vast span of knowledge about everything having to do with cycling. If there is a questioned to be asked about anything having to do with cycling he is the man to ask and because my name was in the back of the Pedal Talk publication my club put out people would email me with their questions and most of the time I would have to forward them over to Dave. I travelled with the President Bill Kennedy over to Manchester NH, for our meetings and because Dave was long-winded and Bill had a hard time stepping in to say let’s move things along, our meetings became very long. Other members of the group like Bill Fisk were equally as long-winded and he always had something that was controversial to say, and he always sat next to me. Our meetings would start very early in the morning either 8am or 9am and we could be there until 2-3pm, those were such long meetings. Each meeting we would sit and listen to each other talk about different things like what should we do with all the money we raised at the Seacoast Century, how should money be distributed to rail trail and education projects for the State of NH? That sort of thing would take hours and hours it was so long we had to take a few breaks and we always had muffins, donuts and then later on lunch.

Bill Fisk always brought up stories and things that really did not pertain to what we were talking about and he was known to have quite a reputation for being disruptive at meetings, he always would sit near me and sometimes we would argue or he would interrupt what I was saying and that made me mad. He always wanted everyone to hear what he had to say and he would take center stage by being loud and some members wanted to change the meeting location because Bill would ride his bike and we joked a little about that, it was not my suggestion but someone came up with it. Bill is in charge of all things safety wise and this year I learned at a club meeting that the Oakhurst had a rider who was not following traffic laws and Bill contacted the company and got them straightened out and they changed the commercial because he probably nagged them to death about what they were doing wrong. I believe someone was riding on the wrong side of the road and the company stated it had something to do with the taping and it was their bad. Although he is long-winded at this last meeting I went to at Gus Bike my favorite shop he was not able to keep a running commentary as in the past because Dave had learned to real him in as opposed to Bill Kennedy could not control the guy, so the previous year Jeff the owner of Gus mentioned something to me about that. I was impressed when Dave got Bill Fisk to quiet down because he would say, “moving right along” or something else that would cut Bill short, I was impressed that they finally learned how to deal with Bill Fisk.

Other members of the group got along well but within the last year many of us have resigned from our posts to give someone else a chance and I resigned because I did not want to visit any other shops because Gus Bike had become my favorite shop and I wanted to give someone else the chance to get involved. In the beginning I wanted to improve my social life and meet men who liked to cycle so I would go on group rides in Concord, NH and in Portsmouth. I would ride in the turtle group and my ride leader Eugene told me, “He had never been on a slower ride,” we did about 20 miles but at a speed of 8 that showed up on his cadence meter. I was on my heavy bike so I was slow and most of the time Eugene and I were the only riders. Then I rode with the Portsmouth group and I would ride with Carl who would go the same pace as the slowest rider and the round trip was 22 miles along the seacoast of NH. I would start off with the group and stay with them just till we made it over the bridge and then the guys flew once the traffic was less congested because about 30 riders would take over the small road that lead to the ocean. People were on road bikes and they would go so fast there were some familiar faces of people who I met through other cycling events like the  Criterium, which is a race held in Portsmouth for speedsters where they closed the road off to the public and they raced round and round until the final heat. The winner always would win a free bike frame and be considered a champion and competitor that would be maybe beaten at the other races because cyclists up my way love their sport are competitive. I joined a women’s ride a few years ago and I was still the slowest rider so when they were waiting for me at one of the stops I told them, “not to worry I know my way around here” and they headed on their way. I had my old bike then and someone from this group gave me their old bike because she was upgrading, it was a great bike and I loved it very much because it gave me the freedom to go fast and enjoy a really great bike. She paid for the tune up at Gus and they picked out a seat for me and put new red bike tape on the handle bars, the last two I had to purchase but it was all mine.

I love to ride by the ocean and I am happy with going at my own pace, usually people who are slower riders that join our group tend to do a couple of group rides and then feel left out when people go past them. Others like me just enjoy a great ride and volunteer at the Seacoast Century to enjoy and share in the camaraderie of the big event which brings in over 1,600 riders each year and people even ride when it is rainy. We have the unfortunate luck of having at least one day of rain, sometimes it is mild but still we have had some cool wet starts for the ride. I   volunteered for things later like making sandwiches, selling shirts and helping out with clean up. For the last couple of years I have brought in massage therapists from the schools and last year I had to advertise on Craigslist to get people to come so two years I was successful at getting people but that middle year people did not come through for me and canceled or bailed at the last minute. Now I have learned that massage therapists are an extra and if they show up that is great just don’t advertise that they will be there, because I had to tell some riders what happened and I ended up leaving the day early because it was disappointing. There were special appointed places for the massage therapists to work and I was the coordinator and I told the riders who would go next, I got t-shirts, water bottles and encouraged everybody to bring a tip jar. They had no idea that they would be handed twenties left and right, I did not ask how much they made but the smiles on their faces was all the answer I needed to know they were getting good money.

Joining a group such as the Granite State Wheelmen you are going to have people who go with the flow and others who when given a chance to pick or poke at the club we have a few people who abuse the groups emails list. I had to be taken off the Concord list because people were getting to be negative, so just one or two people would spout off about the Seacoast Century lacking something and I hesitated to send that email over to Dave and his reply was, “that makes my blood boil,” I had to use the best of my communication skills to reply to the group and tactfully point out that this nutcase was way off base and others in the group emailed me and thanked me for doing a nice job. People tend to get to know others who are involved in cycling and so people find there group and tend to stick with it and it will become a routine to everyone who rides and people will know who rode and who was too busy to show up and so on. The people at Gus Bike really do have a nice way of connecting to riders of all levels and that is why they have become my favorite bike shop, I ask them to pump up my tires before each ride and someone is always willing to help me out even if they are busy. The owner Jeff Latimer and his wife Leslie have designed cycling jerseys for women that are really cute and Leslie is by far the best clothing buyer for women in the seacoast area. People of all ages and riding skills who discover Gus Bike will go back because of the level of service that is given, one day Matt who is a bike tech changed my tire on my car it was great. I had an accident this summer and my bike was totaled I wanted to take my bike back home because it was hard to say goodbye to my freedom which the bike gave me, I was not working so I did not know when I would get another. The guys did not let me leave with my bike, Craig told me, “bikes are made every day and I am irreplaceable”. Matt told me, “my bike would come back as a toaster and that they would recycle it”. Jeff the owner told me he “would give me $150 for the bike if I was selling it back to him in good condition”. The other parties insurance bought me a new bike in the $600 range, it was not the same but at least I had something new to ride but since my accident was in August I will have to wait till next year. I was coming back from a great ride it had been a few weeks since I had been out, I had lost my job and went to the gym and had to work on my strength before I could go back out. I was coming home and driving my car when something flew off a tow truck and I ran it over, there was no place for me to go it happened so quickly and I was on the highway. A State Trooper was there and he witnessed the whole thing, he took a picture of the door that flew off at me and a few weeks later they found the guilty party. I am recovering from a concussion and whiplash it is very hard to deal with the pain since my accident was almost five months ago and I get a lot of energy work done which feels great but the pain comes back. I decided to go to grad school when I got the call from Nicole in the admissions office that there was grant money to be used. That’s my story.