I know it was suggested this year and turned down, but I would really like to see sign up sheets for each ride. I know you don't want the number of trikes to be too long so I suggest a cap on each group. Make it 8 trikes or whatever number you want. If it exceeds that amount break it into 2 or 3 groups depending on how many people want to go. They could leave in 15 or 30 minute intervals. We ride alone all the time and one of the benefits I was hoping for was to be able to ride with 6 or 7 trikes. It's always nice to meet new people. Also, maybe someone could talk to Carina and see if she could include the route numbers or street names online to go along with the maps. I found it very difficult to follow the maps because the lines were drawn directly over the route numbers. All in all we had a terrific time and met some great people. Looking forward to next year.
Brian and Cynthia
Brian, it wasn't that we turned down the idea - we did consider and discuss it, but we couldn't find a way to make it work well for this year. As Rosy said, the problem is finding people to lead.
Consider this - we had 69 people registered this year, a number of them riding solo, so a conservative estimate puts that at about 35 trikes/bikes. Assuming 10% of those didn't want to join a group ride, we still would have had about 32 trikes/bikes to plan for. Even if we limited each group to 8, that means we would have needed 4 lead riders, all of whom would have to be comfortable leading that size group. The smaller the group, the more leads we need; the larger the group, the more difficult it becomes. Few attended from the area, so whoever was lead would have needed to be able to learn the route quickly, have the map in front of them, or have a gps. So in short, before we can consider a sign-up for group rides, we need to have a sign-up for leads.
Please be assured that we welcome everyone's thoughts and suggestions, and we do consider them all, even if we don't end up acting on it!! Also, this particular topic isn't dead in the water - we consider and discuss this every year, along with everything else that needs to be planned, and we will do so again over the next few months. We want to make these gatherings a great experience for everyone who takes the time to join us!