Your Club at Work: RTB -Portland Bicycling Club

Your Club at Work: RTB

Pandemic, or no pandemic, lung disease and having clean air remain concerns. For years, the American Lung Association of Oregon has enticed us out in mid-May for their fundraising bicycling event called Reach the Beach. The 2020 event was rescheduled for Sunday, October 11. I think we have all learned over the past few months that such plans are subject to change. We shall see.

You may recall that Portland Bicycling Club had pulled together an official club team for Reach the Beach (thank you, Lynn Blanchard) and we had just started to put on our official RTB training rides when everything shut down. Now, for the new date, we are unable to provide group/non-group rides for prospective participants. Dick Weber and I have regrouped (pun intended), and we will continue to represent PBC as mentors and ride leaders (of sorts) for RTB and the new virtual RTB supporters.

  • I will participate in the kickoff party for the virtual Reach the Beach and promote our club.
  • Dick and I will be available as “virtual mentors” and, if there is a lot of interest in mentoring, we will ask our PBC Reach the Beach team members for assistance.
  • Starting in mid-August we will post a weekly “training ride” on our PBC Facebook page so that Reach-the-Beachers, both virtual and the real deal, can access the ride info and do the rides independently.
  • The virtual Reach the Beach allows the opportunity for family participation. PBC will promote that element with training routes and resources available for families as needed.

The “newish” Executive Director of American Lung Association in Oregon, Julian Dillon, sees mentoring as an opportunity for us to draw new members to the club. Since we don’t know what the interest will be, we’ll keep it simple for now and reach out for help if we need to.

I hope you can involve yourselves one way or the other with this longstanding, popular event.

Thank you for your interest.

Ann Morrow, RTB Training Series Ride Co-Leader