Non-Club Rides for Club Mileage
One thing I like about this time of year is peering into the future and looking at my prospective riding calendar for late spring and summer. We have Pioneer Century® (yes, century) in early June; the Jim O’Horo Memorial Columbia Gorge Explorer and Bud’s Central Oregon Ménage à Trois for you touring fans; Seattle to Portland; and plenty of great regular club rides will be popping up, I’m sure.
There are multiple rides put on by other clubs that are a lot of fun and well done. It can be a nice diversion to travel a bit up or down the I-5 corridor and enjoy the hospitality and different routes of another bicycle club. The Northwest is such a great place to ride, and it’s easy when you connect with another club or organization and just follow their map. ✎
While we like our members to ride with us, we encourage you to get out and ride with others as well. We especially like to support Vancouver Bicycle Club’s Ride Around Clark County RACC on July 22 and Salem Bicycle Club’s Monster Cookie on May 7 this year – yes, back to early in the cycling season. We avidly support the Gorge Ride on June 24, but unfortunately this year it conflicts with Bud’s central Oregon ride mentioned previously. Harvest Century is another favorite of some of our cycling friends.
To encourage our members to venture out to other events, the board has agreed to allow PBC members to earn club miles on certain rides. The decision as to which rides will qualify this year will be made at the February 15 board meeting. We know that some of you won’t mount that machine of yours if you aren’t going to see your PBC mileage stats increase.
As I write this, these rides have been submitted:
- Sunday, May 7, Monster Cookie
- Saturday, May 20, Reach the Beach
- Saturday, June 24, Gorge Ride
- Sunday, August 13, Covered Bridge Bicycle Tour
- Sunday, September 3, Harvest Century
To have a non-club ride approved for club mileage, it needs a ride leader to take on the responsibility of getting the ride posted on our ride calendar. You know how this works: if it’s not on the calendar, there is no club mileage. Period. Then, as ride leader, you need to gather all the rider information and turn in the mileage. You may not see everyone on the ride, so they can text you or email you or call you with their mileage. Then, you turn it in.
Additionally, all riders must comply with the expectations of the organization running the ride: pay registration fees, perhaps raise money for a charity, wear a helmet, ride safely, etc.
Do a little research and see what rides you want to do and share with your club members. Submit them to the board or any board member. We do have an advisory allowance of ten rides each year. That was established several years ago when there were a lot of organized rides and they started to take over our club ride schedule! However, the board will consider suggested rides after February 15, 
especially if we don’t reach ten. Keep in mind that these rides cannot conflict with Pioneer Century® on June 3, STP July 15-16, or our proposed picnic which is currently August 6. We want all club members to ride or volunteer for our club’s big annual events.
Please take a little time and send us your ride ideas. For additional information, go to: Mileage Credit Policy on our website. Thank you.
Ann Morrow, Vice President