Club Mileage and How You Roll
A current topic at our board meeting was e-bikes. A club member was concerned that all club miles are equally earned with no consideration for how hard one may have had to work to get them.
Some of our top mileage members have never sat their backsides on an e-bike. Other riders with significant mileage numbers only roll out with electric-assist. Our club member expressed the opinion that this situation represented a disparity and that mileage was not being awarded on a level playing field. They felt some mileage numbers should have an asterisk to indicate those miles were not all accumulated through human power exclusively.
Board members, representing both sides of the argument (those with and without e-assist), contributed their thoughts on the matter: ✎
- All mileage is on an honor system. It never has been nor is it going to be an exact portrayal of how many club miles have actually been ridden.
- Members on e-bikes are usually using the lowest setting on their assist level to make sure their battery lasts until the end of the ride. They are getting help from the power-assist but very little. They are not using TURBO mode (if they have that feature) to literally just coast along at 15 to 20 miles an hour. We see those bikes with throttles on the road with riders barely pedaling when the bike is zooming along.
- Many variables affect mileage: age, bike (even if not an e-bike, is it old and heavy or new and super lightweight?), or trikes (electric assist trikes can weigh in at over 60 pounds, so they may have assist but also have more to move).
- I noted that I had been the stoker on a tandem for many of my club miles. Working in unison made riding easier. And it was not unusual for someone to yell out to my captain (that’s the front person on a tandem), “Hey, your stoker isn’t working very hard back there!” (stoker being the person in the back on a tandem).
AAAAAAAAAAlan & Donna Levy 2020
Overall, some miles come easy with flat, smooth roads and a tailwind. Others, as I’ve heard about in the Gorge, can be challenging with a rough road going downhill and a headwind forcing you to pedal furiously to keep moving forward.
Even if we were to try to equalize the mileage, how would we incorporate all the variables and give them weight as elements for earning mileage? How would we keep track of who rode what on each ride?
No, it’s not a level playing field. But I’m proud of our club for accepting all comers, however you roll. We are only competing against ourselves, not each other. We are all sharing a journey together each ride we participate in, not trying to win anything. I just want my friends to be out there as long as they can be…however they make that happen. No judgment.
Ann Morrow, President