Hiawatha Bicycling Club News

Tonka Cycle & Ski Used Bike Sale

Tue, 30 May 2017 15:57:17 GMT

HBC Members,

I'd like to pass along some information from Tonka Cycle & Ski. First, I am very happy to announce that Tonka will once again be providing bike mechanic services at the 2017 Tour D'Amico. They have provided this valuable service to us for many years now. This year, they have offered to provide this service at all 3 of our major TDA locations (Golden Valley, Wayzata, and Edina). Tonka does not charge our club for this service.

You may also be interested to know that Tonka will be conducting a used bike garage sale over the weekend of June 24/25. This could be a great chance to unload that bike that rarely gets ridden, or to pick up a great deal on a used bike. More details can be found in the attached flyer, or by checking Tonka's web site (http://www.tonkacycleandski.com) or Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/tonkacycleandski/). Location of the sale is Hopkins Pavilion,11000 Excelsior Blvd, Hopkins.

Greg Swanson

2017 Tour D'Amico Director

Indian Pacific Wheel Race

Mon, 03 Apr 2017 17:52:55 GMT

You may be interested in hearing about a recent cycling event which I believe represents the best and worst the sport has to offer. The best includes drama, fun, challenge, and interesting characters. Unfortunately, this event ended in tragedy.

The event being described was the inaugural running of the Indian Pacific Wheel Race. The race entails cycling 5,500 km (3,400 mile) across Australia, from Perth to Sydney. The event organizer (and participant) was Melbourne cyclist and bike shop owner Jesse Carlson. Roughly 70 cyclists entered the event. The key characteristic of the event was its unsupported nature. Cyclists were not allowed to accept any aid. They carried their own food and water. They were permitted to purchase supplies along the route, but only those that were available to everyone. Most of the cyclists carried sleeping gear and slept in the scrub along the roadway, although some chose to stay in motels.

I became aware of this event by virtue of following the Youtube channel of Melbourne cyclist Mark Ferguson (aka The Cycling Maven). Mark has been putting out a cycling vlog for the past year or so. I have found his videos to be well made, interesting, and often humorous. Mark put out a number of videos relating to the IPWR in the months leading up to the race. As the starting date approached, Mark made the bold decision to quit his regular job, enter the race, and devote his energies to his cycling channel on a full time basis.

Other participants in the race included some world class endurance cyclists (among them Kristof Allegaert, Mike Hall, and Sarah Hammond), famous cycling journalist Rupert Guiness, and a smattering of other cyclists from around the world. Social media coverage of the race was excellent, with a sophisticated GPS tracking service that allowed race ‘watchers’ from around the work to follow the progress of participants. There were also frequent and excellent updates provided on various Facebook and Youtube pages.

The race began on March 18, and it was quite interesting to follow the daily adventures and travails of the race participants. Many dropped out along the way, due to fatigue or medical issues. One participant was struck and injured by a car early on. Another suffered an allergic reaction to medication, and had to be hospitalized (she subsequently returned to the starting point and restarted the race). Kristof Allegaert and Mike Hall quickly forged to the front, and raced ahead of the remainder of the field. Sarah Hammond maintained a strong 3^rd place. The leaders approached Sydney on March 31, with hours to go to the finish.

Unfortunately, in the pre-dawn hours of March 31, Mike Hall was struck and killed by an automobile. The authorities are still investigating the cause of the accident. The driver was taken to the hospital in shock. It is clear that the race leaders were extremely fatigued and riding at the limits of mental and physical endurance at this point in the race. There is sure to be some public outcry regarding the level of risk taken in an event of this nature.

The IPWR was cancelled shortly after Mike was killed. Some riders continued on with their ride, while others decided to abandon. Various Mike Hall Tribute rides occurred on Saturday, April 1, throughout the world, including the city of Sydney. It is very unfortunate that such an exciting and entertaining event ended in such a tragic way. RIP, Mike Hall.

IPWR Facebook page : https://www.facebook.com/IndianPacificWheelRace

IPWR website, with Tracker: https://www.curvecycling.com.au/pages/indian-pacific-wheel-race

Cycling Maven Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB5vTUmuLCWqiTRDOApgR-g

Benefits of Cycling Savvy

Thu, 04 Aug 2016 15:34:38 GMT

Below is a link to the Orange County Wheelmen blog about their view of Cycling Savvy. This is quite interesting.

https://pvcycling.wordpress.com/2016/08/02/the-existential-crisis-of-bicycle-clubs/

April News

Sat, 09 Apr 2016 16:56:33 GMT

Two Important Questions.

Recently, the marketing committee sent out a survey to our club members. Among the findings from that survey were comments suggesting that one of the things our members value most about HBC was "fun rides, good ride leaders, opportunity to socialize, safe rides, friendly people, and non-biking social events." At the same time there were finding that the single most important thing we can do to improve our club is to have more rides at more locations. There were also some comments about wanting more rides of varied nature and speeds and locations.

So I have been thinking about this, and my conclusion is that those finding pose two very important questions:

As a club, what can we do to encourage our ride leaders to lead more rides, to lead different kinds of rides, and to step outside the box on the kinds of rides to lead.
As a club, what can we do to encourage more of our members to become ride leaders?

Our current ride leaders do an excellent job. Last year we had 30 ride leaders who led 5 or more rides. 11 ride leaders led 20 or more rides and 22 of our leaders led 10 or more rides. Given this, I believe the main thing we can do to increase the number and variety of our rides is to encourage more of our members to become ride leaders. But frankly, I am not sure how to do that.

So I am asking for your help. If you are a rider, but not a ride leader, could you take a moment and think about what might encourage you to become a ride leader? If there is something the club could do to help you gain the skills and confidence to lead a few rides in 2016, please talk to a board member or talk to me. We would love to hear from you.

And, for you ride leaders out there, who have been leading the same ride for many years, is there something we could do that would encourage you to do something different, let us know.

Ride Leader Training.

Speaking of ride leaders, there are two ride leader training sessions coming up, one on Saturday, April 30th at 09:30 in the morning and the other on May 5th at 6:30 PM. Both sessions are at the Bloomington REI, 750 West American Blvd in Bloomington. All ride leaders must attend one of these sessions in order to lead rides during the 2016 ride year. If you cannot attend one of these sessions, contact Leon Webster who will review the changes to the ride leader manual and rules with you. You can find a copy of the current copy of the Ride Leader Manual on our website.

If you aren't a ride leader, this is your chance to start the process to become a ride leader. There are many advantages to leading rides

You get to choose the starting location, the route, the food stops, in short, the whole kielbasa. If you are unhappy because no one starts rides in your area, here's your chance to fix that.
You get to meet people who share at least one of your interests
You can share other interests with HBC members. In the past we have had rides that are geared around railroad history, historic house tours, music festivals, camping rides, moonlight ramble rides, etc.
You can inspire people, motivate them and get them excited about bicycling. Many ride leaders have tales of the novice who showed up, barely knowing how to shift gears, but was an enthusiastic member by the end of the season.
Every now and then you can take club members down a rode they have never been on before. You can go looking for neat rides, and share your discoveries with others.
Leading rides gets you on your bike.
You get to give something back to HBC. As mentioned above, the thing that members value most about HBC is the rides. By being a ride leader, you provide our most valuable commodity.

Ride Stats updated.

The Ride Stats on the website are now current through the end of March. We are missing two rides that have not been reported. I contacted the ride leader and hope to hear back in the very near future. Just a reminder that you can find many interesting facts under the "RideStats" Menu at the top of the web page:

The "Top 20" -- the top 20 riders by mileage and number of rides, broken down by male and female. And the top 20 ride leaders in March.
Last Months Ride List -- A list of all the rides in the last month, organized by date. Leaders, please check this to make sure all the rides you led are being reported.
Last Month's Dashboard -- a summary of how many rides we had, how many were cancelled, whether they were short, medium or long, which rides had the most riders, and who the mileage leaders were.
YTD Dashboard -- similar to Last Month's dashboard, but shows information since the beginning of the ride year (November 1)
"MyStats" -- a web page personalized for each member. Includes a list of each ride that you have attended, the distance, the route and whether you were a leader or a rider. Allows you to compare your progress to previous years. This page is available for 2014 through the current ride month.
the mileage dashboard and rider miles reports for 2014 and 2015. You can see how the club as a whole did in the past two years, and see a list of each rider and how many miles they rode in 2014 and 2015

Interesting article about Major Taylor

Tue, 22 Mar 2016 22:11:10 GMT

Hi Greg,

Thought I’d share this article I wrote which was published today by Star Tribune.

http://www.startribune.com/when-the-cyclist-ruled-the-streets/372620451/

Terry Kerber

Club Discounts -- Erik's Bike Shop and Joe's Ski Shop

Wed, 13 Jan 2016 23:47:24 GMT

Because HBC belongs to the Midwest Sport/Ski Council (MSC), members qualify for a discount at Erik's Bike shops, and Joe's Sporting Goods Ski Shop. To receive any applicable discount, inform the sales person of your membership in HBC and MSC. No other evidence is required.

New Board Members, New RideStats, A photo contest winner, and the Ride Leader Breakfast

Wed, 09 Dec 2015 05:03:34 GMT

** New Board Members **

Elections for the Board of Directors were held at the Annual Meeting. New board members are:

Bruce Allyn
Jim Luoma
Bev Sorensen
Danette Vassilopoulos

They replace the outgoing board members: Bob Dean, Larry Narveson, Mary Wierschem. Greg Swanson, Bob Bowen and Brian Williams are continuing on the board. In addition, Elections for officers were held last week. The new officers are:

President: Bob Bowen
Vice President: Jim Luoma
Treasurer: Greg Swanson
Secretary: Brian Williams.

Many thanks to all of those folks who serve on the board, both past and present.

The minutes from the 2015 annual meeting can be found under the "Members" menu -- but remember you have to be logged into the web site in order to see the minutes.

** Ride Stats are updated **

The Ride Stats on the web site are current through the end of November. In addition the 2015 ride year statistics have been finalized. You can view them under the "RideStats" menu. Remember that in order to see the "MyStats" page, you must be logged in. Also, if you didn't participate in an HBC ride in November, the "2016" tab under MyStats will be blank. But you can still click on the 2015 and 2014 tabs to see your activity during previous years.

** We Have a Winner! **

The members who attended the annual meeting chose a winner from among 5 semi-finalists in the HBC photo contest. Dawn Wilson won for her photo of Bev Sorensen working on a flat tire while other members offered advice and encouragement. Dawn wins a $50.00 gift card from One Ten Cycles. Congratulations to Dawn and all the other HBC Members who submitted photos: Tom Renner, Sue Selseth, Pat Smith Welles, Tom Renner and Diane Zeiss.

** Ride Leader Breakfast **

The annual Ride Leader Appreciation Breakfast will be held on January 9th, 2016 at 09:00. The location is the same as last year, the Burnsville Old Country Buffet which is located at 14150 Nicollet Ave Burnsville, MN. Ride Leaders can enjoy a hearty breakfast and share feedback about the 2015 Ride Year.

August Ride Stats

Fri, 18 Sep 2015 23:43:45 GMT

This is going to be pretty brief because I am already late getting it out. But here's the news as I know it for the past month:

August Riding Statistics are Published

The statistics for the month of August are available on the website. Every month Carol Belair works with me to get the statistics published, so give her a big "Thumbs up" if you like having accurate and up-to-date statistics on the web site.

So far we have had 294 rides and 55,092 rider miles. That puts on track to beat last year which had 306 rides and 61,660 rider miles for the entire year. Many thanks to all our ride leaders who have done a good job of leading fun rides. Especially grateful for the weekend rides and rides in the country.

We moved the "My Stats" page from the members menu to the Ride Stats menu so that all the statistics would be in one place. But you must be logged in to see your page (otherwise the web site doesn't know which page to show).

Cyclists and Yoga Some of you may know that I have been dealing with sciatic pain for the past year or so. It is gradually improving and I am much better than I was at last year's annual meeting. I credit Yoga with helping me a lot. Several other members have commented to me that they enjoy yoga and it helps them to continue cycling as they age. If you are interested in Yoga, there are several resources for you:

"Yoga for cyclists can take the pain out of pedaling" is an article I saw in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It is pretty quick and easy to read.
"Essential Yoga for Cyclists" is a an article that appeared in Bicycling! magazine last spring or summer.
Yoga: A quick and effective program for cyclists is an e-book available from RoadBikeRider.com. I keep this book on my iPad and use the exercises when I can't attend a local yoga class.

In addition, yoga classes are available at the Y, Lifetime Fitness, and your local Yoga Studio.

Nice Article about the joys of Cycling

It seems to me that the Star Tribune has stepped up their coverage of cycling lately. In addition to the yoga article I mention above, Here is an article about the joys of summer cycling. It is very well written and evocotive of the pleasures we have riding in suburban/rural Minnesota this time of year.

The author, William Souder, also wrote a biography about John James Audubon that got nominated for Pulitzer Prize.

Volunteers needed

You recently got a plea from Bob Bowen asking if you are interested in serving on the HBC Board of Directors. Please give this request serious consideration. It is your opportunity to help set the direction for the club. It is also your chance to be creative and help the club become better. We have four board positions to fill this year, so the more candidates the better. Drop Bob a note if you would like to serve the club in this way.

If you don't want to serve on the board, there are other ways to help the club that involve less time. For example, we recently added membership levels that renew automatically. We need someone to draft template emails that get sent to each member at renewal time to make them aware that this membership option is available. If you would be interested in drafting these templates, please send an email to "leon@leonwebster.com".

Annual Meeting and the Photo contest

I saw in Bob Bowen's email that the annual meeting has been set for 10/25. That means that you only have until 10/15 to get your photo submitted for the HBC Website photo contest and be eligible to win a $50.00 gift certificate to OneTen Cycles. See the June News for details.

Falling all over our selves

Earlier this year I fell down while riding my bike. I was riding along, paying more attention to the conversation than the road, and the next thing I knew I was sliding along some gravelly pavement next to a railroad track. Fortunately, the only damage was to my ego, which can use a bit of damage, and a derailleur. A few dollars took care of the derailleur. There are at least a couple of other HBC members who have fallen this year, and sustained minor damage to themselves.

So just a reminder to:

* "Keep your eyes on the road and hands upon the wheel (bars)". It only takes a moment of inattention in order to fall down because of a pebble, a small pothole, etc.

* If you are signaling for a turn, make sure that you can still control the bike. Personally, I stop my signal just before I start to turn so that I can have both hands on the handlebar as I make the turn.

* When approaching an intersection, unclip early if you think you may have to stop. Long ago I was at a 4-way stop and it was a "Minnesota Standoff" You know what I mean, everyone is looking at the other person and saying "No, you go first". I forgot to unclip and fell right over.

* Be careful going up driveways, or through trail ramps at intersections. If you hit the little lip at the wrong angle, you may fall down. This is especially true if you have a small wheeled bike like a recumbent.

* Cross Railroad Tracks at a right angle. You want to make sure that your wheel doesn't get caught in the tracks which will fling you right to the ground.

OK. End of lecture.

23000 Cannondale Mountain Bikes Recalled

If you have a Cannondale Mountain Bike, you might want to be aware of this article in the Strib.

Got News to Share?

If you have something you would like to share with your club members, please feel free to post it,

Thanks for reading. Please send your feedback in the comments section.

July Website Stats and some other news

Tue, 11 Aug 2015 17:14:04 GMT

Ride statistics on the website are current through the end of July.

You can see the most current information on the website, both under the "RideStats" menu item and under "myRides".

In the course of doing this month's statistics we found a few members who had duplicate member IDs. Usually this happened when an individual member became part of a household membership, or a member let their membership lapse, and was assigned a new number when they rejoined the club. Haggith, Carol, and I believe we have found all these problems and corrected them, but please take a look at your rides and make sure that you are getting credit for all the rides you participated in. If not, contact Carol or Leon and we will do our best to work it out.

Put Your HBC Membership on "Automatic"

In June I found out that my membership had lapsed for a about a week. It turned out that I had never received the emails reminding me to renew my membership. As a matter of fact, due to a software glitch we weren't sending reminder notices to household memberships. The only way I noticed my lapsed membership was by logging into the website and noticing a small box in the corner mentioning my lapsed status.

Recent changes in our membership software, Wild Apricot, have allowed us to offer memberships that renew automatically. When your membership comes up for renewal, you will receive an email indicating that your membership is about to expire. When you renew your membership, you may choose either a Household or Regular membership that will renew automatically in the future. If you choose this option, you will never have to worry about forgetting to renew your membership again. If like me, you hope to be an HBC member for many years, it makes sense to have your membership just renew automatically. You must use PayPal to have a membership that renews automatically.

Some Website Statistics

I recently added some code to our website to enable some reporting to Google Analytics. Google Analytics can track traffic to our website, and give us some information about how many people are viewing the website, how long they are staying at the website, which pages they are viewing, and which platforms they are using to view the website. We have only been doing this for about the past three weeks, but still some interesting information is becoming apparent:

We get somewhere between 50 and 100 visits per day, with the highest volume days on weekends -- maybe folks looking for a weekend ride? This includes a small number of visits coming from Russia, China, Germany, the UK and other foreign lands.
When visitors come to our site, they view an average of 4.5 pages, and spend about 3 minutes on the site. The most frequently viewed page is the "home" page. Next most frequently viewed is the ride calendar, and the third most viewed page is the Ride Etiquette. About 25% of our visitors only view one page.
About 25% of our visits come from someone using either a tablet or a smart phone. Wild Apricot provides several themes that we can use as a basis for the website. Our current theme is not particularly mobile friendly. But in the near future John Zeiss and I are going to talk about converting the website to use a theme that is more friendly to mobile devices.

If you think there is other news that should be posted here, I would urge you either post it, or to send it to me.

June RideStats are posted

Wed, 15 Jul 2015 23:37:52 GMT

Congratulations To John Escritt And Crew

As you know, the 2015 Tour D’Amico is now history. John Escritt and the entire TDA committee did a fantastic job putting together another successful ride. Many thanks to John and the entire crew for their hard work over the past several months.

RideStats Are Current Through June 30.

Ridestats reflecting your riding activity through the end of June have been posted to the HBC website. Many thanks to all the Ride Leaders for getting their ride reports in, and to Carol Belair who monitors the stats and double checks the reports I produce. Just as a reminder, if you look under the RideStats Menu Item, you will see the following items:

A list of all the rides reported in June
The “Top 20” report
A year to date “dashboard” that shows what kind of rides we have had, the biggest rides, and the mileage leaders for 2015

In addition, The “My Rides” item under the Members Menu will give you a list of all the rides you have done this year. I hope you find this information useful.

Add HBC Rides to your Calendar

“What?” the nice lady said to me. “YOU mean I can see the ride calendar without going to the frickin’ Web Site?”.

Yes, Virginia. It’s true. John and I have tried to make the web site as appealing as possible, but there are still hold outs who haven’t made the HBC Web Page their “home page” in the browser, and just want to get to the heart of the matter — when is the next ride? You can the HBC ride calendar to your personal calendar so they appear with holidays, your friend’s birthdays, and other important events. It is very easy to do:

Go to the HBC Home page and notice the “Upcoming Rides” on the right side of the page. If you look at the bottom of the ride list, you will see a small dropdown labelled “Add" that looks like a wifi icon:
click on the small arrow to the right, and you will see a list of calendar types. You may have to scroll down a bit to see the complete list of calendars
Choose the kind of calendar that you have, and you will be guided through the steps necessary to subscribe to the HBC ride calendar. If you have an Android device, or use Google +, click “Add to Google”.

HBC Ride Etiquette.

It could be that I have become a grumpy old man, but it seems to me that we have been slipping on our ride etiquette. I have been on at least three rides that left late because we were waiting for someone. We don’t seem to communicate with other riders as well as we did in the past. Riders sometimes block entrances and exits at rest stops. I It also occurred to me that when someone new shows up, we expect them to learn to ride by “osmosis”, which isn’t really fair. So I put together a brief list of what I think people should know and do before they come to an HBC Ride. I got many of my ideas from the web page of the Central Indiana Bicycling Association. One of the things the page says is that experiences riders should set a good example for others and offer “polite, constructive criticism”. If you think that someone is not being safe , or you don’t like the way they ride, try to have a nice civil conversation with them. I know that I am not perfect, and some of you may think of this as a guy in a glass house throwing a stone. But if that is the case, I hope that you will mention it to me and we can have the conversation.

You can find the “etiquette” page under the ride calendar menu item. I wanted to put it someplace where everyone can see it, but at the same time I didn’t want it to be the first thing everybody sees. I am concerned that some folks may find it a bit “preachy”. I would really appreciate some feedback on this page, and its placement in the world. If I have said something you disagree with, or omitted something you think is really important, let me know.

HBC Photo Contest

I was out of town most of June, so there are some photo contest entries that I haven’t gotten moved to the web site yet. Don’t worry if you don’t see your entries there. I will get them up in the next week or so. I spent my traveling time communing with the Grand Photo Poobah about the photo contest, and I thought I should his thoughts and rules explicit so you know how to enter and what he is looking for:

All entries must be submitted to the Grand Photo Poobah, in care of my email address (Leon@Leonwebster.com), or posted on the Hiawatha Bicycling Club Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/hiawathaBike). If you can’t post a photo to the page, ask Dawn Wilson or Haggith Nadav to help you.
Photos should be of HBC Rides or Members, and should show riders having fun. Photos will be evaluated on several fuzzy criteria:

Originality
Aesthetics & Composition
A sense of humor
The PooBah’s general mood

All Photos must be received no later than one week before the annual meeting.
The Grand Photo Poobah will select a small group of HBC Members, acolytes, and hangers-on, known as “The Star Chamber”. The Star Chamber will choose the 5 photos that they like the best.
At the annual meeting, each member who attends will get to vote for the photo they like best.
Needless to say, by submitting a photo you grant HBC the right to use that photo on the website, and in other material used to promote HBC. There is no crying over spilt milk when the photo goes viral and your entire high school class calls you to see if that was really you dancing with Tom Sellek while riding a unicycle and playing polo on the gym floor.
The winner gets a $50.00 gift to OneTen Cycles. All other entrants get the lasting gratitude of the Grand Photo Poobah.

Tour D'Amico registration for club members

Sat, 16 May 2015 15:41:08 GMT

Hiawatha Bicycling Clubs members can register for TOUR D,AMICO (www.tourdamico.org) at a discounted price of $36. ($33 if you mail the form)

To register follow the steps below:

(1) Go to our web site www.hiawathabike.org

(2) Login to your account

(3) Choose the members tab, half way down the middle is a link for member registration.

See you on the 4th!

May Website updates

Wed, 13 May 2015 20:31:29 GMT

2015 Ride Leader Award Requirements Announced

The board has announced the requirements for the 2015 Ride Leader (Etoile du Nord) awards. They can be found on the News page or by following this link:

http://hiawathabike.org/News/3342465

In brief, the requirements are:

Lead 5 or more rides, one of which must be on a weekend.
Serve the club by volunteering in one of the following ways:

Volunteer at TDA
Be a Team Leader
Serve on the HBC Board

Ride 1000 miles on club rides or participate in 35 HBC Rides.

These awards are meant to recognize the “stars” of our club — those members who devote time and energy to making HBC a success. So when you see someone wearing an Etoile du Nord jersey, recognize them for what they are. A true “Star of the North”.

April Ride Statistics are Published!

I finally got the Ride Stats reports for April published. You can access them under the “RideStats” menu item on the web site. There are several reports available:

If you click on the “RideStats” menu item, you will see the dashboard for the previous month (April). This dashboard will tell you how many rides we did in April, how many were cancelled, how many were fast/medium/slow rides, which rides had the most participants, and who rode the most miles in the last month.
The “Top 20” Report. This report lists the top 20 male and female rides, both in terms of the number of miles and the number of rides, as well as the top 20 ride leaders.
“Last Month’s Ride List” lists all the rides that occurred in the last month, sorted by date. Ride Leaders, if you led a ride during the past month, it should be listed here. If it isn’t please contact Carol Belair or Leon Webster.
The "Year to Date Dashboard” is a report on the rides so far in 2015. It is similar to the monthly dashboard, except it shows how many rides we have done in 2015, which rides had the most riders, and the mileage leaders for 2015.
Just under these reports are the 2014 Mileage Reports.
Lastly, if you want to see how many miles you have ridden, look under the “Members” menu for the “MyRides” report. you will see two tabs — one for 2014 and one for 2015. If you click on the 2015 tab, you should see a list of rides that you have participated in, through May 5, along with some bar charts at the bottom showing your month to month progress, and comparing your mileage this year to previous years.

We hope you find these reports useful. If you have ideas for improving them, please let us know and we will pass them along to Michele Brougher who is the creator of the Ride Stats program. Also, many thanks to Carol Belair for helping to make these reports accurate, and for entering ride reports for many ride leaders.

The stats will be a bit late next month since I will be out of town until the 18th...

New Ride Leader Resources Page!

John and I have been working on a new Ride Leader Resources Page. We hope that you will find it to be useful. Mostly we re-arranged the content on the previous page but there are some changes:

We now have the most current version of the ride leaders manual available directly from the page.
There is a link to a page which has sunrise/sunset times for any day of the year.
There is a link to WeatherBug which will give you the current forcast
We have added some words on the page to help new ride leaders understand the process better. If you have ideas as to how we can improve this page further, we would greatly appreciate your input.

Cycling Savvy Classes

HBC Ride Leader and Past President, John Hardy, will be joining Hokan from the Minnesota Bicycle Alliance to teach Cycling Savvy again this summer. There are three classes, one starting on June 12, one starting on July 10, and one starting on August 14. Each session consists of three sessions. The Friday Evening Class will familiarize students with bicycle specific traffic laws and traffic dynamics. Students will discover that that bicycle drivers are equal road users with the right and ability to control their space. On Saturday mornings, there is a 3 hour class meeting in a parking lot which will increase your bike handling skills. The 3rd class, on Saturday afternoon will get you out on the road to put your new skills to use in real life situations. You must complete the first two sessions before you can take the 3rd session.

For more information, or to register, go to www.cyclingsavvy.org and use the “Find A Course” link at the top of the home page. These courses have gotten rave reviews from past students, and are highly recommended.

Photos Needed — Please?

Remember that we are sponsoring an HBC photo contest. The person who submits the best photo of an HBC ride or event to the HBC Website or the HBC Facebook page between April 1 and November 1 will win a $50.00 gift certificate to OneTen Bicycles. So get your camera or cell phone out and start snapping! We will feature the photos on our home page in the “slide show” gadget, and provide proper recognition at the annual meeting / banquet. Also, if you would like to be a judge for this contest, please contact Leon Webster, who will be forever grateful for your efforts.

That's all for now folks. Ride carefully and be safe out there.

Leon

2015 Ride Leader (Etoile du Nord) Award Requirments

Wed, 13 May 2015 18:24:37 GMT

The HBC board has set the requirements for the 2105 Etoile du Nord Award.

These awards are meant to recognize the stars of our club -- those who devote time and energy towards making HBC a success. To earn an award in 2015, you must meet these requirements:

Lead at least 5 rides, one of which must be on a weekend.
Serve the club in a volunteer capacity:

Volunteer for TDA
Be a team leader
Serve on the HBC Board

Ride at least 35 rides or 1000 miles.

March Statistics and other news

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 20:02:21 GMT

March Ride Statistics are available

Earlier this week, I posted the ride statistics through March. If you have ridden between November 1, 2014 and March 31, 2015 you should see your rides reflected in the statistics.

Just as a reminder, there are two kinds of statistics. The first are the "public" statistics which are available for everyone to look at. They can be found under the "RideStats" Menu item on the web page. There are three web pages with 2015 statistics:

"Last Month's Rides" which shows how many rides we had last month, the breakdown by category (slow, vs medium, vs fast), The rides with the most riders, and the riders who rode the most miles last month
"Year To Date Rides" which shows approximately the same information, but for the year to date.
"Top 20" which shows the top 20 riders in terms of miles (both for men and women), the top 20 riders in terms on number of rides, and the top ride leaders.

In addition, there are some pages showing similar information for 2014.

Your personal ride information can be found under the "Members" menu item by choosing the "My Rides" option. You will see two tabs, one for 2014, and one for 2015. By clicking on the 2015 tab, you should see a list of rides you have done this year, and how you are doing compared to last year.

Subscribe to the HBC Ride calendar

You might have noticed that you can now see the next five rides listed on the right hand side of the Home page. At the bottom of that list, you will see a small "add" button, with a "drop down" arrow. if you click on the drop down arrow, and then scroll down a bit, you can add the HBC ride calendar to your Outlook Calendar, Google calendar, Apple calendar or another plain text calendar. if choose to do that, you will have the ride calendar available wherever you have your calendar available. For example, I added the HBC calendar to my Apple Calendar. As a result, I now have the ride calendar available on my laptop, and on my iPhone. when I click on an event, I get a description of the event and a link to the page describing the ride. It makes it easy for me to check on the ride location, and make sure I know about all the HBC Rides.

See the Weather Report on the HBC Calendar

If you scroll to the bottom of the "Rides" page, you will see that John has added a banner with the weather report and the forecast for the next few days. There are also tabs you can select for information about the wind, sun and uv levels. Buttons at the bottom will show you the current radar, the satellite view and the times for sunrise/sunset In short, it is about everything you could want to know about the weather.

HBC Photo Contest

I am trying to encourage HBC Riders and Ride Leaders to submit photos of our rides to both the Facebook Page (you have "liked" us on Facebook, right?) and the gallery of photos on the Home page. To that end, a $50.00 gift certificate to OneTen bicycles will be given to the person who submits the best photo of a 2015 ride. Send your submissions to Leon@leonwebster.com. I will be announcing the panel of judges in the next month.

January Statistics Available

Thu, 12 Feb 2015 03:08:26 GMT

A couple of announcements:

First, the stats on the web page now reflect the January rides. So if you rode during January, that should now be reflected in your “MyStats” page, and on the ridestats pages for 2015.

Secondly, if you are a ride leader, you will notice that you can not enter location data for any ride that you are trying to schedule. John and I are aware of the problem. I am traveling and don’t have consistent internet access, but John will be working on a fix to the problem. We apologize for any inconvenience.

As I said, i am traveling, and as a result the March updates to the website will be a bit late — look for them about St. Patrick’s day.

best,

Leon

New Website Features

Sat, 17 Jan 2015 21:00:12 GMT

i wanted to let you know about some changes to the HBC Website that John Zeiss and I have done.

First, and foremost, the redistills for 2015 ride year through December are now available. So if you were one of the brave souls who rode during November or December, those stats are now available.

Second, there is a new feature of the web site that we hope you will like. If you look under the members menu item, you will see a page labeled “My Rides”. There are currently two tabs on this page, one for 2014 and one for 2015. The 2014 tab has a list of all your rides, the ride date and time, the distance and whether or not you were a rider or a leader. At the bottom of the page is a summary that says how many rides you did, your total miles and the total number of rides you led. If you rode in November or December, you will see similar information for the 2015 ride year. If, like me, you havent ridden yet, you will see a page that says “page not found”. Over time, John and I will be adding tabs for 2013 and 2012.

Third, we have implemented a forum feature for topics you may want to discuss with other members of the club. The forum is open to all members and located just under the Members menu item (right after the directory). The forum was always there, but we have made it easier to find and opened up the posting to everyone. We think the forum will be an ideal place to give a thumbs up to that club member who led a great ride, or stopped to help you fix the flat on last week’s ride. It would also be a good place to ask questions like “Does any one have a fat bike and what do they think of it?” There is a small checkbox at the top right that is labelled “Subscribe”. If you check it, you will get email updates when some one posts to the forum, so you will know there is something interesting there.

Lastly, we have also opened up the “news’ feature of the software so that team leaders and board members can post news to members of the club. If it right there under “News” on the main menu. Eventually, we would like to get away from these emails, and move towards posting this information as “news”. But the News feature could and should also be used by board members and team leaders to disperse information to the general membership. For example, it would be a great place for Mr. Dean to post the notices about the board meetings and the agenda. The main advantage of news over emails is that the news will persist and be available to members who join us after the email is sent. Members can comment on the news, but this really meant to be more of a one way communication vehicle, as opposed to the forum which is a place for more dialog. There is a small button in the upper right hand corner labeled ‘RSS’. If you click that button you will get updates when someone posts some news.

John and I hope you find all these changes useful. We have more updates coming in the next few weeks. In any case, we would like your feedback. If you have some feature that you think would really be useful, let us know and, if we agree, we will put it on the list.

Musings on the software development

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:26:17 GMT

"No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy" is a famous phrase by German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke back from 1861.

This is just as true in software development - I can crudely paraphrase this into "No software design survives the contact with the realities of technology and actual users". I have seen this time and again over the last 15 years in my career,.

The preceding observation was recently made by Dmitriy Buterin, the developer of our membership software application, in Wild Apricot Software News - April 2012.

Make it 50 years for me if one occasionally substitutes "tool" or "product" for software.

Dmitiy knows what he is talking about from his experience as Chief Apricot for Wild Apricot. We have seen similar issues. He goes on to mention illness (yes, more than once on our project) and when one programmer just doesn’t have the skills (yes, more than once on our project) and so forth.

We are now nearing the completion of the HBC and TDA websites and can hopefully say the enemy has been vanquished. All of this happened because of the support provided by: Dmitiy, and all the other Apricots (yes that’s what they call themselves); Michele Brougher, for the ride statistics application; the support staff at iPage, host for the TDA and HBC Backroom sites; and Jenna and Arlen, at Seed Development Network, for the calendar.

Your Member Profile

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 01:01:49 GMT

If you are one of the 50% of our members who have not setup your profile PLEASE do so. When you do many wonderful features will be yours:

Individualized privacy controls on a field-by-field basis.
A membership directory accessible only to club members.
You can see when your membership is up for renewal and renew online.
Mass or controlled e-mail blasts.
A private members Forum and an open Blog.
A separate Events (big deals) and Rides only calendar.
Email members from this site.
Quick sign in on rides with your alias.
Your personal Ride Stats emailed to you.
You can even post your picture so club members will recognize you if they don't know your name.