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:

1. Lead 5 or more rides, one of which must be on a weekend.
   
2. Serve the club by volunteering in one of the following ways:
   
• Volunteer at TDA
• Be a Team Leader 
• Serve on the HBC Board
3. 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