There are some important changes happening to the Leisure rides which take place on a Sunday. First things first and we are saying goodbye to Mike Knight. No, not from the Club, but from organising the Sunday rides over the past dozen or so years. Many thanks Mike for doing such a great job!

Effective from right now, we have the 'Gang of Four’ to replace the irreplaceable Mr K. Yes, we have Mark, Kevin, Margaret, JD and AndyCad.

There is something you may have noticed that doesn't seem right about the last sentence. Yes, there are five members of the Gang of Four. This doesn’t bode well for the accuracy of the distances published for the Sunday rides. But that never bothered Mike either so no change there then.

So what else has actually changed?

Start time.

Well, start times are now 9:30 ONLY. This avoids the disappointment of those members turning up for the 9:45 slot only to find everyone else had started at 9:30. (We were listening Jim!)

At 9:30 'MANAGEABLE SIZED GROUPS', of say 10-15 riders will leave every couple of minutes with the faster paced riders going first. Did you notice that I put that first bit in upper case?

The route i)

Printed route sheets will be available on the day just as before. (from Mark Otridge). However if you are a club member you no longer pay 10p for this. Non members will continue to pay a £1 day membership fee.

The route ii)

AndyCad has been slaving away manually uploading the Sunday routes to the internet (Great job Andy!). Specifically, he is creating these on the RideWithGPS website. In fact he has created a new ‘user’ called Chippenham Wheelers. You can either search for it or go straight to it at www.ridewithgps.com/users/393292/

Not only that, but he is adding the .gpx file on the Diary entry of the website to make life even simpler for you. Note: you have to be logged in on the Wheelers website to see this attached file on the Diary entry.

If you are having any technical difficulties, just text AndyCad the night before and he will ride over to your house and load the gpx file onto your satnav for you. Lets be honest, you can’t really get any better service than that.

The route iii)

New routes and cafes will be added over the coming months. Any suggestions for routes and cafes will be gratefully received. However it should be noted that any new routes need to be sanctioned by the Committee using the Club ten step new route acceptance criteria procedure. So this may take some time. Not only that, but options to extend the ride distance for those wishing to add an extra loop from the cafe will be available on certain rides in the future.

How do I know if the ride has been cancelled?

Check the website diary entry, up to 9am on day of ride, for information about whether the ride is cancelled due to bad weather, illness or total apathy.

Etiquette i)

There is a collective approach to policing the etiquette and rules of group riding and everybody should feel free to 'help and advise' other members in a constructive manner if needed.

Etiquette ii)

Efficient mudguard & mudflap combinations are mandatory in the off season.

Please support the new team with the implementation of these features to help further improve your enjoyment of the Leisure Rides on a Sunday. If you have any comments or queries please email leisureride@chippenhamwheelers.org.

Happy leisure riding!