Informal minutes of the latest BBC Board meeting

By Allan Edmonds

The board usually meets about every other month. October’s meeting took place on the 27th in the back room of Crazy Horse. All of the elected officers (Jim Schroeder (pres), Walter Smith (VP), Stan Ellis (at large), Jerry Arveson (treasurer), and Kathy Cummins (sec)) were present and most of the committee chairs as well.

Kathy Cummins’s minute of the last meeting were approved. Treasurer Jerry Arveson reported briefly before having to leave for another commitment. Club finances are in good shape with a good balance in the checking account in addition to our “rainy day/large grant” savings CD.

Ron Brown reported on ongoing advocacy matters, including signage issues, new greenway paths, etc. Soon a renewed push for a proposed bicycle pedestrian bridge over I69 will begin.

Education and Safety Chair Andrew Dingman reported that he is looking for “teaching opportunities”. A few ideas were discussed. The idea of sending out links to educational videos on riding issues sounded especially promising. Maybe also a “Bike Tip of the Week.”

Ride Coordinator John Bassett gave an overview of the past season. He observed that our official season now runs during Daylight Savings Time. He reviewed midweek and weekend rides. We were especially happy with the Beginners Ride run by Tammy Thompson. All Saturday rides had official leaders this year. The iRide and Training groups will continue as one group. OWLS continues to meet separately. Sunday Nice and Easy rides continue to do well under Ron Brown’s guidance. A few drive and ride events will be scheduled for next year. The double century is being planned to go from Evansville to Madison, requiring an overnight stay in Evansville, and will not be so inviting to riders who want to do a shorter options. Jim Schroeder is organizing some gravel rides in November. He will post them on the ride calendar.

Mountain Biking Chair Dan Hickey spoke briefly about upcoming ride plans. If there is enough interest he may have some MTB training sessions this winter.

Marketing Chair Yusef Nur discussed two matters. The results of our recent club slogan contest were not so compelling, but will be useful. A new idea “Break Away with the BBC” was approved as our primary slogan. Second was the issue of possibly sponsoring one or more Little 500 teams. After a fair amount of discussion it was decided instead to purchase a half-page ad.

Membership Chair Tammy Berger: Membership steady. From this point on all new members will be credited with dues paid tfor 2015-2016, since the 2014-2015 riding season is now over.

Media Chair Allan Edmonds: We still plan a Facebook “page”, to complement our Facebook “group” and blog. The club has a Twitter account at

RAIN Chair John Connell. Ridership was down a bit (like in other rides such as Hilly Hundred and due to so many other new rides and to other sociological factors beyond out control). Nonetheless our profits held steady because of much tighter control on some of the expenses. The committee has reviewed the last year with a view toward improvements. Preliminary steps are being taken to open registration for RAIN 2015 in January.

RAIN chair John Connell reports

Grants Committee work is underway, Chair Brett Nelson was unable to attend the meeting but had reported that additional committee members are needed. Contact Brett at pyromelana@comcast.net if you would be interested in serving on this committee that oversees the entire grant process and makes grant recommendations to the board. The target date for receipt of grant applications is the end of the year.

The board approved gift cards for people who led rides this year. The board also approved honoraria for the main RAIN committee chairs as a small recognition of their important and time-consuming work.

A club pizza party is being planned for November, probably the 18th at Café Pizzeria. The club will pay the cost. Also we selected a tentative target date for the winter meeting of either February 7 or 21, depending on space availability. We will need to appoint a nominating committee by the next board meeting.

The meeting adjourned about 8 pm.

Club Cycling in Belgium

A note from Eric Arnold, former BBC member now living in Belgium

I've been in Belgium a couple months and riden with a couple different clubs and observed many others.  I thought I’d share some observations on the club culture here in Belgium which is extensive – my community of 15,000 folks has four clubs and that is not abnormal at all.

1.        Length of ride – rides are typically 35-60 miles depending on the time in the season.    There are no regroups or stopping.  Its good in that it keeps the rides to a reasonable amount of time for those with families or other commitments.
2.       Routes – there are only 4-6 routes that are rotated.  There are variations that cut off distance depending where you are at in the season.  Routes change each year.  But once you riden each route a couple times, if you do get dropped, you can find your way home and more importantly you know where the many turns are.
3.       Racing/Sprinting or any other actions that split up the group. – strictly forbidden until last 6km of the course where it becomes a “free ride.”  Keeps the group together.  You have a pace and you stick to that pace.  Only a select 3-4 folks are allowed to take pulls and this controls the pace.  And the pace here is fast.  We did 52 miles yesterday and averaged 19.8 MPH with zero breaks.  The weaker riders could keep up because they didn’t have to take pulls at the front and where not expected to and the pace was absolutely steady so you didn’t get worn out early in the ride trying to keep up with someone you can’t keep up with.
4.       Support vehicle – always present with first aid kit, extra wheels, air, tools.  Protects the group from traffic approaching from behind.
5.       Club kit – mandatory for club rides.  Sold at a very reasonable price – certainly at cost.  Clubs also get sponsors for the kit which lowers cost even more.
6.       Weekend rides begin and end at a local bar.  Brings in the social aspect of things.  Strictly voluntary but 2/3s of those on yesterdays ride stayed for 90 minutes having a couple beers and watching soccer and generally kidding around with each other.  It was all in Dutch but I still enjoyed it greatly.
7.       Ability groups – most clubs have A-C groups and its really bad form to ride in a group you can’t keep up with.  You typically start at C and earn your way up to B or A.  Also, if you're holding back the group by having a bad day, can always get in the support vehicle.

I’ve got to admit I really like the way they do things here.  Now granted, Belgium has probably, absolutely the best biking culture/history in the world – per capita anyways.  But I think there is much to be learned by the way they do things.