It’s time to bring this particular cycling adventure to a close. Bunch Rides is shutting down.

Adrian and I have spent the several years working with the local cycling community. We, with others, created Beeston Cycling Club and saw it through it’s early years. We’ve shared the joys of two blokes, who are in truth a bit past their prime, trying to make it in racing through our videos and blog.

The application seemed like a natural progression for us. Everything we’ve learned from being cyclist and club officials could be shared with everyone so their cycling lives could be better. Unfortunately the time has come to accept that we’re not able to produce something that the community really wants or needs.

The primary reason we haven’t made it is time. Neither of us have been able to give it the sufficient focussed effort to make it successful. We can’t quit our jobs to make it happen so we’re just not able to build and test ideas quickly enough to create something that people value.

We’ll continue to run the service until June 30th 2013 so those of you who need to can transition to alternative web sites.

We’ve already pre-warned key people at our most active clubs about this announcement so they’re probaby best to advise you on what is going to happen with your site going forward. Though feel free to email us ds@bunch.cc with any questions, queries or requests, eg if you want the discussions and comment data from your club area.

We’d like to extend a huge thanks to those old and new friends that supported us and wanted to make this work. Sorry it didn’t happen.

See you on the road soon.

Adam & Adrian

This week was the club’s AGM. This rivetting process is often described as ‘3 hours of life I’ll never get back’, the source of much hilarity created by those who are too vexed or bored to take it seriously. After all we only joined a bike club to ride a bike - right?

Well being on the other side of the table requires some work to make riding possible and at the AGM the issue of insurance was raised which, before we knew it, was the subject of a 1 hour debate and a good few heated online discussions some days later. So what is the position?

Bunch Rides was devised as an app to help clubs and riders connect with members/friends and vice versa.

Whilst riding the app development road We have been in a few ‘clubs’ and moved from a drinking man’s group of cyclists to a charity ride group to a sportive club and now to helping run a club with , arguably, one of the strongest racing heritages in the country.

In this occasional series Adrian will be pondering on the issues that arise in club life; the funny, the not so funny and the downright ridiculous.

Any training plan starts with a goal. What are you training for? What focus is going to keep motivated to push through the inevitable motivational slumps.

In our case it was moment of madness and naivety that led some cycling newbies sign up for the Fred Whitton Challenge in May.

In a series of posts I will be documenting the fortunes of this merry band of ambitious workmates as I work with them to get train for, and complete, the Fred Whitton.

We’re starting a new series on this blog of cycling training tips that we’ve picked up over the years. I’m sure you lot have loads as well so if you fancied sharing them with everyone, please let us know.

They can be absolutely anything to do with cycling training, eg: setting up your turbo, how to make it through a session, what to wear, warming down tips, etc.

The Bunch Training Companion is a new feature that we hope you’re going to find really useful. We’re certainly finding it so on a personal level.

It’s a simple to use online training diary that is fully integrated with the rides you join on Bunch.

Keeping our ear to the ground, virtual or otherwise, we’re aware of some concerns over why we don’t appear to acting on the feedback we’ve received about the app. In light of that, I thought it worth revisting what we trying achieve with Bunch Rides and be open and candid about some of the decisions we’re making.

We believe that, as a rule, cycling clubs are struggling to retain their relevance to new cyclists. Both those adults new to the sport as well as youngsters inspired by the current crop of cycling heroes. Our chosen method is to provide web tools that are:

• Focused on cycling and what a cyclist needs
• Socially connected to leverage Facebook and Twitter
• Provide a good mobile experience

The above are our guiding principles but we can’t do everything straight away. We also have another constraint.

Club members will no doubt have a selection of routes and it can be helpful to create a club ‘library’.

You can start a ‘discussion’ entitled ‘Club Routes’ or whatever you wish and members can then add a comment with a description of the route. On comments users can upload a route file that can be downloaded to a gps device or upload a picture file of the route.

As a club admin you can then copy the link for the discussion and go into the club admin section and then website pages in the menu and then add a ‘webpage’ entitled ‘Club Routes’ and post the copied link to the discussion. This will place a permanent link in the left hand menu bar.

The Christmas Special is here!

It’s easy to create your own group or club with Bunch Rides allowing you to attract more like-minded people who can share their ideas about riding, bikes and routes.

Once logged in you can go ‘clubs’ from the top menu and you’ll see the option to ‘add club’.