Organizing a CROCT group ride: my first attempt

I polled our CROCT ridership last month, asking them to indicate which weekend days in Feb. would work for them to participate in a group ride along MORC’s Minnesota River Bottoms trail in Bloomington. I announced the results and the plan on the CROCT blog.

Yesterday, ten of us showed up at 1pm at the Lyndale Ave/I35W trailhead.

Curtis Ness, Michael Lehmkuhl, Joe Thorman, JC Ingebrand, Dave Wolf, Bill Nelson, Gary Duden, John Rinn, Scott ParkerThe group photo in the parking lot was taken by Pat Sorenson,  president of Penn Cycle who happened to be heading out on a ride with some buddies at the same time.

We opted to ride 8 miles west to the Bloomington Ferry Bridge (Hwy 169) trail head since several of the group had never ridden that route.

Bike repair by Curtis Ness; photo by Michael LehmkuhlWe took our time, stopping several times for socializing and a little exploring on the railroad swing bridge.

There was one mechanical, a broken chain. But one group member had a chain tool and Curtis Ness, CROCT board secretary and manager of Milltown Cycles in Faribault, did the trail-side repairs. Whew!

There wasn’t much snow, and with temps in the low-to-mid 30s, the trail was a bit sloppy in places. The camaraderie, however, was first-rate.

It was my first-ever experience as an informal group ride leader. I only led the group astray once.  I probably will do it again if they let me. 😉

2 Comments

  1. jc ingebrand said:

    Keep on organizing, you are a great advocate. You never know who might show up.

    February 9, 2015
  2. Griff Wigley said:

    Thanks, JC. I think we will keep doing the organized group rides. It’s cool to show area trails to our CROCT ridership who’ve never been to them. And we get to ‘party’ a bit with each other. I hope you can keep joining us.

    February 9, 2015

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