As most of you may know, we had a crash during one of last week’s Tuesday night group rides. One of our club members was seriously injured, and ended up in Toronto after an Air Ambulance ride.

I am very happy to let you all know that Dave Smallwood is now back at home with his wife. His physical recovery has been nothing short of amazing thus far. Goes to show what kind of advantages being in shape can have on recovery. (right Dr. Bailey?)

We are going to hold an on open meeting/round-table discussion tomorrow, Monday night at 8pm. This will be held downtown at Second Cup, or elsewhere if we need more space.

If you want to be part of the discussion about how we can prevent something like this from ever happening again, please join us on Monday evening.

cheers,
robb

I haven’t made an update here since last year? Well, LOTS has been going on. I guess it’s time for an update.

Our 2010 OCA affiliation forms have been filled out and submitted, this means we will have membership cards in hand very soon. We also will provide all the local shops with forms & some club brochures in the next couple of weeks.

We have a whole bunch of great things that are set for the year ahead.

Saturday, May 22, we’ll be hosting an OCA Youth Cup Road Race & TT for riders ages 10-16. More info on the series is available on the OCA Website.

We will of course be participating in the Interclub road race series as we always have, however this year instead of Owen Sound being the third club, our friends from the Mountainview Cycling Club of Midland will join ourselves & the Newmarket Eagles in the series. The schedule is close to complete, and will be posted this week.

Mike Doble has again volunteered to run the club Time Trial series on alternate Thursdays through the summer, we’re very lucky to have his help!

We have joined a coalition along with the OPP, the County of Simcoe, the towns of Oro-Medonte, Innisfil, Springwater, Vespra & the Blue Mountains to create a rural road safety initiative/education program. After just two meetings a lot of progress has been made. The County has agreed to add a 1m strip of pavement to all new construction and re-pave jobs from herein. Oro-Medonte has agreed to something similar, but with the upcoming Pan-Am games, there is also potential to create an actual network of cycling routes through the area.

We have volunteered to adopt a section of Ridge Rd. The County responded to our request by granting us the section from Range Rd, through the town of Shanty Bay to the 3rd line of Oro. Our responsibility is to spend two days per year cleaning the shoulders of that section of litter & debris. For this, we get a sign along the side of Ridge Road with the Club’s name on it!

We’ve been hard at work to put together a program of rides designed to appeal to people who just like to ride bikes, as opposed to the ‘cyclist’ style rides we’ve typically focussed on.
These rides will be taking place every Saturday through the summer, and we’re really excited to teach new people what it’s like to change a tire, or ride in a group properly!

Hopefully some of the riders who attend these new Saturday rides will aspire to ride in our Charity event for the Barrie M.S. Society on Sunday September 18th. This will be a fully supported, exciting ride of multiple distances up to a full Imperial Century, or 160km! We’re really excited to showcase some of the challenging and picturesque terrain in our backyard.

I am sure that I’ve forgotten some things, but the gold medal game is almost on! I can’t believe it’s been so long since an update went out, apologies for that, but the Barrie Cycling Club is looking for 2010 to be the best year yet!

One last thing. We never had an end of year dinner last year, so I think perhaps a club meeting/pizza night is in order for this month, does this sound like a good idea?

Based on indicated support, a meeting of initial stakeholders to promote rural road safety will be held on Monday, December 14th at 1 p.m. The OPP has kindly offered the use of its boardroom at the Barrie detachment headquarters.

This will be a brainstorming session to begin the process of establishing programs that can be used to educate motorists and groups such as cyclists, equestrians, farm equipment operators, and pedestrians on safe practices when encountering one another on our roads.

Several groups have already expressed interest in participating in this process including the OPP, the towns of Oro-Medonte & Innisfil, The Town of the Blue Mountains, the Share the Road Coalition, the Ontario Equestrian Federation, the Ontario Trails Council, the Ontario Trail Riding Association, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture and the Barrie Cycling Club.

During the process we may identify additional stakeholder groups locally and throughout the province who share our common vision of improved public safety on our rural roads. From our preliminary discussions you have already suggested and pointed to other programs that we may be able to connect with to advance our mutual interests. It would be helpful if you could bring information on these programs to the meeting.

Please contact me ASAP if you are interested in attending and if there are any other organizations that could also benefit by being in attendance.

Cheers,
robb

7pm, Upstairs at Michael & Marion’s Restaurant, 89 Bayfield St.

See you there.

With winter fast approaching, and the cycling season winding down, we’ve decided to hold our Annual General Meeting right after this year’s Barrie Cross race.

The race is Sunday November 8, and our AGM will be held on Tuesday November 10th at 7pm.

This years meeting is being held at Michael & Marion’s restaurant in downtown Barrie. Kent Smith, the owner was kind enough to offer us a free space in his private dining room upstairs.
The location also provides us an opportunity for some socializing after the meeting has finished and in advance of our year end dinner.

We strongly encourage all members of the club to come out to the meeting, as it is an opportunity to not only elect executive members for next year, but it also enables everyone to have direct input into the club’s direction heading forward.

In addition to selecting next years executive, we will be discussing things like whether or not we can commit to a charity event next year for the MS Society. Potential changes to the Interclub race series, both clubs involved and race courses used. Along with anything else YOU want to see discussed.

It’s been a great year, lets ensure next season is even better. See everyone on Tuesday November 10th @7pm.