Rainy Days and Saturdays Always get me Up!

Winter rains are here.  It's pretty cold, too.  It actually feels a bit like snow.  Rain gear and fenders are great, but sometimes I don't feel like the post-ride clean-up so I'll just ride my CompuTrainer or the rollers instead.

after two days of torrential rain riding in SLO

So, what else do I do when it rains?  I work on the calendar!  I'm thrilled to say that we've got 2013 calendared out through November.  Yeah, I'm crazy like that.

It should be an exciting year for Velo Girls and we want YOU to come out and ride with us.

On the mountain bike side, we've been brainstorming for a while with Team Velo Girls members to come up with a new, enhanced schedule that will embrace the beginner and challenge the more advanced rider.  I think you'll like what we've done.  We're introducing a monthly First-Timers Mountain Bike Ride at Coyote Hills.  While we like to think that our weekly Dirty Velo Girls ride at Arastradero OSP is a beginner ride, it's really not.  So our hope is that beginners will come out to join us at Coyote Hills, realize we're a really fun group of chicks who are encouraging to beginners, and then join in on our other rides.  At the other end of the spectrum, we've been ignoring our more advanced riders who want a challenge beyond Arastradero, so we're going to rotate our weekly ride between different locations (Arastradero, Fremont Older, Waterdog, and somewhere else special) to reach a variety of fitness and skill levels, as well as geographic locations.

On the road side, we're bringing back some favorites and adding some new rides, too!  Team Velo Girls members will lead three progressive training ride series this year, focusing on the Cinderella Classic (January - April), a Hill Climbing series (May + June), and then a series that will lead up to a fall century in October.  We're moving our always-popular Midweek Madness Co-ed Group Ride at Mike's Bikes in Palo Alto to Thursday evenings.  And we'll continue to offer weekly Melo Velo beginner road rides in Woodside and monthly Melo Velo beginner road rides in Orinda.  We're also working on a plan to offer a Medio Velo option that will feature a mid-distance endurance ride year-round.

We've moved our calendar functions over to Meetup, which has proven to be a great marketing tool and also a really efficient way for us to keep track of RSVPs.  So join up our meetup and then come out and ride with us in the coming year!

So, what did you do on this rainy Saturday?