How to plan a winter programme your members will stick with

The most ambitious winter schedule does not win the winter, the most doable one does.

The clocks have just gone back, the evenings are dark and turnout on the club ride is starting to drop. Every club knows the pattern: in November there is a full winter schedule on the calendar, and in January three members are left at the clubhouse. That is rarely down to the members. It is almost always down to the programme, which was built for the September club instead of the January one.

In this article we set up a winter programme in five steps, around one principle that comes back in each of them: keeping it up beats ambition. A small schedule that runs all winter leaves you with fitter, more engaged members in March than a full one that stalls halfway through.

Step 1: start with what is doable, not with what is possible

The temptation is to carry the summer calendar straight through: three rides a week, several levels, everything as it was. But winter is a different season. It is dark for longer, the weather works against you more often and your members' diaries are fuller with other things.

So choose a programme you are sure you can deliver. One ride a week that always goes ahead binds more members than three that sometimes do. That certainty is what members build on: someone who knows there is a ride at half past nine on Sunday plans their weekend around it. Someone who stood at the clubhouse three times for a cancelled ride drops off until March. Pick a fixed moment, for example Sunday morning, and keep it going all winter. You can always add more later if turnout allows it.

Step 2: make the expectations clear for every ride

In summer everyone roughly knows what a club ride involves. In winter the differences grow: one member keeps training, another has not touched the bike for six weeks. Nothing scares off a hesitant member faster than one ride beyond their reach, in the cold, with wet feet.

So set the pace, the distance and the duration for every ride in advance. Then a member knows before leaving whether the ride suits them, and even the doubter dares to come. For the winter months, consider agreeing a calmer pace than in summer, and say so as well: a winter ride is about being outside together and keeping the base fitness up, not about settling the club championship early. If you ride in a larger group, appoint a road captain who keeps the pace in check and holds the group together.

Step 3: build in variety

A winter programme does not have to be the same ride sixteen times over. Winter is exactly the season to explore the breadth of the sport: a mountain bike ride through the woods, a gravel ride on the paths that are too busy in summer, or a short coffee ride for anyone who wants to take it easy. Variety keeps the programme fresh for members who are tired of the wet tarmac for a while.

Variety has another advantage: it brings members from different corners of the club together. The racer who never turns up for a touring ride does join an mtb ride, and the other way round. Put the special rides on the calendar well in advance, so members without a mountain bike can arrange one, and give them a recognisable place in the schedule, for example the first Sunday of every month.

Step 4: agree what happens in the dark and bad weather

In winter the question is not whether a ride will be called off at some point, but when. That is exactly why this belongs in the programme and is not something to improvise on the morning itself. Agree together when a ride is cancelled, for example in black ice or a severe weather warning, who makes that call and where members hear about it. Nothing is as sour as riding to the clubhouse for nothing because the cancellation was only in a chat group you happened to miss.

Make agreements about riding in the dark and at dusk too: lights on every bike, visible clothing, and in the group a little more distance and more care through the bends. These are simple agreements, but they belong on paper and in the programme, so new members know them as well. A club that has this in order lowers the barrier to showing up in winter considerably.

Step 5: keep members involved between the rides

Even with a good programme, nobody rides every week. The difference between a member who comes back in March and one who quietly disappears often lies in what happens between the rides. So give members a reason to keep riding on their own too.

A winter standings works well for that: a classification that runs from November to March, in which the club rides count and to which members can add their own rides. It does not have to be about the winner. The strength is in the visibility: members see that people are riding, in January too, and that is more contagious than any appeal from the committee. Keep the barrier low and the rules simple, and even the member who only rides on Sundays joins in.

Small, predictable and varied

A winter programme members keep up is small enough to always go ahead, predictable enough to build on and varied enough to stay fun. Set that up, and in March you have a club that simply kept riding.

Cyql helps with a ride calendar that holds recurring rides in one go, rides with a clear level in terms of pace, distance and duration, automatic messages to participants when something changes, and Challenges to turn it into a winter standings. That way the programme costs you as little time as possible as an organiser, and more is left over for what it is really about: riding together, in winter too.