Why do short fun rides start so early?

[Hellhound]

Same here.I just don't get people who work Mon-Fri then spend half the weekend in bed!!
We've just been away for a week and I was up not long after 06:00 everyday.The wife and son rarely got up before 10:00!!?

Do you go to bed earlier than them or get less sleep?

In general, late risers do not spend more time in bed. Just different times.

Less sleep.
I never go to bed before midnight.Never!
If I'm doing 6-6 12hr days I go to bed between midnight and 01:00.I get up at 05:00 usually before the alarm goes off.4-5 hrs is more than enough sleep for me.I used to sleep less until I hit my late 40s.
I'm semi-retired these days and have always been a bit of a nighthawk so I'm often up until 02-03:00 but even then I'll be up at 07-08:00.Life is too short to waste it sleeping!

[Postboxer]

Perhaps there's an assumption that people wanting to go on parkruns and group rides etc are the kind of get up and go people, wanting to start the day with a quick burst of exercise rather than lying in bed for a couple of hours. Less chance to find a reason not to go too.

[mjr]

Perhaps there's an assumption that people wanting to go on parkruns and group rides etc are the kind of get up and go people, wanting to start the day with a quick burst of exercise rather than lying in bed for a couple of hours.

Getting a decent amount of sleep and not destroying our health by getting up unnaturally early to ride on more dangerous roads, not just "lying in bed"!

People who aren't early risers also get up and go and may want to start the day with a bike ride. Just not at 8am. So I don't think that assumption holds.

Parkrun is allegedly at 9am "Primarily because the volunteers who run the events would like to get on with their weekends; by starting at (or around) 9am, they can (with luck) have their results sorted by lunchtime" which doesn't really apply to group rides on Sundays or which don't publish results.

Less chance to find a reason not to go too.

Unless that reason is "I'm not getting up that stupidly early at the weekend"?

[Jamesh]

I've got to mow the lawn, take out the kids, go to b and q in a weekend, if I can sneak an early ride if possible with others then I will.

If I say I'm going out on the bike at 2pm no chance...

Others have different lifestyles obviously.

I do see retired chaps and ladies out esp along the canal and feel envious, but my day will come.

Cheers James

[thirdcrank]

One of the characteristics of volunteers tends to be that they are selective about volunteering. In this case, they are volunteering to lead bike rides (rather than, say, join mountain rescue) at times to suit themselves. Working with volunteers is often quite different from working with those doing it for money. If volunteers are volunteering with an organisation, they can be required to comply with rules as a condition of being accepted. Volunteers can't usually be made to volunteer to do things they don't want to do.

[Cowsham]

The early ride time means I can sneak out of the house to meet Marina before the wife realizes I'm gone.

[eileithyia]

:

The early ride time means I can sneak out of the house to meet Marina before the wife realizes I'm gone.

[Hellhound]

Unless that reason is "I'm not getting up that stupidly early at the weekend"?

Define 'stupidly early'?
What one person calls 'stupidly early' another might call 'stupidly late'!
My wife calls 10:00 a 'lie in' whereas a lie in for me would be 07:00.
I worked with a young bloke,late 20s who used to go to bed at 7pm when on days and would go straight to bed off nights and often be late the next shift.On his days off he never got up before midday!He always maintained he needed at least 11 hours sleep.Very strange.

[horizon]

Perhaps there's an assumption that people wanting to go on parkruns and group rides etc are the kind of get up and go people, wanting to start the day with a quick burst of exercise rather than lying in bed for a couple of hours. Less chance to find a reason not to go too.

That was my assumption too. I get the impression that people who do a morning ride do just that - they "do" it and get it over with. I like my day to emerge slowly and then develop - who knows where it might lead. And to cycle in the twilight home is delightful - tea time in my experience is the quietest and most reflective time on a Sunday. And I liked (in the past) to take the children with me.

Of course, not only would that not suit people with other plans and responsibilities, it isn't to everyone's liking. It would also be impossible to plan a ride for a group if there were no definite starting and finishing times and the route was open-ended.

So, no, I don't go on group rides but nor would I expect anyone to organise such a ride for me - indeed as soon as it is organised it is no longer of interest to me.

[Stradageek]

My ride times are somewhat influenced by traffic.

Weekday morning rides start at 09:15; 09:00 is disastrous because you have to navigate the 'late for work, late from school run' brigade who drive like loonies.

Likewise, rides need to avoid returning to town between 3:00 and 3:30pm, school run again.

Never be in the countryside on a Friday afternoon/evening, executives in big flash cars (racing home for the weekend and anticipating a bottle or two of wine with the trophy wife) are lethal

Saturday mornings - brilliant!!!! Everyone is having a lie in, all is peaceful and idyllic.

Sunday morning, too many cyclists (just kidding) but certainly too many horse riders (they don't like recumbent bikes)

Sunday after 4pm, shops shut, all is calm and idyllic again.

Of course, if the weather is nice, I ignore all of this

[mjr]

It would also be impossible to plan a ride for a group if there were no definite starting and finishing times and the route was open-ended.

Not impossible but more difficult but I suppose strictly speaking what my usual group calls "mystery rides" aren't planned in the sense of having a fixed route and so on. The finishing time was stated as "before nightfall" or similar. There are only a few each year because they do need to head out into areas with a choice of many good cycling routes, as there's no mystery if the only good route is obvious.

[PH]

Neither is there any abuse for trying new things! What sort of clubs are you basing that experience on?

Affiliates of both Cycling UK and British Cycling. Splits over such things as start times and locations (northeast edge of town, central or southwest edge!) have led to new clubs (not just new riding groups) forming. Ironically, the only group doing political campaigning seems to have the least internal politicking.

Abuse? Mainly online and those running the online groups seem mostly old cautious members who hesitate to delete posts and boot offenders.

Our mid-week day rides do start later, meeting in a café at 10.00 for a 10.30 depart, that's mainly to miss the worst of the work/school traffic and the same people riding at the weekend prefer the 9.00/9.30 starts.

So, not many of them are working full time? It's similar here for most groups. Riding times are mainly set by the people riding: that's inertia.

I'm glad none of the clubs/groups I've been involved with have been anything like so fractious, I've seen groups split, re-form and evolve, but it's all been amicable, or at least civil, certainly none of the abuse you highlighted. I hope your experience isn't typical, I don't see why it would be, people usually appreciate they have more in common than not and there's more than one way to organise groups.
Who is it you think dictates these start times? First you say it's the organisers, then it's the riders... what's this inertia? I'd hope they were run for the benefit of their members, isn't that the point of clubbing together? If some members want something different, I'd also hope the club considered that, isn't that usually the case? I wouldn't expect a club to make changes to suit a few that didn't suit most, why would they? I would hope they'd support and encourage anyone wishing to offer something different, that's usually been my experience, the only exceptions have been when someone wants someone else in the club to do it, as already pointed out that's not how volunteering works. I also reject this stereotype of the conservative old guard, that isn't my experience either, some of the most initiative ideas have come from those with a long involvement, looking for something new, or re-visiting something from the past which will be new to most.
What was question about mid week day rides? It's a safe assumption that a large proportion of people not working mid week will be retired. Though not exclusively, some are self employed, or work weekends, or have childcare responsibilities, or a day off... The majority of those riding our weekend rides are working mid week, though there's a fair few who ride both.
As already said the least popular of the local MG's club rides were the after lunch series we ran for a couple of years, I was disappointed they weren't more popular, I was the instigator so had a vested interest. I don't know why that was, maybe another time and place might have a different outcome.

[thirdcrank]

I wonder if this thread was triggered by an assumption that a Cycling UK forum would have a direct input to the operation of Cycling UK and that this was a channel for the effective communication of dissatisfaction.

https://www.cyclinguk.org/contact

[freiston]

Round my neck of the woods, group/organised rides tend to start at 09:15 am and the other side of the city to me (CTC) or about 10:00~10:30, also the other side of the city to me (BC). I have to say though that the BC rides often have later starts, afternoon starts and early evening starts, and a few different starting points closer to my home too. I tend not to do group/organised rides, partly because of the starting times and places but also because I prefer to ride my own rides, so to speak (but saying that, I have had cycling friends in the past who I have enjoyed riding with)

I'm a late-to-bed/late riser too - I have been ever since I can remember, even when at school many decades ago. There's a fair few of us about but unfortunately this society is geared towards the early riser and anything else is the exception. Of my last three jobs (covering the last 27 years and made redundant from all three), the first two were approximations of a "14:00~22:00" shift, the last one was a "day shift". I hated the hours of the day shift job and every weekend, I went back to my "normal" sleeping hours and felt that I never adjusted to "daytime hours" Monday to Friday, usually falling asleep in the evening, waking up later and then staying awake until about three hours before I had to be up.

[PH]

It would also be impossible to plan a ride for a group if there were no definite starting and finishing times and the route was open-ended.

Well, you'd need the minimum of a meeting time and place, but not really much more than that.
We run a couple of informal meets a month, café start, discuss who wants to ride where, sometime set off in more than one group, some just come along to be sociable.
All our rides are to an extent open ended, there's no obligation to stay to the end, some will leave early to get home, or to extend the route, we have a rider regularly leaves after the coffee stop to get a train home.
I understand that many sports clubs are more rigid, sport in general is like that, but many leisure groups are not like that at all.