Welcome to our new website!
Dear club members, visitors and BBC curious - welcome to our new website! This has been a long time coming and we need to give a special group some serious kudos for donating their time to make it happen. That group is Peter Kelley, Jim Cooper and Ben Swiggett. Thank you one and all!
So, now we have your attention, a couple of points we want to relay on behalf of the club.
BBC *is* community - we’ve wrestled with how to define our club identity over the last few years and recently adopted a three point mission that you’ve probably already seen
Build a diverse community around high performance recreational cycling
This encompasses two really important points. Diverse community - BBC is defined by our common love of cycling and we are a stronger and more vibrant club when that comes from different life experiences. A desire to ride and be a part of our community are the only entrance criteria for membership. Why “High Performance Recreational Cycling”? Well BBC has a racing heritage, many of our members are former and/or current racers. While BBC is not exclusively focused on racing (in fact we encourage non-racers to join) we all share a drive to push ourselves and learn how to improve our skills, endurance and pace.
Foster local amateur bike racing
This one is kind of self-evident. As noted before, we’ve a deep history around racing - go read about that in the “About” section of this new website. We’ve promoted the Berkeley Hills Road Race for over 60 years, with it’s first edition running in 1957. Even in the time of COVID19 we’re putting on a virtual Berkeley Hills Road Race contest on Strava - the streak will not be broken!
Pay it forward: Help out the next generation of bike racers and cyclists
All of us at BBC have a passionate interest in thinking of how we can bring others into our sport and lower barriers to entry. We routinely donate funds from the registration fees from the Berkeley Hills Road Race to support local high school cycling teams purchase equipment for students who might not be able to afford the costs of riding. In partnership with Kai Velo, we supported the “Get Kids On Bikes” charity dinner in 2019, and for this year’s virtual BHRR we will be splitting funds between those causes and local food banks to help out the many in our broader community who are struggling to get by during the current pandemic.
Although we’re not able to put on our usual group rides during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and local shelter-in-place ordinances, we are finding other ways to be connected. Follow us on Instagram, join our club and participate in our email group, look for our rides on Strava and of course we’ll be posting blog entries here.
Lastly, we want to acknowledge that this is a difficult time for all. Between the pandemic, the outrage we’re all feeling about the long standing racial injustices in our country and the inability to congregate and be physically as present for one another we want to find ways to connect, to listen and to use cycling and the resources of this club and our members to support our community. Got ideas? We’re all ears
Ride safe, stay healthy, stay connected
Richard Wilson and Phil Tucher, 2020 Co-presidents, Berkeley Bicycle Club