Ride as much or as long or as short as you feel. BUT RIDE.
– Eddy Merckx
How We Ride
As the great Eddy Merckx tells us, you must ride. But you must also ride with purpose to get your desired training or learning results. Rider or racer, we have weekly club training rides to establish your fitness base.
Each club ride builds at least one of the three key athletic abilities all cyclists need: 1) Endurance; 2) Maximum Power; 3) Sustained Power.
Endurance is usually developed with long rides at a steady moderate pace. Often we have more free time on weekends to schedule these rides. So Saturday and Sunday are reserved for 2+ hour club rides.
Maximum and Sustained Power are best developed through repeated interval efforts. Full workouts often need less than 2 hours. We schedule these rides on weekday evenings, after your workday has finished.
Please Note: Our insurance policy with the Alberta Bicycle Association requires all riders on all club group rides be members of the club. Please check out our Membership page for details and to learn about our trial membership.
The following list covers the basics of the club rides. Specific ride times and routes evolve across the cycling season. We post the actual weekly schedule to the News section and Calendar of this website. All new posts are announced on Twitter and Facebook.
While our Calendar is always up to date, changing conditions may require a last minute update or cancellation, which will be announced on Twitter (see embedded feed at the bottom of this page).
Monday – Track Night (Summer)
When: 6pm
Where: Argyll Velodrome
Velocity has a long history with track racing. Canadian World Champion Tara Whitten started her career riding with us on Edmonton’s Argyll Velodrome.
The velodrome is a 333m long concrete track, built for the 1978 Commonwealth Games. It sure is old, but we still have fun pushing fixed gear bikes hard and fast around its oval!
The club has a stable of track bikes free for members to use. All you’ll need to bring are your own pedals. We’ll get you set up with everything else.
Early in the track training season we hold introductory track riding sessions. Then we’ll get into weekly structured workouts. These will build your pedalling “souplesse” and bike handling skills, which will improve all of your riding and racing skills.
Wednesday – Urban Hills Evening Ride (Summer – Early Fall)
When: 6pm
Where: Meetup in the main parking lot area upon entering Hawrelak Park.
This is the Maximum Power ride. All riders improve doing high-intensity interval training, which fits a shorter weeknight ride. There’s no better way to force the watts from your legs than the challenge of a hill climb!
We follow a circuit around the less-travelled (at least by motor vehicle) short sharp hills in Edmonton’s river valley. Test yourself against other club riders close to your own ability. You’ll reach heart rate maximums rarely hit on your solo rides!
We always re-group after every climb, because none of us stay well-bunched anyway. It’s up to you how hard and how many climbs you’d like to do. Between efforts we cruise at a comfortable recovery pace that everyone can manage.
Experience Level: All fitness levels! All we ask is that you are comfortable riding in a group (If you aren’t, our Confident Rider Clinics will get you there!)
Saturday and Sunday – Endurance Rides (Late Spring to Early Fall)
Fun and friendly. That’s what our weekend rides cover, besides a lot of countryside around Edmonton. These rides start outside the Anthony Henday loop and will move around on about a monthly schedule. Members come from all corners of the Edmonton region. Our weekend club rides should explore all corners too.
The Saturday Ride is a 2-4 hour session that’s perfect for putting in some quality riding kilometres while chatting with your club members. This is a no-drop ride. You won’t get left behind unless you explicitly tell a Ride Leader you’re fine with finishing solo. Rider Leaders try to keep the speed in-check on this ride to avoid it turning into a hammer-fest. If more than 10 riders show the group may split into “A” and “B” groups, with the As riding faster than the Bs. Each ride route will be pre-set and posted in a Weekly Update and on our Events Calendar. On the east side of the city, we’ll head deep into Strathcona County. On the west side, we’ll head towards Highway 60, but usually stay north of the North Saskatchewan River/Devon area.
The Sunday Ride is a much harder session that we call the “Rule V” ride. Don’t know what Rule V means? See: The Velominati – Keepers of the Cog This ride heads into the hills of Parkland County, north of Highway 16 and the Spruce Grove/Stony Plain region. It can be as hard, long, or easy as the group decides. Show up rain or shine and be prepared to be fully self-supported. You might get left behind. If it’s raining … depending on how seriously everyone takes Rule V, you may or may not be the only one riding that day!
Experience Level: Please be aware of your own abilities. You must be familiar with riding in a group. As always, bring your own flat repair equipment, food, and plenty of water. Some spare cash is always a good idea. Riders in the B group should be comfortable at an average 25kph by themselves. Riders in the A group should be comfortable riding at an average of 27kph solo pace.
Rider safety is paramount on all our group rides. The club will offer Confident Rider Clinics for you to learn the basics of group riding. In the very least, make sure you understand all the advice on our Group Ride Tips page:
You can see the latest ride updates (if any) from our Twitter feed right here: