question on possible membership

[geordie3000]

HI, I hope this is in the right place as the section, sorry if not..... I have a question and it is, I am from Belfast ( north ) and was wondering given the distance to Dromora would it be worth while joining your club or would you think sourcing another club would be an option I should look at?

any answers welcome, thanks... a brief history of me and cycling, Ive been mountain biking for near two years now with boys from work and have been to kirroughtree on endless trips and also done Dalbeatie and mabie ( all black and red ) love single track and downhill but not so much the climbing!! anyway enough of the rambling hope to hear back soon, your club looks like a great outfit and very well run.

Thank you in advance Geordie.

[manuel6b2]

Geordie, many thanks for the complements.

With regards to membership of a club, well, first and foremost is that being a member of an affliated club (to Cycling Ireland) you can benefit from cycling insurance which covers you for third party and for personal accident. If you have not had a membership with Cycling Ireland before then you can make use of a current offer of just £9 for non-competition (leisure) cycling and then you add on a club membership fee, typically £10.
(For more membership options see the following webpage
www.dromaracc.co.uk/Membership/membership.htm)

With regards to which club you should join, well, we could be big headed and say that we are the best, but really you get out of a club what you put in. We have members who have joined us just to get the insurance (and we don't see them until they want to renew next year). The majority of our club members want to join to be "part of a club", i.e. to meet other like minded people, to share experiences, find out about new places to cycle etc. They want to go out cycling in a group, or have club level competitions, time trials, road races etc, or head off to the hills in a group to do some off-road.

When you join a club you have the opportunity to purchase club kit, jerseys etc. Wearing them will help you to get to know others within the club as it is easy to strike up a conversation with another person wearing the same kit. You will also then be on the mailing list for updates on what is happening in the local cycling world.

With regards to the types of cycling people do well, as shown below, there are events to take part in or just days out depending on what you want to get from your cycling.



With regards the distance, we have members from all across County Down, up into Antrim with one family from Sion Mills taking the honours of the furthest away. The ones from Sion Mills are into mountainbiking and would go the events anywhere in Ireland but once there they would then know that others in the club would be there for chat, advice and assitance if need be.

There are plenty of clubs around Belfast to choose from. Feel free to email me if you want any more information about Dromara CC. [e-mail]

I hope this has helped.