CLUB HISTORY

THE VILLAGE BICYCLE CLUB, formerly known as The Villages Cycling Association, is located in the retirement community of The Villages, about 18 miles south of Ocala, Florida. The Village Bicycle Club is a resident-only club and the members are all senior citizens with a passion to ride, and the time to do it. In 2002, Russ Buchanan and Jim Mount started the club with 30 members and each month bought forth more resident members. We created a schedule of rides where riders of varying levels could take to the streets and we ended each ride with a stop at the local coffee shop.

In the beginning, we rode three days a week, but after a short time, we found that our members were meeting on their own to ride on non-scheduled days. So today you can find an organized almost any day of the week. As our club grew in size, our members became better riders and people were moving from entry level bicycles to more advanced road bikes. We have rides that go out daily varying in distances from 20 to 50 miles, and with speeds that average from 14 to 20 miles per hour. Now that may not sound like a lot, but remember all of us are seniors - our average age is close to seventy.

Once a month the club caravans to one of the many Rails to Trails in Central Florida, where our early morning rides finish at lunch time in one of the local restaurants. This is a very popular ride with our members because we all start at the same time and return at the same time. It is only the distance and speed of the riders that is different.

Many of our members have participated over the last several years in the cycling events at the Florida Senior Games and we have a wealth of medals to show for it.

The Village Bicycle Club has organized multi-day rides at Flagler Beach, Jekyll Island and Fort Myers, and traveled to France in 2004 and Germany in 2005 and France in 2007.

Club members are very active in supporting the local community and has a yearly drive to collect bicycles from their neighbors and repair them to give to the local police for distribution throughout the county. Members of the club have been, for the past few years, representing the bicycle community by volunteering at the local 55ALIVE Classes where they brief motorists as to the right of cyclists and the responsibility to share the road. Club members work closely with the county to see that 'Share-the-Road' signs are posted along the roads coming into the retirement community. Club President, Russ Buchanan, is serving on the Lake/Sumter MPO Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee.

The Club meets on the first Monday of each month at the Mulberry Recreation Center at 7 pm.

Oftentimes safety issues are discussed and demonstrations on repairing flat tires or other bicycle repairs are conducted. One of our biggest goals is to promote bicycle safety and give our members an opportunity to ride, socialize, and enjoy cycling - improving our health becomes a byproduct.