Starting a cycling club in the UK

How it started

Auster is a club formed from friendships with a shared love and passion of cycling. A lot of us had been cycling together for years and through a desire to create and enjoy cycling experiences and opportunities with others, the Auster community was born. We have an amazing group of people across all cycling abilities and backgrounds and all wanted to build a community of people who want to build it together as a club for riders, by riders. 

So how did we get there? We started as a group of 7 knocking on the idea to start a club and went to work on defining who is Auster, what are our values, ethos and how we operate. All really exciting and so much fun working with a close team sharing all the tasks together.

It very quickly progressed with an identity and we soft launched reaching out to our own cycling friends and networks to share the exciting news. Deciding to press the button for a soft launch in November was always an interesting one with weather and riding opportunities, but it meant we could build the club and community to ready ourselves for the full launch in spring, ahead of the cycling season for many.

There was lots to think about and we had a plan over the next 6 months to work through all the bits from Riding ability groups, Ride leadership, Communication channels, Branding, Club Kit, Membership, New Joiner's process, Partnerships and lots more. By starting with people we knew and creating a small community first, this allowed us to tweak and refine how we wanted to set up (to be honest this will never stop :)) and through all of this, Auster was born. 

We had an amazing celebration in April including a lovely custom-made cake (name a cyclist who doesn't love cake!) and now fully open as a club for all to join. 

The name

The name! One of the hardest things about a cycling club is the bloody name! A name whilst so simple, is an identity and brings everyone from the club together. This was particularly tough for us, as you find a lot of clubs are based around a specific location or a brand. We on the other hand are based primarily across all of south London and this is where it got tricky. I won’t bore you all in the steps that we took to get there, but countless voting and upwards of 100 options thrown in the mix however we landed on Auster. Which, if you look up in a dictionary means, A south wind personified. Everyone loves a tailwind right… and for those headwinds it’s always better to be riding in a team :)

Community

This is what we thrive on. Whilst we have cyclists across all levels we are a club where community is at its heart and everyone gets to know everyone. With so much going on across the club there is ample opportunity for connection and we pride ourselves in supporting this across the board, whether it be..

• Syncing ride start locations and cafe stops
• Club holidays for all abilities
• Club group participation in sportives
• Supported rides
• Socials
• Club Forums and general chit chat

Engagement

A key part of building our community is an engagement. This is everything from supporting each other with riding or nutrition advice, route guidance, tips, hints and more. It also means that while we might be a small club, all of our members are adding, creating and benefiting from each other. 

To assist this as a club we have also started working with a number of great partnerships across the cycling industry which can really help support our members, one of which is Sundays insurance. Sundays is a company we have had members (unfortunately) test and work with, they’re ready and waiting to speak to you and work collaboratively to fix any issues. They have been friendly, helpful and positive with us setting up the club and we couldn’t be happier to have them know board. 

What it takes to start a club in the UK

For me it's simple. A love for cycling and a passion to share it…build it and they will come!

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