Group Rides

Chill out dude, not everything’s a competition.

Racing is only a fraction of what we do as a team, and we have many more opportunities to just ride your bike around without being on the clock. This year, we’re focusing more on adding beginner opportunities, while also keeping our other rides for our more experienced riders. We’re committed to having a ride or clinic that suits each of our member’s wants and needs. Read on to learn more about our casual rides, clinics, road rides, mountain rides, and bike park days.

Wednesday Casual Rides

New this year (Fall 2024), we will be starting to go on more official club casual bike path rides due to popular demand! We will be rolling out on our Wednesday Casual Rides every week at 5pm in front of ’87 gym. Perfect for anyone who wants a fun pedal, a workout, or an active recovery!

We’ve got a fleet of bike trail/XC mountain bikes and helmets that we loan out for club activities (casual and XC rides), and there will be a request form for these events. If it’s for one of our play-by-ear rides, reach out to an officer that is going and we’ll get you rolling in no time!

We plan to host mountain bike skills clinics this Fall semester, and we are working closely with RPI’s Outdoor Programs to plan these, and we’ll post information on our Discord and Instagram as soon as it is available. Both bikes and helmets can be provided for these clinics.

Other Group Rides

When the weather is nice, and the race schedule allows, we’ll go on casual rides on the weekends! We’ll pick from fun routes and great locations since more people are able to come. Fall 2024 weekend casual rides (tentative):

• Saturday 10/19: Ride to the Troy Farmers Market
• Sunday 10/27: Biking & Boba (Ride to Albany Skywalk)
• Saturday 11/2: Casual Riding & Cafes (Falls View Ride)

Road and Mountain Rides

Although we do planned bike path casual rides, most of our mountain, road, and other rides are play-by-ear so make sure to attend meetings and keep those discord notifications on for the “road-chat”, “mtb-chat”, and/or the “casual-biking-chat” to find out where we might go next!

For our road riders, we go on 20-65 mile rides that all start in Troy and tour around the area. Keep in mind, these rides are also training for our road racers, but you are welcome to tag along! Note: we currently only have one road bike to loan out. Some rides are drop style rides, while others are not, and will be noted as such. We have planned rides via GPS routes in a shared document available in the Discord if you are interested.

For our mountain pedalers, we ride anywhere from 5-25 miles at parks nearby RPI. Last year, we took daytrips to Colonie Mohawk River Park, Grafton Lakes State Park, Luther Forest, Beebe Hill, and Daniel’s Road for some more cross-country leaning rides (listed from easiest to hardest terrain). As for more Enduro-style, we went to Wheelerville, Mount Anthony, and Slate Valley. We also took an end-of-year overnight trip in the Spring semester and rode at Mount Penn, Birdsboro Preserve, and Trexler Nature Preserve in Pennsylvania.

For our mountain downhillers, we try to go on 3 bike parks trips that are not associated with races along with the ones we go to for the ECCC mountain races. Last year we went to Thunder Mountain (twice), Mountain Creek, and Highland in trips not associated with races. As for the trips associated with races, we went to Bolton Valley, Thunder Mountain, Jiminy Peak (cancelled), and Arrowhead (pedal park). Considering both racing and non-racing trips, we are planning on going to Thunder Mountain, Bolton Valley, Jiminy Peak, Arrowhead, Blue Mountain (PA), and Mountain Creek this year. Note: we DO NOT have downhill loaner bikes at this time, but most bike parks we go to offer bike rentals for $100-150 per day (you cannot race rental bikes, and we do not offer reimbursements for bike and equipment rentals).

Also note: going to bike parks and on overnight trips requires you to pay the Race and Trip Dues in order to get ticket, gas, and camping reimbursements.