as we do every couple of years, we run a short survey to make sure that the club is giving people what they require. the club is not the president or the committee but rather the riders themselves, so it is important that the work the committee do is a reflection of this.
we currently have just under 400 financial members so it was good to see that 184 people took the time to respond as it gives us a representative sample.
The following is a bunch of graphs and charts that show the data driven results. the comments and query’s will be displayed later as we will take the time to respond to each of them individually.
age
we have known for a long time that the average age of our group is high. this is a result of how the club was formed and how old it is. as things progress, we hope to see more junior riders in the club, but cycling is one of those sports that people often come to late in life after they have been damaged by years of other sports.
gender
25% women in the club is not bad for a male dominated sport. we have put a lot of effort onto developing women’s rides and supporting those within the club, so hopefully this continues to increase.
years cycling
it is good to see that we have so many experienced riders in the group. this does not always equate to “better riders”, but experience goes a long way to keeping the group operating safely.
how did you hear about and come to be part of SPR?
it is good to see that word of mouth is still our best way of attracting new riders. if people believe in what you do, then they will promote for you.
what is your membership status?
it was good to see that some non-members also filled in the survey. even though the club is for members, we need to understand why people ride with us and how we can convert them over. as has been pointed out time and again, we do have a large proportion of recreational riders, so we need to ensure that we cater for them as well. it is not just about racing.
why do you ride with SPR?
much like a “troop of baboons”, cyclists are social animals. shared suffering is better than alone.
which SPR ride do you typically associate yourself with (ie: level of rider)?
as expected main 1 is where the bulk of our riders sit. not surprising since we have to split it into 4 groups most saturdays.
based on your experience riding in SPR group rides, please rate the following
so there seems to be difference between our weekday and weekend rides according to the graphs. however, in both cases when you remove the N/A results (i.e. those people that don’t do those rides), then 92% of riders consider the weekday rides very good-excellent and 96% of riders consider the same of our weekend rides.
based on your experience riding in SPR group rides, please rate our SPR ride leaders
when we again take out the N/A data, we have 89% for managing safety, 82% for organising rides and 91% for handling accidents (excellent and very good results combined)
overall how safe do you feel on SPR ride?
18% of people said that they felt occasionally unsafe. this can be a number of factors such as group dynamics, traffic conditions and weather. we try to control as much as we can, but there is always a level of risk that we carry when riding in close quarters at speed.
the club is investigating the possibility of producing a club-branded castelli gabba prior to winter 2018. Is this an item that you would be likely to purchase?
hands down the best piece of foul weather kit i own. if we do go ahead with this, you won’t be disappointed.
would you be likely to purchase club branded casual clothing?
i will have to find out what fell into the “other” category. expecting some “mankini” type comments. a t-shirt seems to be on the cards though.
overall, how satisfied are you with the SPR club kit:
quality 73%, fit 72%, value 68%. the biggest problem that we have with kit is that we have a wide cross-section of people that ride so we need to try to keep it accessible to everyone.
road racing experience
again, we need to cater for everyone. not everyone wants to race, but not everyone has tried.
how many races per year should SPR sponsor or organise?
phew, i was afraid that people would want more.
how many key races should SPR target to support members each years?
if they weren’t our races, you want a handful of key races to aim for.
would you be prepared to volunteer for race duties?
i suppose this is where it becomes a little disappointing where you see the same people helping out the club each week, but we actually have a large pool of people that are members.
did you attend the 2017 tour of margaret river?
even though we had 7 teams, there are lots of people that don’t attend this event. however, we would encourage riders to get involved. it is the best weekend away on the bike but still close to home.
based on your experience as a ToMR racer in 2017, please rate the following items:
so out of about 50 people that attended a good representative sample of 32 respondents. we can focus on getting our communication improved for 2018.
how likely are you to nominate to race ToMR with SPR in future years?
i suppose i had the worse race experience this year, but i am still signing up again next year.
should SPR continue to subsidise a pro register rider to ride with us in the ToMR?
this was the first year we did it and in my view it changed the experience substantially. i have done quite a few tomr’s but having the world tt champ staying with us was an awesome experience.
based on your experience as a ToMR volunteer in 2017, please rate the following items
only 9 respondents but it seemed that they were happy. as a racer, we were pretty happy with their efforts.
how likely are you to volunteer for ToMR with SPR in future years?
if you are not a racing person, this is great way to socialise with other members of the club. there is a bit of running around, but a lot of fun too.
if SPR were to run cycling events for “participation” and “fun”, what should they be?
i guess that the water tower challenge is back on the agenda. the last few years it has clashed with beverley and tomr, so we will look at running it early in the year.
have you ever ridden in cyclocross (cx)?
not that much interest from within the club. it is a bit of a niche part of the sport, but a very fun niche. if you have kids, it is worth getting them into it. a safe fun intro to riding with others.
would you attend cx skills courses if organised?
something that we could look at as a one off and see how it goes from there. it may change some people’s views of the above question.
are you a member of any other cycling organisations?
we are aware that you can’t always get everything you want from spr, however a bit surprised that almost half the respondents have dual affiliation. it can also be seen from the other perspective and spr is filling the void that the others are leaving.
do you currently have bike insurance (damage &/or theft)
this surprised me. crash your bike once and you will insure forever.
please rank how you would like to see SPR spend it’s surplus funds (after general running expenses and for SPR members)
our money is your money. training and skills topped the table but running events and subsidising kit were up there too. just a note that kit is one of our main sources of income, without it we would not have much money to subsidise anything.
what social activities would you like? (tick all that apply)
since social interaction was one of the biggest reasons people ride, i guess we need to understand just how much socialising you actually want to do. breaky seems to still be the winner.
when are you most likely to attend organised social events? (tick all that apply)
so breaky after the ride and dinners on weekends.
how often would you like to see organized social events occur?
but don’t be too demanding, i only want to see you once a quarter.
what amount of money do you think is reasonable for organised social events?
i guess this is for the dinners. not sure how many avocado’s we would need to smash for a $30 breakfast. i need to pay off my mortgage first.
if the club was to organise trips away, where would it be in order for you to give serious consideration to saying “I’m in!”?
a training camp down south sounds like a cool plan.
okay, i lied at the start. it wasn’t a short survey, but thank you for your feedback. we will tackle the comments soon.