With this short story I would like to kick off a series of stories of "ride leader" and "member" of the month -- please submit your story. What I be leave should be for everyone the main #1 reason to join SBRA: Simply, be part of it and find your ways to contribute to it!

For those who do not know me, a bit about how and from where I came here -- well, 1st I got an job offer I accepted for several reasons, but for sure not for the "recreational environment" I expected to find here. As I moved here to LI, I knew more or less nobody and all I had was a tiny temporary "efficiency unit" on site of BNL to get started from scratch once again and my new job + I brought my MTB, that was in early May 2005 and my memories of my old biking buddies in Switzerland of an awesome "Good-By" biking weekend with most of them in Ticino, CH.

As you can see, this is some contrast to Long Island. BTW, this group of great buddies of an wide age range (18..40!!) from all over Switzerland was actually formed initially and virtually via an open and free Mountain Bike Forum forum, namely https://www.mtb-news.de, this is one more great long story... -- and it worked simple, we picked a weekend/day/time and a location/destination any where in CH, usually these were train stations from where we were just heading up into the mountains by bike... and if new terrain, you better take a good topographic map, no "park", loop, etc. but starting from the train station on roads, up higher in minor roads/gravel/dirt roads eventually finally ending up in high alpine terrain and trails/hiking trails, etc... the whole country is covered by an huge network of paths. So now, here on LI trying to find some one to hook up with was in the very beginning not so easy at all. I figured out a few people at the lab who do some biking, went with S.K. to Rocky Point the first time, found all the trails winding around trees a bit confusing until I figured it is only one with some options. Well, OK probably that's what I could expect from an sandy Island about MTB. By this time I never really did any active road biking you need to know and did not had one either. Pretty soon I came into touch with Trevor, as he had his office basically on the same hallway... I got a road bike, this now 30'000+km and soon 4 yr old rig... and he told me about the club, SBRA, the EBs and other B, B+/A rides I started with that time -- I joined many rides led by Bob Fountain that time, this was an remarkable ride leader in many ways -- some of you may know him.

These are photos back to 2005 I took on Long Island. Some pretty and scenic places to explore and hidden roads some native Long Islanders may have never seen before. Looks new to you, well, the come and join the rides with us -- share the roads.

From Vermont

It was always good and very motivating to join club rides, even through all winter. I loved to get out to the Early Birds rides, even the first year I got dropped off several times, but hey, that just was a motivation to do that extra miles and commute to work by bike. And I have to say, these fast pace lined rides with experienced racers are the rides I feel most safe. And that early time Trevor also suggested to join the club after a couple of rides for all the reasons we know, especially the "official" one with the SignIn Sheet thingy. So there was no question for me to join at all and later, sure, the discount program was welcome as well. But not only joining rides all over LI is what the club brought to me, more important, making new friends and with them new adventures, like a week in Vermont in 2008, as here on left riding the Appalachian Gap, VT. Currently I am holding the function of the SBRA Webmaster on the SBRA board. I do less maintain all then "contents" (the all writings them selfs you read), but take care of and maintain the engine behind, the structure of all the "data" we and you generate, the layout and how you see it all. Basically everything behind the scenes from managing the webhosting as user, the database and all the code (using the big beast "Drupal" -- see reference at the bottom of the page). Drupal is a Contents Management System (CMS), and mostly members of the board have different roles and responsibilities to "manage" the contents of the more static appearing stuff. But today nothing is pure static, that would be an old style boring web site. So all we do, from submitting rides (as a SBRA club member you can do this your self, and even manage/update it!) to chatting on our forums, create content and add comments. Including our embedded photo gallery. Py is also a member of the [url=https://greenarmbandits.com]Green Arm Bandits[/url] cycling team, a sub team of East End.

-Percy -- SBRA Webmaster ...... Follow my Blog and all about my rides.