Memphis Hightailers: Bicycle Club of the Year

Happy #BicycleFriendlyFriday!

Memphis Hightailers Bicycle Club was awarded the Bicycle Club of the Year Award. We talked with club president Tulio Bertorini, and he shared a few tips.

1. Build and diversify your ride calendar: “We have 35 weekly rides on our calendar. Most of these are recreational rides, and we have added lots of social rides where the destination is a restaurant and riders of all levels will be comfortable joining.”
   
2. Give your ride leaders support and training: “We started our education program in 2014, offering Traffic Skills 101 to all our ride leaders. We knew that we needed League Certified Instructors (LCIs) to train our members in riding skills, and we brought in some great LCIs to teach our members.”
   
3. Get your members trained as LCIs: “We quickly realized that if we wanted to build our education program, we had to get our leaders LCI-certified. Now we can teach the basic classes and can build on that as our needs grow.”
   
4. Encourage Bicycle Friendly Businesses: “We work with local businesses to encourage them to be more bike-friendly. We’ll even sit down with them to help them fill out the League’s Bicycle Friendly Business application. We also give a challenge to all bike shops to become more bike-friendly.”
   
5. Connect with other clubs and learn from them: “This is the most important reason we came to the Summit. We want to find out what other groups around the country are doing. We’re eager to connect with other clubs and share what we’ve learned in Memphis.”