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Preface

GPC is all about riding — thus, leading rides is one of the most important volunteer activities in the club. We award one ride leader credit (RLC) for each ride led on behalf of the club, and for certain other activities. Eight RLC's will earn a club jersey, club socks, or other valuable premium. In order to be fair and consistent, we adopted the following policy for awarding ride leader credits.

Remember to submit your sign-in data. If you have any questions, ask the Ride Leader Credit Officer at LeaderCredits at grizz dot org.

Policy

  1. One credit is given for rides that are posted in the online schedule. No credit is given for Impromptu rides (rides that are posted in any other manner, such as GPC-talk).
    Note. Rides may be submitted any time before the ride, but to receive credit they must appear on the website as an approved ride, which requires approval by the Ride Coordinator. No promises are made as to how long approval will take. The earlier you submit your ride, the more likely it will be approved — typically you should allow at least a few days. Rides will not be approved retroactively.
  2. Credit is given only when leaders actually ride in the ride. Simply handing out a route sheet or "making arrangements" is not sufficient.
  3. Leaders’ names must appear in the online schedule to receive credit. Exceptions are:
    1. Rides in the Novice and Century-Prep Series: Additional, unpublished, co-leaders may be added with the approval of the Ride Series Coordinator.
    2. A substitute leader (or co-leader) may receive credit if the originally listed leader (or co-leader) is unable to lead the ride.
    3. Special circumstances agreed upon by the Ride Coordinator in advance.
  4. A valid sign-up sheet entails at least one rider (member or not) and one leader. If there is more than one leader, there need to be at least three other riders per additional leader. Thus for a two-leader ride, four additional riders must sign up; for a three-leader ride, seven additional riders; and so on. If not enough show, the leaders must decide between them and specify on the sign-up sheet who gets the credit. This policy does not apply to rides where the riders might need extra attention such as series rides and other similar rides as determined by the ride coordinator. In those cases, the maximum number of leaders who can get credit shall normally be half the number of non-leader riders, but in unusual circumstances can be more with the approval of the ride coordinator. Also, if a published ride listing includes multiple pace groups or route variations, it is considered multiple rides for this purpose and the leader/rider requirements apply separately to the different groups, not to the ride in the aggregate.
  5. Ride leaders have 13 months to collect 8 credits with the expiration date being 13 months after the first ride. If the expiration date arrives with less than eight credits collected, only the first ride credit is lost, and 13 months after the next ride date becomes the expiration date.
  6. Multi-day tours receive a credit for each day of riding, but not rest days.
  7. Co-listed rides with another bicycle organization still require a separate GPC sign-up sheet for credit and insurance coverage. A copy of XYZ's sign-up sheet is not legally a substitute for GPC's.
  8. Credit is given for timekeeping at the ITT.
  9. Credit is given for hosting a GPC monthly meeting.
  10. One credit is given for volunteering at the annual Grizzly Peak Century. Two credits are given for serving as a Century Coordinator.
  11. If two rides appear separately in the listings, or if one listing covers multiple rides (for example: the SSR, or different pace groups for the same route), each leader should obtain and carry a separate signup sheet.
  12. Deleted.
  13. Clinics as Rides. Leaders may offer clinics on bicycle skills such as flat tire repair, basic user and field repair, traffic skills, descending skills, etc. Administratively, such clinics are treated as rides: They are listed in the ride calendar (send listings to the Ride Coordinator or use the Ride Listing Tool) and credit is awarded provided they meet other applicable criteria including publication (Policy #1) and number of signups (Policy #4). To receive credit, clinics must be on a subject that is specific to bicycling (not a subject that is shared with other sports or activities); must last at least one hour; and must provide a written handout.
  14. CPR Certification. One credit is given to any member who shows current CPR certification. You may earn up to one such credit per year, and one such credit per CPR certification. To receive this credit, send a copy of your CPR certificate to the Ride Leader Credit Officer. The date of the credit is the date the certificate was issued.

Related Items

Current list of earned ride leader credits.

RLC detail for a single member. (Requires login)

Although you cannot get RLC for unlisted rides (such as impromptu rides or scouting rides) you can get club Accident Medical Insurance coverage for them by following this procedure.

Policies 1 and 3 were clarified in October of 2023 to remove the distinction between rides published in the Wheel Truth and those published only online (called Web-only rides). This was necessary after the club stopped publishing a preliminary ride schedule in the Wheel Truth.

Policies 1-10 and 12-13 above were discussed and adopted by vote at the regular club meeting of 13 August 2008, with a preliminary discussion at the regular meeting of 9 July 2008. Most of the policies were already in place for a decade or more; they were printed in (nearly) every issue of the Wheel Truth. Some were added, or clarified, at those two meetings.

Policy 1 was revised at the regular club meeting of 12 September 2018 to award one full credit for Web-Only rides. It had previously been revised at the regular club meeting of 10 August 2016 to include one-half credit for Web-Only rides.

Policy 3 was revised at the regular club meeting of 12 October 2016 by adding clause 3d (the original 3d became 3e) to state that co-leaders can be added to the web listing of a published ride for full credit.

Policy 5 was revised at the regular club meeting of 10 January 2018. Previously the expiration date was set to one year from the end of the month in which the first ride occurred. Prior to the revisions of August 2008, the expiration date was simply one year from the first ride date.

Policy 6 was revised at the regular club meeting of 12 November 2008, again on 14 October 2009, and again (to its current form) on 11 November 2009.

Policy 11 was adopted at the regular club meeting of 8 July 2009, after being proposed in the June 2009 Wheel Truth (page 2).

Policy 14 was adopted at the regular club meeting of 14 April 2010, after being proposed at the February 2010 meeting and in the March 2010 Wheel Truth (page 4). It was clarified at the club meeting on 13 July 2011.

Policy 15 was adopted at the regular club meeting of 13 April 2011, after being proposed on the gpc-talk maillist on 21 March 2011. It is intended to encourage club members to learn CPR.

Policy 13 said "If an old ride sheet is submitted that falls in the period of a previous ride premium that has been awarded, that premium will not be recalculated using the ride sheet submitted. If the submitted sheet is more than one year old, the ride will be considered expired for ride leader premium credit." It was deleted at the club meeting of 14 February 2018.

Policies 4 and 14 were modified at the club meeting of 14 March 2018. Previously, policy 4 just required two non-leader riders per leader in all cases. This was changed to require only one non-leader rider for the first leader and three additional non-leader riders for each additional leader and some exceptions were added. Policy 14 said in part "They are listed in the ride calendar (send listings to the Ride Coordinator) and credit is awarded provided they meet other applicable criteria, such as at least two signups." This was changed to the current language to acknowledge the ride listing tool and for consistency with the revised policy 4.