The Internet has changed the way a lot of us work, and spend our free time, and it even changes the way we have to think.
Recently, I became a “virtual” member of a cycling club.
I had no idea how to cycle “virtually,” unless it was spinning in front of a Tour de France video. But it turns out that the president of a cycling club saw one of my posts that mentioned Bike Journal, the online ride logging site. He e-mailed me, and invited me to join the club. Now, this club is actually in my area. It’s centered about 10 miles from where I live.
But I’m not really keen on driving to a bike ride, and that’s not something I’d care to do on a weekly basis. Besides, I’m already in a club — the Circle C Ranch Cycling Club (CCRCC) — right in my neighborhood, so when we have club rides, they start about a mile from my house. It’s an easy pedal over there. So I told him that while I appreciated the invite, I didn’t think I’d take him up on it.
That’s when he came up with the notion of the “virtual” membership. Bike Journal has a section for clubs to log their members’ combined miles, and if I joined his club, my miles could be added to the club’s total. That’s an additional 2,500 miles for them. All I had to do was log onto Bike Journal and add my name to his club. I mulled it over. There wouldn’t be a conflict of interest with CCRCC, since they don’t participate in Bike Journal’s club totals. Soooo…
Ta da! I’m now a virtual member of Lake Travis Cycling. They’re pushing for over 60,000 miles on Bike Journal this year. They’re almost there.
The beauty of it is, I still might be able to do some real — not virtual — rides with them. Some of their routes come east, near my part of town, and the club president said he’d let me know when they’ll be in the area. Heck, despite my earlier comment, I might even put my bike on the car and drive out there for a ride or two in the coming year.
Anybody else out there a “virtual” member of a cycling club? How about more than one “real” club? Why?

After several of my colleagues started singing the praises of Twitter, the micro-blogging tool, I felt compelled to try it out. I think my first reaction was similar to that of most people: who cares if you’re brushing your teeth before heading out to work? It seemed that a lot of early “tweets” I read just updated the mundane.