What We Do
Bring people together to enjoy cycling as an integral part of an active, healthy lifestyle.All That We Are (and Are Not)
Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Simi Valley, we welcome bicycle riders of all fitness and experience levels – from the ‘newbie’ to ‘seasoned veteran.’ Our members are road cyclists, mountain bikers, and triathletes. We do it all – road racing, time trials, criteriums, centuries, all mountain, XC, downhill, adventure racing. We promote cycling for recreation, fitness, and transportation and encourage our members to lead active, healthy lifestyles. We enjoy all aspects of cycling!If you’re looking for a pure racing team, then our group probably isn’t a good fit for you. Our training rides are tough, but there are a lot of jokes and laughter sprinkled over the pain and suffering. We don’t sponsor racers by giving them a free bike, team clothing, and sponsors products just because they have a 3, 2, or 1 on their USA Cycling racing license. We do have a new racing team to promote local athletes that want a friendly group atmosphere to compete for fun at a local level.
Our Sunday rides have a strict ‘no drop’ policy (this means that we actually wait for everyone at the top of each major hill). For cyclists who want to improve their fitness and bicycling skills, we have climbing camps, event-prep rides, and ‘away’ rides where we do particularly hard rides that aren’t in our backyard (i.e. Santa Monica Mountains, Angeles Crest, etc.).
How We Got Started
The group started in the summer of 2004. Gary ‘Cutter’ Custer and Art Vanoppen were doing a local century, but did not know each other until they started passing each other on climbs throughout the ride route. They started talking and Art mentioned that he was looking for a bike club to join. Gary said he knew a guy (Aaron Hanson) that was thinking of starting a club, and that they had a sponsor (Colavita). Not long after this, the group rides started (Aaron, Cutter, Streaker, Art and others) every Sunday at 7:30 a.m. at the corner of Yosemite Ave. and LA Ave. in Simi Valley. This weekly ride has been the staple of the group and is always attended by someone every Sunday of the year. The rest is history.
