The Northampton area is recognized as one of the best places to ride in the region.
Aldo Tiboni and Elaine Formica
Ride Noho, Inc., a bicycle tour company based in Northampton, will again be offering its popular instructional camps this summer for beginner and intermediate recreational road cyclists. The three-day camps help cyclists learn more about the sport, improve their bike handling skills and gain confidence in their abilities.
Ride Noho is offering two, three-day camps, June 1, 2 and 3 and June 14, 15 and 16, called “My First Road Bike” camp. “Intermediate Skills” camp is scheduled for June 7, 8 and 9. The first two days of each of the camps runs from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with breakfast and lunch included. The third day includes breakfast and lunch, and wraps up at 2 p.m. Lodging is also included.
“Our camps are for recreational riders, not for racers,” said Elaine Formica, who co-owns Ride Noho with Aldo Tiboni. “Our ‘My First Road Bike’ camp is for beginners or people who have ridden before but haven’t ridden in a long time, and are getting back on a bike.”
Intermediate skills camp is designed for those who have been riding but want to tweak their skills or learn what they never learned when they started out. Both camps are for those riding road bikes, rather than mountain bikes or hybrids.
“We started doing these maybe ten years ago because we would have people come in and ask us questions,” Formica said. “We would give them little pointers here and there, and they would tell us it’s really great to have instruction offered. There was really a need.”
Tiboni said more people are picking up road cycling these days.
“Somebody later in life will buy a road bike because they want to get fit or have fun, or they’re a runner whose knees are (not in great shape) and they need to make a transition into something else,” Tiboni said. “They’re tossed to the wolves; they have no coaching and no instruction. They roll out of the bike shop and take to the roads with all kinds of bad habits.”
Tiboni and Formica, both USA Cycling certified coaches, address various topics in their “My First Road Bike” camp.
“We teach them climbing strategies,” Formica said. “You always want to learn how to climb on a bike. We teach how to descend, how to ride over rough roads, efficient peddling, proper gear selection – all the individual sort of skills that a rider would need.”
The second day of the camp is all about group riding skills. Recreational riders who join cycling clubs or participate in fundraising bike rides need to learn how to effectively ride in a tight group.
“We go into a school parking lot in Hadley, and we’ll take the group on a walking exercise; we actually simulate a group ride by walking,” Tiboni said.
From there, participants have the opportunity to ride closely behind one of the instructors to test out what they’ve learned.
“Hopefully it brings safe practices to group riding,” Formica said.
The “Intermediate Skills” camp covers many of the same topics, albeit at a faster pace.
“Most of the people talking ‘Intermediate Skills’ haven’t had any real instruction,” Tiboli said. “They don’t understand the physics or the geometry behind the bike and why you should trust it, or that the bike is designed to be more guided than muscled around. That’s what we try to teach.”
In addition to the skills camps, Ride Noho offers other programs, including a climbing adventure, where cyclists focus on climbing hills; “wine and wheels,” a combination bike ride and wine tasting event, and an “autumn adventure,” which includes scenic views of the New England foliage.
“Our cycling events attract people from out of the area more than locals,” Formica said. “Outside Magazine named Northampton the best place to ride (on the east coast). The riding here is just spectacular.”
Ride Noho also offers hiking trips to Switzerland in July.
For more information on Ride Noho’s camps and programs, visit www.ridenoho.com.