Cyclist Touring Club - CTC

The CTC is a national cycling charity that inspires and helps people to cycle and keep cycling. I joined a few weeks ago, mainly for the £10m third party insurance and cycle-related legal helpline. But there are other benefits one of which I only recently discovered.

In addition to the reason I have written about the CTC website gives nine other reasons why you should join the CTC:

1. Help encourage thousands more people to cycle and keep cycling
2. Give cycling a louder voice – we campaign to promote cycling
3. Be part of a 70,000 strong network that looks after cyclists
4. Enjoy the support and inspiration of your local cycling community
5. Access our expertise to help make your neighbourhood cycle-friendly
6. Choose from thousands of free, diverse local rides
7. Discover new routes – we have a vast library of them
8. Take advantage of cycling advice by phone, email or on the forum. There aren’t many questions about cycling that we can’t answer
9. Enjoy our award-winning magazine ‘Cycle’ six times a year

Their website (please click on the link below is excellent and provides lots of help and advice. One of the features I really like is the 'Near me' tab where you can find a CTC group near to where you live. In this way you can choose lots of rides to get involved in.

The benefit that I was referring to was that in a similar way to the London Cycling Campaigns 10% discount at Evans Cycle Stores on many items, the CTC has a similar arrangement with Wiggle, one of the biggest online cycling stores. I was surprised to see that CTC members can get up to 12% off many purchases. The website has a shop section where you can link straight to it. Pretty good deal if you ask me.

If you riding on a fairly regular basis it makes sense to have the protection of one of the oldest / respected cycling organisations behind you.

http://www.ctc.org.uk