FAQ

General

Anyone can join in, regardless of experience and type of equipment. We would like for new riders and seasoned riders to remember and learn about safety first, but that might be the only thing would keep a new rider from getting started immediately.

There is no previous knowledge required to join. Many people suffer from a mental health condition over the course of their lifetime. Life can be demanding and losses, even deep hurts and trauma, are part of our lives. We are not here to replace good pastoral counseling, professional counseling, medication or other good ways of getting help, but we are here to form a community of movement and social support and, by doing so, help create resources that would help others find pathways to ease their suffering. If you are open to learn about such things, you are most welcome.

95% of all donations go to the designated project, cause, or country that you decided to ride for. 5% stays with C-Mental Health, a 501c3 non-profit organization. Global Cycle Club is part of C-Mental Health. Everything we do right now runs on volunteer work. No monies go to salaries. We want this project to make an impact; therefore, we are determined to keep our overhead low and our impact large. If this ever needs to change, we will run it by our board and let everyone know ahead of time.

The type of bicycle you need depends on the type of riding you want to do. We find a good way to start riding is to invest in a used bicycle, unless you can afford to buy a new bicycle right away. Facebook marketplace, E-Bay, and your local online ads are often good places to start looking. If you want to invest in something good, go to your local bicycle shop and ask them. Most shop owners are honest people who want to help you find the right bicycle to get you started. Also, I often recommend borrowing a bicycle from a friend who has one sitting around that she is not using right now. Educating yourself on the type of bike for your budget and on what size you need may take some time.

Safety first. While I, Ingo, admit that I grew up riding in Germany without helmets my entire life, times have changed. Today, as a father of three and a husband, I see that wearing a helmet is the least I can do to protect myself and make safety-first not just a slogan. Thus, if you ride collecting miles for GCC, we ask you to wear a helmet and visible, protective clothing. Even during the day, we recommend bicycle lights be the norm as well. Safety first!

On December 31st, our riding goals get reset and you can choose new goals for the new year. When you register and join the movement, you can start pedaling towards your annual mile goals. For example: Let’s say you join sometime at the end of April of 2021 and you decide to ride 150 miles each month. Then, you are aiming for a total of 8x 150 miles until we reset our goals at the end of the year. Then, you see if you accomplished your total goal of 1200 miles for the year. At the end of the year, we set new riding goals for the new year.

Yes, you can log your rides in either miles or as kilometers. The site allows you to choose and switch back and forth as well.

Our strategic goal is to better equip the local and global Christian church with better mental health resources to better help their congregations and to be a source of good mental health resources for the needs of the people in their communities. We know we won’t succeed in achieving all this, but as Christians we believe the many Christian churches have a role to play in solving the global mental health crisis. Thus, we welcome anyone who thinks this is a good idea. One does not have to believe what we believe to join in.

As a self-determined rider, we don’t tell our riders where to ride. We do recommend that you consider safety and your own mental health at any given time, however. Sometimes riders look to push themselves on a hill and therefore they find the hills that may be around. At other times, riders may just want to smell the roses and relax on a Saturday morning after a long week at the office. Decide to ride where you like to ride, where you feel safest, and what you need on any given day. For many bicycle riders, each day can be different, depending on what the rider’s body and mind say. The most important thing: you are out riding your bicycle and you are contributing to a great cause. Be mindful, fully present, and enjoy your ride.

The sky is the limit. We first suggest looking around your garage (or wherever you keep bicycles) and see what type of bicycle you have available right now. You could fix up what you have and then go from there? As always, make sure your bicycle has good brakes and is in proper riding condition. Your local bicycle shop can help you perform a check and fix anything that must be fixed.

We realize there are many different types of riders and types of bicycles. Ingo, one of the founders, rode his 3-speed Holland city bicycle once from JFK airport to Pittsburgh. Not ideal for Pennsylvania terrain, but it worked fine. Recently, the Tophoven family hosted a South-Korean gentleman who came via https://www.warmshowers.org/ to Chesapeake. He just finished circling the globe on a $200 bicycle. If it has two wheels and if it is safe, you are good to go to get going. Later, you can always invest in a new or lightly used road bicycle, touring bicycle, or mountain bicycle, depending on what terrain you want to get into and how you want to experience and live your lifestyle.

Nothing happens. Riding goals vary. They are dynamic since they are supposed to support your mental health, not anyone’s outside expectations. Once you realize your initial riding goals were a bit too ambitious or set too low, you can adjust them at any time in your profile and recalibrate what distances work for you. As you progress in your movement goals from year to year, you can challenge yourself, but we aim to promote mental health in ourselves first. If your goals stress you out, change them, play around, and see what works best.


Adding Rides

You can log your miles or kilometers by using Strava or by adding each ride manually. If you have other apps that you think we should use, let us know. We want to learn what people are using.

All your rides are accumulatively added. We will keep adding your rides from the time you register until December 31st of the year that you registered. On December 31st, the rides get reset to zero and your annual accomplishment will be archived for all to see.

All rides that you record via Strava or by having added them manually will count towards your total goal.


Country-, Cause-, Project Teams

Global Cycle Club is the fundraising arm for www.cmentalhealth.com, an open source website that will go live at the end of 2021 to develop and/or translate and adapt existing resources in an open-source format to be made available to anyone or any organization who wants to use them.

At Global Cycle Club, we offer our riders to support a country, a cause, or project team:

  1. Country Team. Country teams support the building of culturally appropriate mental health structures in places where these do not yet exist or need to be improved upon. Your country of origin is not necessarily the country you ride for. A citizen of Ireland who registers with GCC remains registered as a citizen of Ireland, but can ride for any other country, for example, Uganda or El Salvador.
  2. Cause Team. A cause team raises awareness around a particular issue or cause in mental health. The focus is usually an agreed-upon mental health causes that needs attention. For example, the cause team may raise funds to be designated to reduce veteran suicide.
  3. Project Team. A project team directly rides in support of a local mental health project. For example, a project team may support the building of a local rehab or training offered to lay leaders in a rural setting where people have little access to mental health professionals.

Riders can also suggest causes and projects. These will be evaluated and if accepted, integrated into the available teams a rider can join. Go to “Suggest Team”

You can join a team anytime by simply picking a particular team that you want to join from your profile during registration or after registration.

Riding for a country, a cause, or a project is not lead by anyone. However, the actual open-source projects in www.cmentalhealth.com, our resource development site coming in spring of 2022, are led by chosen, qualified team leaders to assure project quality, progression, and flow.

You can suggest a better name that more appropriately expressed the cause or the project. Country teams go by the name of the country only at this point. Cause and project teams will have suggested names and approved names like Team Teen Global Suicide Prevention & Awareness (Cause) or Team Redeeming Eden: Building the Rehab (Project).

You can join a team during registration and after you register. Thus, register first and follow the prompts.

Over the course of your annual pilgrimage/riding, we encourage some consistency, of course, but no one will be asked to remain on any team, if they don’t want to or if the rider finds a team that better expresses what they want to support. If you don’t find a certain team, you can suggest one.


STRAVA
  1. Open a STRAVA account for your mobile phone.
  2. Go to "My Rides" page and connect your profile with your Strava account.

Tips for STRAVA success:

  1. Connect with Strava... and leave it connected! Strava will only sync rides from the most recent connection time onward, so disconnecting/reconnecting never solves any issues.
  2. Ensure your rides are being saved as 'Everyone' instead of 'Friends'. We cannot pull rides set to Friends only. Ensure that the profile's master privacy settings are also set to 'Everyone'.
  3. Ensure your rides are being saved as rides. At times, Strava can default to runs instead of rides.
  4. Wait 60 minutes - it can take up to an hour for rides to sync. Only rides saved after the time of most recent connection will sync.

We are currently using STRAVA as our main app but will add other apps down the road. If you do not use STRAVA, please record your ride manually. Then, let us know what you use and what you like. We want to learn. You can share your experiences on our Facebook group page, for example. Thank you!

  1. Check “My Rides” to make sure that your GCC profile is connected to STRAVA and that a profile and connection has been made before tracking your rides.
  2. Check your privacy settings in STRAVA that may prevent GCC from accessing your rides.
  3. STRAVA hosts and tracks other avenues of movement (riding, running, walking, etc.) Make sure that your profile is tracking “bike riding”, which will allow the data to sync properly to GCC.
  1. Go to the profile drop down menu and click on “my rides” tab.
  2. If you have already connected to STRAVA before the “disconnect STRAVA” button will appear. Simply click and disconnect.

This tab may also say “connect STRAVA” if not already done so.


T-Shirts and Merchandise

Coming Soon

Coming Soon

Once you have raised the required $1,000 to receive a jersey, an email will be sent to you with a link to the jersey ordering system.

Here, you will find a sizing chart and specific measurements for each jersey size (also see below) - so you can compare your own measurements and select the right size for you. The jerseys do run small, so please measure yourself carefully and, if in doubt, order a size too large, as exchanges will delay how soon you can sport your new jersey.

The most important measurement is the 'half-chest' measurement, which is from your left armpit to your right armpit, across the broadest section of your bust.


Donations & Receipts

Thanking your donors should be a priority to recognize the amazing people who have chosen to give to you and your cause or project. Here are a few ways to thank your donors.

  1. You can log into your profile and go to “My Donations” in your profile drop down menu. There you can reply to those who have donated to your cause.
  2. A second option you can access through “My Profile” in the profile drop down menu. There you can click on the “email a friend” tab and pick a template to privately write to your donors.

Global Cycle Club is the fundraising arm for C-Mental Health which is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. All donations are tax deductible to the full extent permissible by law.

Receipts are sent out as soon as the funds are deposited. We cannot receipt a donation until funds are received.