Setup: Charity rides bring people who have never clipped into a bike, invited by regulars — plan for it. Arrive 20 minutes early, fit every new face personally: saddle at hip height standing beside the bike, bars where the back feels long not hunched, straps snug over the widest part of the foot. Announce the format from the front: one shared distance target for the room — pick something singable like 500km for 20 bikes — every kilometre from every rider counts equally, and nobody's speed is anybody's business. Bucket location announced once, warmly, without a lecture.

How it works: Six minutes of easy rolling to a mid-tempo track. Teach the three things a first-timer needs and a regular can always rehearse: resistance never at zero (a touch of road under you at all times), hands resting light on the bars, and the difference between adding a little and adding a lot. Two gentle 20-second rhythm lifts near the end so legs know what quicker feels like before it matters.

Setup: Whiteboard shows the target and a big zero. Frame leg one from the saddle: this is the flat road out of town, ridden together at a rhythm everyone owns — the job is contribution, not heroics.

How it works: Twelve minutes of steady seated riding at a conversational push, resistance at a flat-road feel. Every three minutes, call a 'group pull': 45 seconds where the whole room lifts the legs slightly quicker together, then settles — the pull is what makes a room of strangers feel like a pack. Update the kilometre tally at each pull and announce it like commentary. First-timers get one instruction only, repeated kindly: stay comfortable, sip often, and let the room's rhythm carry you.

Setup: Music shifts heavier and slower. Sell the story: three hills between the room and the coast road home, and hills are where sponsored kilometres are properly earned. Remind the room of the two climbing options before the first slope: seated and strong, or standing for short spells — both are climbing.

How it works: Three climbs of three minutes with a minute of easy rolling between. Each climb: add resistance in two or three deliberate turns across the first minute, settle into a grind for the second, and for the third minute invite — never demand — 30 seconds out of the saddle. Between climbs, read out a milestone or a sponsor name if the ride has them; a room that hears why it's riding climbs the next hill better. Keep first-timers seated and proud: standing is a flourish, not a requirement.

Setup: Tally on the board should be tantalisingly close to the target — you have been quietly pacing the maths all class, and if the room is behind, this leg is built to close the gap. Lights up, anthem queued.

How it works: Flat road home with a kick: four 30-second surges at quick legs with 90 seconds of steady riding between, each surge dedicated out loud — to the cause, to somebody's sponsor, to the first-timers, to the room. Then the finale: two minutes at the strongest pace each rider can hold with a smile, anthem up, you counting the tally down its final kilometres like a radio commentator. When the target falls, the room hears it immediately and loudly — that moment is what they came for, and what they will post about.

Setup: Resistance right down, one slow warm track, lights soft. The tally board shows the final number with the target crossed out above it.

How it works: Three minutes of easy spinning while you read the ride back to them: the distance, the cause, the amount in the bucket if it can be counted quickly, and one moment worth naming — a first-timer who climbed everything, a pull the whole room held. Off the bikes carefully for a standing stretch: quads, hamstrings over the extended leg, a chest opener. Finish with the photo around the tally board — bikes in shot, bucket held high — because the photo is next year's poster.