Beastway - Team event

To get riders together for the overall series prize presentation, a team event was run last Wednesday evening around the Hog hill cycling centre. It's all a bit of fun really, with some riders even lining up at the start in fancy dress.

I joined vet riders Russ Jones & Cliff Steele from Brixton Cycles together with category winner Antonius Wubben for what looked like a winning team.

On the night we were only fast enough for second place but that was good enough to win a Hog Hill drinking bottle each,(did I say it was just for fun!).

At the end of the evening the trophys were given out for the overall category winners. My Category was easily won by Antonius with 209 pts.

Second was John Cordery Basildon Timber with 197 pts and third was Graham Pentney Mad Cow Racing with 196pts.I came fourth with 191pts loosing valuable pts after suffering mechanicals the last 2 weeks.

I have really enjoyed racing this years Beastway series and it has got me race fit for the Trans Wales in a couple of weeks time.

Hurstpierpoint

The A's had what must be the largest group of the year when 15 members met at Cobham car park for a ride down to Ditchling on the South Downs.

One of those missing was Simon Jordan who Nick & myself met in Esher where Simon spends his days selling houses to many a Chelsea footballer and drinking skinny latte's. Perhaps a bit gutted that he wasn't out on his bike for it was looking like is was going to be lovely sunny day.

Trevor had mapped out the route and a few of us had downloaded it onto our Garmins while we stood around in the car park. On the way down the pace gradually increased to a point where a break went off the front as the group summited Turners Hill. Unfortunately in their hast the riders missed a turning in Ardingly and no one fancied chasing after them. Luckily one of the break, Andy Hicks, had the route progammed in his Garmin and so they were able to navigate their way back to Ditchling Beacon where we all met up again.

Here are a few of the group as they reached the top of Ditchling Beacon.

Trevor

Matt

Nick

Niall

Richard

Mark

Sabin

Simon Howard turned upon his brand new Time racing bike, which he had only picked up a few days ago. It's a lovely bike, all clean and new. You must all have experienced that feeling when you get a new bicycle and take it out on it's maiden ride. Unfortunately it didn't stay clean for long because as we we all riding along a single track lane under the South Downs Simon took a tumble as he hit a patch of gravel and ended up in a cloud of dust. We all immediately stopped to see if the new bike was OK before asking Simon if he was hurt.

Both were just a bit dusty.

Today's eventual stop was at Washbrook farm in Hurstpierpoint, which I thought handled 15 hungry cyclist very well, after all we had all ridden about 60 miles by this time, and were in need of a little sustenance.

I had 110 miles on the clock by the time I reached home, and still early enough for the Wandsworth crew to watch the last few TdF riders competing the penultimate stage time trial from Bordeaux, while tucking into more Tea & cake.

Etape du Tour 2010

Will and I were invited to join a team of first time Etapers, all practising medics. Led by Stan (Ortho surgeon) with Peter (Cardio surgeon), Nick and Thomas (both GP's) we were in good hands. Training has been rigorous, and so we joined the starting pen for riders in the 9000 to 10000 group with much misplaced confidence, and pre race nerves. It took half an hour to roll across the line, but the collective momentum of so many riders meant that the first 50ks flew by. William in chatty mood, was theorising that the peleton is in many ways a microcosm of the marxist ideal society where each rider suffers individual torment on the front, for the collective good, and several nearby cyclists willingly hurled themselves into the ditch to avoid listening to such tosh. However we were soon approaching the first climb of the day, Marie Blanque. Not so grim as I'd been led to expect we were spinning up in true South Western style when grid-lock struck two k's from the top, and annoyingly several thousand cyclists had to walk their bikes over the col. After the first feed station the road began a fantastic winding descent, and a high speed chase developed over the next 30k's to the start of the Souloir climb. Second ascent of the day, this was much harder, hotter and a relentless grind to the top. Thankfully the Souloir levels out a bit in the final couple of k's and we were all cheered over the summit by a large crowd. Another screaming descent and soon we saw the first signs for Le Tourmalet. This is where the day started to unravel, the heat, cramps and lack of calories had me slowed to a crawl with 4k's to go, and at the 2k mark I was off the bike, hardly able to walk, let alone ride. I did manage to re-mount for the last 100 yards and the finish line. In the end a disappointing time, but much learnt for next year, and the best day's riding you could ask for.

Niall Clutton

Beastway week 10 - The final

Checking the overall standings on the Beastway website I had found that after 9 weeks I was in forth place in the Vets category, Leading was Antonius Wubben, followed by John Cordery of Basildon Timber, with Graham Pentney of Mad Cow racing just ahead of me. He had a one point lead over me so I had to beat him by one place in this final round to have a chance of making it onto the podium for the Beastway series. Johns 2nd position was safe and so he had decided not to ride this week as his club was helping to set up the course and marshal.
I had given my bike a good service over the weekend, taking the forks apart and replacing the oil in them, and replacing last weeks broken gear cable.
Arriving on time for a two lap warm up and I felt ready. Judith had taken the tube out to watch and so I had to put in a good performance.


Not a great start placing 6th at the first single track it took me the first half lap to get past the 2 riders in front of me and up to Antonius, Graham and another rider Iain Kirkpatrick who was in 5th place in the standings, but who had placed 2nd in last weeks race. Graham was pushing the pace and I was having to chase each time we caught slower riders, and had to wait till a suitable passing place presented itself.


Antonius

Graham

Parky

By the third lap Antonius had made his move and pulled clear. This left me with Graham & Iain for the next couple of laps. With 15 minutes to go, we were catching a group of riders and I seized the opportunity to pass the lot of them as they all slowed on a short climb.

Graham, Iain, Parky





The move was perfect and I overtook Graham & Iain at the same time. From here on I gave it 100% and the next time I looked behind I had a 10 second gap which was just what I needed and which I thought I could hold to the finish. Half a lap later and I could hear the bell being rung for the last lap. I knew I could get 2nd, but then disaster…… As I climbed up behind the club house, my left hand crank came off and I was left with the pedal and crank arm hanging under my shoe. I stopped realising that I couldn’t do anything to sort this out. Graham & Iain rode past and that was my race over. I was gutted. So close and then beaten by a mechanical.

A long,hot day in the saddle

Apologies for this post being so late that you are reading about the Alphas ride that took place on 10 july after having already read the story of the ride to Wiston yesterday.

On the 10th it was extremely hot even at 8am and after Trevor had gone to the trouble to prepare a route,bring maps and load it onto his Garmin,there was a change of plan at Cobham where Mr Packman insisted that we go to the cafe at Cocking so that we could sit outside.

So off we went .It soon became obvious as we meandered south west that it was going to be a long ride. Realising how late we were going to be, first Mark Williams turned back

near Midhurst and then Richard followed a few miles later. The remainder ,joined by Barry for the first time for a while, had a really enjoyable ride finally arriving at the cafe with me having ridden 75.5 miles from my house.But the quality of the stop was well worth the trip.

We came back over Bexley Hill by Midhurst ( the easy way) where Trevor had inevitably led the way to the top and the first photo shows Barry ,Mat and John waiting for the rider who had eaten 5 or 6 pieces of cake only about 15 minutes earlier.

The middle photo shows Mark (" I dont need a garmin" ) Packman showing Sabin ( "I don"t need one either" ) Gazuetela ( pardon the spelling ) just making sure the extremely pretty lane we were on at the time on top of the south downs was the right one. A wise move since most of us had by now done the thick end of 70 miles and were a little peckish ( or just plain stuffed).

Talking of being stuffed,it is not clear below whether Mark is ; a) just concentrating on this his 4th piece of coffee and walnut cake that was baked for us while we had our first course ( how good is that for service ?) or b) choking at the quality of Trev's Jackie Pallo impersonation.

I finally arrived home at 5.45 pm after 129 miles .Having raced the previous night at Dunsfold aerodrome ( to make sure I definitely had enough points for Cat 3 which I just about managed ) I was delighted to be going out that evening to a 40 th birthday party with dancing on the agenda.Oh joy.

Another excellent club run.

ps Trev's route taking us over Horse Block Hollow on the way back was not followed.

Nick A

Winchester Geese

Anyone who rides into the City from the South at all will know that Borough High St has been closed in a southerly direction -until last week-for months.This has required various diversions. A few days I rode home along the Embankment on the north side so that I could ride along the river for a change .It is longer but far more pleasant than Elephant and Castle. After a while I found Red Cross Lane which runs parallel to Borough High St. It is short but has a quite a few points of interest.After riding past this sign and the ribbons and flowers surrounding it for a week or so I finally managed to refrain from rushing home and do the obvious thing and investigate.So I found the shrine to the "Winchester Geese" being the name given to the prostitutes who plied their trade in this area many years ago as explained above.

The shrine itself is stunning and well worth a stop.

Below , a typical view now at traffic lights around town. Look carefully and see if you can spot the rider who likes to play American Football in his spare time. Interesting that so many riders are prepared to use a rucksack and have a hot sweaty back for most of the year instead of using a pannier on a rack.

Nick A

Wiston

Eight A group members met at Cobham this morning, all resplendent in club kit, for the ride to Wiston tearoom. Joining us for the first time was Richard French, who I must say handled the pace well, and even attacked the group as we climbed over Pitch Hill, on the way over the North Downs.
Half way there I stopped to apply some sun cream but it never really got up to the highs experienced last weekend went the Alphas did a long 130mile ride to the Cocking tearoom, via a few South Downs climbs.
It was exactly 50 miles from my home when we arrived at Wiston, slightly earlier than usual now that we have started meeting at the car park at 9am, as opposed to the 9:30am that the other groups meet. Even so there were plenty of people sitting out in the garden partaking in the delicious food& drink on offer at the lovely establishment. Not long after arriving Mark Packman turned up, after just missing us in Cobham and having to ride down by himself. Perhaps a few too many drinks were consumed the previous night by Mark, making it that extra hard to get out of bed in the morning. Who can blame him; it was his birthday after all.



Sabin's new Carbon saddle. Yes that's correct, solid Carbon, no padding. And not cheap either.

Beastway week 9

A few heavy downpours earlier in the day didn't put me of going to the penultimate round of the series at Hog Hill. I did my usual warm up and thought my bike wasn't running 100%, but then again it could be that I was still a little tired from last weekend exploits when I had ridden a 600km Audax.
I linned up of the far side of the Vets bunch and although my start wasn't great I managed to ride past a few riders before the first section of single track and was up with the leaders as we decended into the woods. With the dry summer this bit of the course is a real dust bowl with bike wheels cutting a line between the trees that everybody follows.

The front runners in the Vets category, John (40), Antonius (30) & Graham (10)

After the first lap I was struggling to stay with the lead group and when I lost it on a gravelly corner and had to pull my foot out, they road clear and I lost 20 seconds that I couldn't close. I road on hoping to ride into the race but at half distance my rear gear cable broke and I was left spinning a small gear and not big enough to compete. I decided to give up and promise myself I would sort my bike out for the last race in the series.

Beastway week 8

My preparation was as last week, with a couple of familiarisation warm up laps and half a bottle of energy drink before the start. A slightly different format this week with the Vets being last to start of the groups but we were given more of a gap to the earlier group that meant we weren’t catching them until later in the race.
Start went OK, 5th to the first corner and within half a lap the five of us had already split from the other Vet riders.
On the second lap as we began to pass other riders and I moved up to 4th and we lost the 5th rider in our group.
On the third lap we were all together, but on the fourth lap Antonius made his move while I was trying to overtake some riders. By the time I had got past he had a gap and I was pretty much on the limit and couldn’t follow. I didn’t want to kill myself and end up blowing up as I had done a few weeks ago. I rode the rest of the race with John Cordery(40), (Basildon Timber) were on the final lap we had a bit of a battle to see who had the better sprint.
So I finished 2nd Vet and 12th overall, about 45 seconds down on the Dutchman Antonius Wubben (30).

Les Warner MBE, 18 June 2010

A whole generation of cyclists will remember Les Warner, who died in Godalming on Friday 18th June, aged 82, after a long illness. He leaves a devoted wife Sheila, their children Tim, Sally and Wendy, and eight grandchildren.

Les joined the CTC staff in 1953 and was National Secretary (the title of our CEO in those days) from 1959 for 21 years. Throughout that time he handled major negotiations with government and other authorities, represented CTC at countless meetings, conferences and events relating to the promotion of cycling for travel and transport, road safety, countryside access etc., all the while maintaining a vigorous defence of the interests of cyclists in letters to the press and interviews on radio and television. He crossed many swords, but only in defence and always with courtesy and doing so made no enemies.



Les began cycling whilst a wartime evacuee exploring the Surrey countryside. Returning to London he joined the South Western Road Club, but touring was his first love. Fittingly it was on a CTC tour that Les met Sheila Messenger, who also came to work for CTC. They married in 1960 and continued to lead tours at home and abroad. When children came along and even later with grandchildren, the Warners were an exemplar of family cycling. They never owned a car.

Les Warner’s attendance at cycling events and speaking engagements, often illustrated by his own photography, went far beyond the extra duties expected of one in his position. He took the reins of CTC with cycling and membership both in decline. The London office had to be sold and the office moved to smaller premises in Godalming, where Les organised the revival. From 1971 a low CTC membership more than doubled to 40 thousand by 1980, when Les Warner’s growing workload precipitated an early retirement. He was just too conscientious. Earlier that year Les received the MBE with characteristic modesty: as an honour for CTC rather than himself. His personal contribution was also recognised by award of the Bidlake medal and a new role as CTC President.

Rested and restored, Les went on to work for WWF and then apply his administrative talents in several voluntary positions associated with his other interests, particularly music, French and literature. For most of the last 30 years Les continued to enjoy cycling, but purely for pleasure and transport. That we can also do so is in no small way due to his work.

This is from the CTC website

Marmotte 2010

At 0600 on Thursday July 1st, Kris, Jakob and I bundled into the car – destination Alp D’Huez. I’m used to driving down to the alps for skiing but knew that our 11 week old son was going to make the journey longer with more frequent and longer stops required. A relatively easy 13 hours later, and some terrible rush hour traffic, we arrived at the base of La Marmotte's final climb - Alp D'Huez. I'd seen images of this before, but had never visited this area before. As we ascended I felt a feeling of dread as I realised just how tough La Marmotte was going to be.


I collected my bib number on the Friday morning and then went a found some shade so that Jakob and I could replenish our fluids....

In the afternoon, a gentle ride I thought - I'll just nip down 8 of the 21 bends on Alp D'Huez I said - nice and gentle, check the bike over etc. Reaching turn 4 on the way back up I felt that same feeling of dread, if it gets this hot tomorrow I'm going to be in big trouble I thought.


All too soon for me the morning arrived, an early breakfast in the hotel followed by a chilly descent to the start. I was in my starting pen for riders 4000 - 7000 by 0720 and was surprised to find that actually I wasn't cold at all. Soon we were off, I listened to all the advice I could and sat and a good pace of 25mph in the pack as we made our way to Col du Glandon. A long grind of a climb on which I found myself heating up very quickly and my pulse was getting a bit over excited too.... 165 bpm was on the high side but I figured I would be ok...

The drink station at the summit was chaos but I managed to grab some water - stick in a nuun tablet and I was off down the descent. We had been told to take it easy on the descent and I could see why. Even though warnings had been given I still saw some accidents and other hairy moments. I figured I had to drive home in a few days and chose a more gentle descent.

Telegraph was next on the list after which I was beginning to feel the effect of my 173 bpm hr - but figured I just had to make it over Galibier and I would be fine. Getting over Galibier was harder than expected (I carry approx 30% more weight than my fella A group riders!) and I had to stop at one point to put my head between my knees to 'gather' myself. It did seem a bit strange to be riding past big clumps of snow. I was soon back on my way and into the chilly descent. I did everything I could to recover fluid, food keeping the legs ticking over...

At this point I took a sneaky look at my time and figured the final climb would take an hour or so which meant I had to cover 20 miles and stop for some more fluid in an hour to make the gold standard for my age group.

Luckily the miles ticked by, and I was soon into the final climb of the day, but I was hurting. People were stopping in any tiny bit of shade they could find. Water stations were hosing riders down and the natural water falls at the side of the road were being used as showers...slowly I plodded on. The kms ticked down way too slowly and I had stopped caring about time, concentrating only on finishing the event. I finished just inside the gold standard time but more than a little 'second hand'.
I needed to find shade, but my wife thought it would be funny to take pictures!!




Official Results:
Richard Gordon - 8h 14m
Gordon Beveridge - 8h 54m
Ann Marshall - 11h 38m

Man vs Horse

South Western member Will Clutton upheld the club's honour by successfully beating Ms Amanda Reynolds on "Elijah" over a 3.5 mile cross country course. Respective times were bike 15 minutes, horse 16 minutes (approx) thus proving once and for all that bikes are far superior to horses, (and cheaper to run too)

Beastway week 7

This week I was back in the car, driving to Hog hill for week 7 of the Beastway mountain bike series. I arrived in plenty of time and after signing on I rode around the course 3 times before I heard the hooter that signals that the race is about to commence. Matt Berry had ridden over to watch and so I planned as always to make that ellusive fast start. This time there was a slight confusion as the commissere did not have a whistle to blow and some of the riders miss heard his signal and didn't make a good start, where as I was able to place 5th as we headed into the first section of single track. Within no time four of us had pulled clear and I was happy to ride in the wheels bideing my time. As we started the third lap I thought the others were flagging a bit so I made a move to get clear as Matt must have been wondering what I was mucking about at. I managed to get a gap but as I was entering a wooded single track section were it is impossible to overtake I was held up by a line of 10 riders which were not going fast enough. The others caught me up but in the melee one of the group fell and another rider piled into him. No one was hert and I was first to get round and off I sprinted. I was on my own for a while but I could see Antonius (number 30) not too far behind & I was on my limit. The other 2 from the earlier group were nowhere to be seen so I was in with a chance of a win if I could only keep away. I downed another gel and ploughed on, trying to make the gap count but Antonius had been joined by some faster riders and was being pulled up to me. Fifth lap and we were back together and I was fatiguing and on the long climb a gap appeared that I wasn't able to close and Antonius was clear and I realised the race was lost.


At the finish I congratulated Antonius on his win but today the results show he was infact 2nd and another Vet, Billy Stewart had been in the race and must have overtaken both of us late in the race and had beaten him by 30 seconds. So I ended up 3rd Vet but my highest overall of the series of 11th.

Our lap times were
Billy Stewart 09:54 09:06 09:21 09:19 09:08 09:06 09:11
Antonius Wubben 09:21 09:23 09:24 09:25 09:16 09:16 09:33
Alan Parkinson 09:21 09:23 09:25 09:15 09:26 09:40 09:37