Weekend Roundup

[Rob]

Well, I'll start then.

Firstly, the stage finish on Saturday. Fabulous effort once again from Phil and Andy et al with the Clifton stall on the Stray. The event as a whole would have been poorer without them. These guys appear to be at the vanguard with every membership/publicity event the club does at the moment and are really putting the challenge down to the rest of the club (us) to look after new riders and to live up to the publicity.

The strange aspect of the afternoon was meeting people "out of context" or dressed in normal clothes. A couple of people waved and I couldn't fathom who they were! It may have helped if everyone had worn a badge saying "I normally wear a Postal jersey and ride a Ridley...."! Apologies if I looked at you blankly.

Didn't expect many takers for the Sunday ride after yesterday's events, but there were 8 in the Square (Ginnie, Bernie, Saun, Nigel, Howard, Jon, Andy and self). Knocked off a classic clubrun of about 80 miles taking in the edge of the Moors with a cafe in Helmesley. Its always a treat watching Howard order food - so clear and precise and taking evident pleasure in the whole process.

[PhilBixby]

I headed out on Sunday to the wilds of the Wolds to do the East Coast RR for old blokes - familiar faces included Dave C, Colin Hawxby and Simon Wright, and Ian H rode out to watch and shout much-needed encouragement. After what seems like weeks of sunshine (and discovering in the shower this morning that my head was horribly sunburnt) it was a bit of a shock to drive out under leaden skies and brief bursts of rain.

It was the other feature of the weather that really set the character of the race though - a stiff northerly that was blowing straight down the long, draggy hill that went up through the finish line. Each time up it was a tactical struggle to avoid being on the front, followed by a series of demented sprints at about 10mph up the second half of it as people's patience cracked, gaps opened up, etc. The reward was a breath-taking 45mph descent on the southward-facing part of the circuit.

Dave and I were both in the C's and D's (50-59) group, which stayed together until the penultimate lap when Steve Macklin took a flyer and stayed away. I attempted a drawn out sprint from about a quarter of a mile out which crumbled well before the line; Dave did rather better and crossed the line in the bunch. I feel like I could do with about a week in bed now!

[willyh]

What a weekend it's been for me! Not a lot of riding, but a lot of pleasure enjoying all the other facets of cycling that are available when cycling goes public in a big way, ie the Tour of Britain.

Sunday was another day of marshal(l)ing, the start of Stage 2 in Darlington. Town centre heaving with spectators, even at 10am. Talked with Rabo riders in native tongue, how had they enjoyed riding on Clifton roads? Bit narrow, lots of bends, great scenery!
When asked if they were going to have another day being cyclo-tourists the reply was: no, today is a day for winning! And that is exactly what Kai Reus did. Watched the finish at NewCastle from a fantastic viewing point at the Sage, right above the finishing straight. Riders could be seen for the last half mile, chasing Mr Reus, first across the Tyne along the quai, then across the swing bridge and onto the finish straight 10 metres below. Was a bit like a giant velodrome effect!

At the finish Sir B Wiggins was autographing away, all the teams riders were there mingling with cycling groupies, all very easy and relaxed. Quotes could be had straight from the horses' mouths! I think that big pros quite like meeting people on their tours, normally being kept in isolation in hotels, coaches or on their job racing!

Then when the cycling race razzmatazz was over I rode out to Tynemouth, the destination for all Coast-to-Coasters. En-route saw someone seriously riding a unicycle. When asked if he'd done the C2C replied: 'Of Course! What's the time?' The real hero of the day, I reckon.

Footnote: Interesting to know that Rabos ride Giants. And the word giant in dutch is:......... reus, the name of the day's winner and now Tour leader.
So' it's Mr Giant riding the Giant.

[Tullio]

The MTBers were on their annual 2 day trip off-road, this year destination the Tan Hill Inn.

Saturday morning a group of 9 met at a farm just North of Kettlewell to abandon the cars and take off, with backpacks and blue skies overhead, aiming to get to Tan Hill using as few roads as possible and have some fun on the way.

Sat was hot, hard work as most of the day was up. A brief tea stop at Aysgarth and lunch at the Dales Bike Centre provided refreshments, as well as some useful route tips that saved us attempting an 'unrideable, unnavigable bog' on our last stretch. Despite this, the route was still hard going, at times having to drag our bikes up steep banks chest high in heather (those bridleways don't see much use), so we finally arrived at Tan Hill just as the sun set behind it.

The Pub has lots of character(s), the highlight of which was our washroom facility which comprised the house bathroom that you had to walk through to get from the pub to the bedrooms. This kept the girls amused as they strolled back and forth to the bedrooms whilst the guys were taking showers and baths..I think a scorecard was being passed around. Much beer and food was consumed.

Sunday was a little cooler to start as we started our big descent off the hill. Much better trails all day, and fewer uphills, meant we completed the ride about 4 hours quicker. Simon, having crashed and lost the fluid from his front brake on Saturday, gave us all a masterclass in descending all day with only 1 brake. This included a 50mph! stretch of road into Askrigg for lunch. There was a very strong burning smell when we reached the bottom.

Edit: Sorry missed the obligatory roll call; Debs, Steph, Lisa, Simon, Jez, Paul S, Jeff, Graeme and myself. Mike W had planned to join us but injured his hand the day before, but still joined us at Tan Hill for the sociable bit. Thanks everyone for making it a great 2 days.

[Jon G]

As it was such a nice day on Saturday my original plan to ride to the finish of the ToB was reversed and I decided to ride out from the square to Towthorpe wold with Kevin and Co.

However at Buttercrambe I decided to try and catch Howard and Will who had broken away and formed a faster group. We arrived at the Towthorpe rather too early having taken the Tour route and not Kevin route ( sorry Howard) . To kill the time Will wanted to ride down towards Wetwang and climb the hill and time himself . I left Howard and Will to it to sprint up the hill and took it steady myself.

Once the Tour had gone through we progressed to Millington for a cafe stop and I decided to stick with Kevin's group who had finally arrived at the summit of Towthorpe wold. We left to head back to York via Stamford Bridge and agian left Howard and Will to race each other back to York and stuck with Kevin. I arrived home with 98 miles on the clock and a satified feeling I'd made the most of the sunny weather.

Jon

[willhub]

It was a great ride out, the weather was much hotter than I and the weather forecast thought. I'm happy I seen the tour and I also watched the highlights, I also managed to point myself out on the TV from the Helicopter view, allthough it looked like I was wearing a white mask that some murderer with a chainsaw would wear.

When we broke off from Kevins group and set off the pace was quite a shock to my system at first as I was in easy riding mode, but I soon ended up on the front and pressured myself to making sure I kept in front I managed to hit 190bpm, the highest in weeks, we stopped at the first K.O.M we kame to not far from buttercrambe or w/e it's called but then we set off again, doing 34mph down the slight decent and managing to keep slightly over 30mph for some of the flat bits with the momentum generated from the slight decline.

I never managed to find any stats for the towthorpe wold climb so I could compare my time of 10mins 50 or around that to what they did it at, but it was tought and I was knackered by the top!! I was very surprised by the amount of air generated by the cyclist as they flew past at what I think was about 25mph, I guess all of the riders combined could generate the same amount of power as a small car?

overall it was a fast day of 71 miles @ 19.1mph avg untill my GPS ran out of batterys, allthough I managed to cope better not having to loop at my GPS and asked howard what speed we where doing and to my surprise 22.5mph, next time I go on the bike I'm going to put my GPS in my back pocket. I think I had around 85-90 miles when I got home.

I got 2 pretty crappy pictures too: I will buy a camera one day.

[paulM]

Having watched the TOB stage finish in hot conditions on Saturday I turned from spectator to participant for a cool & windy Thurcroft CC road race on Sunday (a million miles from the TOB with park cars & oncoming traffic!). I've ridden this event loads of times - 25 laps of a tight 2 mile circuit. I dont like crits but I've always found this circuit quite entertaining and safe. Due to being 7th reserve I had the usual pre start performance waiting to sign on and consequently no warm up. A full field of at least 60 (which is too many for this circuit really) started fast and never really let up. Several breaks tried and failed until about 6 disappeared in the closing stages and stayed away. I finished in the bunch. Not so long ago I finished in the winning break 2 years in succession so its easy to go home disappointed. But it was a good workout nonetheless and should set me up for my last road race next Sunday.

[dave c]

I did the Hunmanby LVRC road race on Sunday as covered by Phil above.

It was a tough race but enjoyable, getting more used to racing now. I nearly got dropped at the end of the 2nd lap but caught up on the left hander into Burton Fleming ( my fault for pushing too hard in front down the fast bit). The long climb into the headwind was tough sometimes as the group slowed and then sprinted. The last half of the 7 mile lap was good fun with 40+ mph. I finished 5th in the D class and actually won some money!

Well done to Richard Sewell who did the race with a swollen bandaged ankle after going over on it last week, and thanks to Ian H for his verbal support every lap.

Next event is 50 mile TT on Saturday.

[Dr Dave]

( my fault for pushing too hard in front down the fast bit).

Not only did you earn some money but also valuable experience!