Weekend Roundup 13th & 14th April

[Darren N]

Well done to the Saturday morning casual crew – creating another reason for potential Newbies to join our Club. Be great if we could get a report on the W/e Roundup each week, if only for the PR value.

The Inters raced out to Dalby Forest Drive, with punters including Dr Dave, Ian H, Stu, Karl, Jon G, Mike & me. Today should have been a tame affair – but it definitely wasn’t! I’m blaming Stu who kicked off the earliest village sign sprint series so far this year. I was also blinded by the double whammy of Stu’s bright silver overshoes and Dr Dave getting his legs out for the first time. The Group actually looked pretty hot tbh, most decked in Clifton’s club colours. We climbed above Kirkham Abbey and then up the bank to Duggleby. Somewhere near here we caught up with the big K-Ride group who’d left the Square after us! – how does Kev do that! After West Lutton, Stu powered us from the A64 to the A170 at around 25mph. I put a quiet two quid each way on me in the Ebberston sprint but Dr Dave blitzed me. We then grunted up the very long hill leading up to Dalby Forest Drive before looping back to Thornton Le Dale for lunch where we sat outside – can you believe it!

Unfortunately we had to face a tough headwind all the way back to York through Amotherby, Castle Howard Drive and Flaxton. I battled against Flat Battery Syndrome all day, shouldn’t have overdone the training after being Scottonised last Sunday. Thankfully, we made it back to York City Centre just before the drizzle really set in.

In the village sign sprint series, Stu, Dr Dave & Mike shared the spoils, with Ian also popping up for some points late on. I was reduced to lead out duties again – have to stop that! What they didn’t know was that my village sign was worth 50 points, which I won handsomely unopposed, so I won the overall! Arrived home with the ton up on the clock, big thanks to all the guys for a good tough hit out. Definitely need to freshen up the ammo levels for the Battle of Thixendale next weekend.

D.

[Dr Joe]

Hello all, Darren; your commentary on the rides as always is worthy of the pulitzer prize, as not only is it something we all look forward to reading, am certain it gets other people motivated to join in on the banter too.

Sounds that so far the weekend is going well. am glad you all had a blast, i too noticed those smart looking castelli overshoes Stu has, they are quite impressive. Dave showing some flesh is only a sign that the summer is around the corner; am sure its a lovely to cycle with temps in the double digits and not have to battle with all the kit we were wearing throughout the winter months....... ah i am so jealous i couldn't be out this weekend.
Unfortunately i am working this weekend however i was able to make up for it during the week with road ride to pickering and my second MTN ride of the year so far in and around Rievaulx Abbey, Nr Helmsley in the DARK !!! which was incredible.

As far as the chocolate tea pot is concerned things are kind of ok, am taking things easy on my left knee, although the ride to pickering and back (76 miles) did flair things up slightly(my fault) as when i was a few miles out of york i did get carried away (once i got to Upper Helmsley) and thought to myself am home free, once again i believe i may have shot myself in the knee (literally) and this has got me thinking about reconsidering the Pock pedal mega route !!

i hope you all have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing you all soon.

Joe

P.S Darren, i have noticed rather large quantities of buzzards dropping on my drive; i think it maybe a way of the birds rebelling for giving them false hope and depriving them of a feast on the 29 March ride.

[Jon G]

It was a really good day on Saturday on the ride through Dalby Forest. Good group to ride with as always. It was tiring just to watch Dave, mike and stu challenge for the sprint points. I now know why they were always loitering on the back just before the group approached a village. Like Darren found myself acting like the lead out men. Might be tempted to have a go next time, but will probably pay for it later in the day. My legs were feeling it around Flaxton. Ive said before its not my favourite run in back to York over strensall common, at least the wind was favourable. Thanks for tow back guys when the legs had gone it is much appreciated as always. We now know why we miss Shaun and Tony to sit on the front into the wind.

Hope to be out next week on the Thixendale ride. Fingers crossed for better luck than last years p*****efest. Better make sure I check my tyres first before I jinx everybody else.

Jon

[Rob]

Hope Andy got some company today. Have been absent the last 2 Sundays as on holiday in the Shropshire Hills. This is one of our favourite cycling areas and, since you can climb well past the 500m contour, I reckon the title "hills" doesn't really do it justice. The road over the Long Mynd was still blocked by snow drifts well over a metre deep, but the other roads were open. Had a great week and got out for couple of hours solo in the lanes most mornings.

Rounded off the week today with a ride home from "the outlaws" in south Manchester. Have done this ride plenty of times and its a funny old route. Lots of stop start and tricky navigating through Cheadle and Stockport. A pleasant climb up to Glossop. Fantastic (if drafty) crossing of Holme Moss. "A" road to Barnsley. Some rather desolate S Yorks former mining villages. Then flat lands back from Featherstone. Really helped by the tail wind today, but it was still 5 hours hard graft and my legs feel rather tenderised...

See you next Sunday.

[G.]

I was also blinded by the double whammy of Stu’s bright silver overshoes and Dr Dave getting his legs out for the first time.

I hope Stu's overshoes and Dave's legs never get combined with Tony's silver shoes, there might be a big pileup when all the Inters suddenly go blind!

Clifton fielded one and a half teams for the Darlington 2-up this weekend. This was two laps of a six mile circuit just south of Croft. The sky was blue, the sun shone and had there not been a big wind, it could almost have been an idyllic summer's day! My friend Neil and I placed 7th with a pleasingly sub-30 time of 29:50, then watched the semi-Clifton team of Madeline and Jess come home in 34:35. This was extra impressive as they were the youngest team racing, they were the only all-female team and while none of us had done a 2-up before, this was Madeline's first race or TT of any description - she'd joined the club especially.

The 2-up was really good fun and it was a learning experience for me, having to work as a pair with Neil, taking care not to blow him off when i was on the front or else lose his wheel when I went to the back. The event was a long way from being oversubscribed,it's quite close to here and the teams represented a very wide range of abilities, so you should definitely all consider having a go next year.

[Dr Dave]

....taking care not to blow him off ....

[G.]

Dirty, Dr D!

[AndyM]

Two time trials for me this week - a 12mile Varsity event in the Peak District, and a 50km BUCS 3-up team time trial down in Oxfordshire on Saturday. Varsity is a competition between the two local unis, in my case Sheffield University vs. Sheffield Hallam, to find which institute is the best across a wide variety of sports. The course featured some 1200ft of climbing, an annoying headwind and a long open descent. The conditions slowed everyone down compared to last year's bright sunshine and warm weather - the quickest time was the same student some 2 and a half minutes slower than last year. The winning team would be chosen from the lowest cumulative top 4 times from their team. Uni beat Hallam by over 7 minutes over the 32 minute course so we retained our unbeaten Varsity record of 5-0 across all cycling disciplines, and to secure Varsity overall for the first time in 10 years I believe.

Saturday saw a long drive down to Chalgrove, in Oxfordshire, for the Antelope RT 3-up TTT that BUCS had highjacked for their national uni competition, which saw Universities from all over the country turn up to race for BUCS points - to find the best uni in the country across all sports. It was a CTT event so there were many other clubs and teams from around the country taking part too - including an IG Sigma Sport team and MG-Maxifuel (with none other than Magnus Backstedt in their ranks), who took first and second overall.

Really enjoyed the 3-up, despite getting absolutely drenched - in Oxfordshire we didn't see any of that lovely sunshine you are all speaking of! The course was great - rolling, with a couple of nice hills and some really fast sections, and the marshals were brilliant, although the high winds, rain and huge number of potholes made it hard work. We raced on our road bikes, in normal jerseys and shorts (no skinsuits or aero helmets for us) with just aero bars for any advantage, and so it gave us great satisfaction when we passed teams with fancy wheels and all the gear. We worked brilliantly as a team and stuck together throughout the whole 50km - we had decided that talking to each other and being sure we worked consistently, sticking together all the way was the only way to ride, and so again it was satisfying that whenever we passed a team they would be missing riders or not working together, or split up across long sections of road. In the end we did a time of 1 hour 17 mins and 27 seconds to give us 12th place out of the 41 Uni teams that finished and 26th out of 60 overall (from 72 teams that started), avg. 24mph over 50km. To say the first time we'd practiced riding as a team was during our warm up, we were pretty happy with our time and how we rode. And there aren't that many people who can say they've raced against Maggy Backstedt!

See you all soon