Weekend Roundup 10th/11th

[Dr Dave]

The Inters went Over The Top this week - the route over the moors to Osmotherley must be in most riders' top 10 roads.
6 only this week with sunshine and heavy showers forecast: John B, Scott, Dave W, Graham, Kevin and self riding 5 Kinesis' and a Cannondale.
Not having done Boltby bank for ages I thought it about time to give it a go. I always find it harder than its stats would imply and this time was no exception. Scott made it look easy though as he posted the 2nd fastest ascent on the club's Strava page. The rest of us ascended by whatever means we could!
The rain held off on the ride to the cafe where everyone seemed to have beans on toast with eggs except me.
As we were due to set off back the clouds drew in and so we elected to head back avoiding the hills and skirted back via Nether Silton.
Many thanks to John for his bunch engine efforts on the run back into town and to all for the fine company.

[Rob]

Wasn't expecting big numbers on Sunday with the usual array of Clifton riding options + Saturday's Audax + a less than clement forecast. So it was just 3 of us the Square - me and two Andys (Andies? Neither look right....), G and T respectively. With Mr T going commando (no guards) and consigned to rear-guard duty, this left Mr G and I twiddling single cogs on the front for most of the day. In addition the cold, blustery showers that ganged up on us in the afternoon, meant it was a tougher day than planned.

Still 80 odd miles, leisurely cafe stop in Driffield waiting for a hail storm to pass over and still back well before 3pm. Miles in the bank as we often say.

But if you think you or we had it hard over the weekend, just think of the lady riding up Millington in the afternoon - hailstones the size of pointy small marbles, and she was wearing shorts and vest top...

[mikeh]

With May only in its first flush of youth I met Steen on Thursday for my second tour of the year. This tour was to a Grand Tour. We loaded the van with bikes and drove up to Cairnryan port, parked it up, and wheeled the bikes aboard the ferry. A date with destiny, the Giro d'Italia Big Start in Belfast.

A brilliant trip that is worth a write up for the Clifton so only a few tasty morsels here. We had contacted Phoenix CC from Belfast a few weeks before our trip and they were our ride hosts for the weekend. What a tremendous welcome Belfast and the rest of Northern Ireland gave the Giro. We had been given a 70 mile route by Phoenix to ride for the first day, this got us back into town to watch the TTT, we then met for a club ride on Saturday at 9.30. 60 miles over the local mountain to Temple Patrick to watch stage two then back to Belfast in time to watch the finish outside the City Hall. Sunday gave us another club ride totalling 88 miles by the time we were back on the ferry. That day we watched the racing at Richill and returned to Belfast at an average of 20mph with our 70 year old partners spinning freely.

One of the most fun filled cycling weekends I have ever had. Steen as always was excellent company and the folks from Phoenix CC were superb hosts. Let's hope we can repay the favour if they come over for the Tour.

The weather was not great with the washout over the mountain on Saturday putting paid to the LED screen of my Bryton. This however did not dampen the spirits. Total for the weekend of about 240 miles and smiles of twice that distance. Great cycling country but be warned, the people of Phoenix CC don't like cafe stops. They run on thin air. Luckily I had taken head of Steen's peanut butter and jam sandwich technique or the 88 mile Sunday back to the ferry may have been my last ride. Steak pie and chips on the ferry and back home for 4am Monday morning. What a weekend and we had seen the Giro in 4 different places. Memorable.

[Jon G]

Entered the annual charity bike ride which is the great selby bike ride. Plenty of cyclists of varying ability enter this but to avoid any carnage at the start managed to get out front with some experienced guys from selby CC and BBM revolution . This is iprobably the nearest I will ever get to a training ride . The pace wAs frantic even though it isn't a race but did experience the effort required to stay with some fast riders. I'll be the first to admit it's not the most inspiring route but the last two Saturdays I've been working and was my only opputunity of a social ride. Hopefully will be out this Saturday.

Stats for the 40 mile pan flat route were a tad over 2 hours at 20.7mph which I was more than happy with

We even had a celebrity taking part

Phil bodmer off look north

Jon