Who, when and where?
This item sparked some debate, I had a few guesses, Trev had loads of guesses and by a process of elimination got pretty close to the right answer. No one actually got it right though!
(Click
on the picture to see it larger, in a new window)
The photo is of a young Ron Shoobridge in Singapore in 1956 (National Service?). He told me that the local would gang up on the foreign riders and the roads were mud tracks!
Thanks for sending the photo of himself to Ron.
Matt J
SPOCO East competition
Anyone considering riding the sporting time trial type courses in the area should consider signing up to SPOCO East. There are a number of age related categories that riders can be placed in, plus this year there is a team award for the best placed team of three from a club. You need to sign up before the first event you plan to ride. Note, that Plomesgate is promoting an event in each category this year. http://www.team-cambridge.co.uk/spocoeast/
Time is running out on this one!
Pete W
Committee meeting.
The next meeting of the committee will be held on Thursday 12th July 2007 at The Butley Oyster after the Club Evening 10. All members welcome. Matt
CTT handbooks.
Trev has several CTT National Handbooks available at £5.50 each. He will endeavour to obtain the East DC handbooks in the next couple of weeks. Speak to Trev if you want one.
Wanted.
Wanted: a small cross frame or complete machine for a beginner.
For sale: 21" Merckx frame with carbon forks as I used last year £100.
Contact Ron Shoobridge - ronshoo@tesco.net
For sale
Thule Bike Rack
2x bars / 4x roof feet plus locks
Little use
Cost £120, sell for £80 ONO.
Contact Julie Grooms on 07713 733422
Kettler 'Runner' treadmill, manual operation. folds flattish
£50
Contact: Pete Whelan - pete.whelan@openreach.co.uk
PCC Open 30
And EDCA 30 mile Championship.
Well, having being well trained on running TTs by Bev, I organised the clubs first 30 mile event, on a new course, though familiar roads. It wasn’t without problems, but I think we managed them well – my main concern was the debris on the road from the torrential rain over the bank holiday weekend at the end of May (which we managed to miss whilst racing around up North). When we ran the evening 15 mile event I cleared up some of the sand around Chillesford and the corner at Bromeswell, but just enough to give riders a fighting chance that evening. I knew more had to be done for the open event.
Entries for the event came in a steady stream, then flooded in during the last few days as the closing date approached and continued right up to the Thursday. I hit the print button at noon that day, with a field of 71 riders (70 machines when the tandem entry is included). I’m not sure but this may be a record entry for an event the club has run. (someone is bound to prove me wrong).
As the day approached, Bev made a few extra cakes, club members volunteered their services and donations of cakes, all the signs were ready and just waited for the day and the weather forecast, which wasn’t brilliant for the Saturday. Knowing time was going to be tight on the Saturday morning, as it takes 1½hours to set the signs out Bev & I cleared the course of debris for 2 hours on the Friday evening when there was virtually no traffic.
Course directions, with pubs as points of reference, were laid out on the table at the HQ, risk assessment hazards were listed in large letters, there was no excuse for people to go wrong. At the HQ the main bit to go wrong was that there was not enough space for cars to park, and an irate neighbour came into the hall to ask for cars to be moved off the pavement, which was difficult when people are out on the course – this wouldn’t have been a problem if we had had our ‘normal’ entry of 50 or so riders.
Anyway, at the end of the day, I was pleased with the way the event went, there were lots of comments from riders at the hall congratulating the club on a well organised, signed and marshalled event, then I had a few phone calls and emails saying the same – so we must have got it right.
Next year, subject to committee approval, I think we should run the event again, though use Tunstall village hall instead and shift the start and finish points to be about the ‘reverse’ of the 25. This might also be easier for riders to understand the course and also avoid cars pulling in to buy vegetables at the finish and getting in the way of the timekeepers.
So I hope all club members who rode the event enjoyed it and a big thank you to all those who helped on the day, to Matt who produced the result board and to Bev for being both assistant secretary at home and keeping me organised. Well done to Evert, who was the fastest Plomesgate rider; commiserations to Matt who got delayed in the back of a car at Tunstall and came to an abrupt halt; well done to Magnus on his new road bike - it must have been easier than the MTB.
Pete
The prize winners this year were as follows
Overall
Lee Bark (S&DCC) 1:08:46
David Staff (API Metrow) 1:09:05
A Leggett (Ipswich BC) 1:10:15
A Jardine (Ipswich BC) 1:10:41
M Solley (Mildenhall CC) 1:10:59
T Barber (CC Breckland) 1:11:31
B Caisey (S&DCC) 1:11:49
A Newark (CC Breckland) 1:12:00
A Pettitt (S&DCC) 1:12:25
M Gray (API Metrow) 1:13:42
Women- Emilie Fisher (XRT) 1:19:12
Of the Plomesgate riders.
16 Evert Wijnberg 1:15:12
17 Matt Donaldson 1:15:27
21 Jim Hardwicke 1:19:04
49 Ron Shoobridge 1:34:51
51 Bev Whelan 1:42:22
52 Magnus Ross 1:47:18
Grass stains anyone?
The weekend after Carlisle and Richmond it was the Mildenhall CC promotion at Letchworth (400m track), which included the Ladies 800m national championship, with some top class entries, but not big in number. Sarra was a little worried on her ability as she had not ridden a track bike since last August, though she had done a lot of MTBing. Vicky Pendleton was the favourite, with Laura Trott also in contention. Sarra had Caroline Gamell (Ipswich BC) and a few others to contend with to get to the final, where she got 3th and Caroline 4th. The rest of the events all went well, though Andrew seemed to lack stamina, but had reasonable speed. A few weeks later and it was St Andrews Grass meeting in Hertford (Welwyn Wheelers) on a 150m track, which was very narrow and difficult to hold a line at speed in the corners. Even though I had geared down, it was still difficult to accelerate into every straight, combined with the fact that each event was a minimum of 3km, and a final event of 5km meant we did over 100 laps at the end of the day; still at least I won some price money and got a bundle of licence points – my leg muscles still felt sore two days later, but it was ‘fun’.
Pete
Pete & Bev’s nothern adventures on grass
The normal start to the grass track season, for those of us based in East Anglia, has been the North Road meeting at Hertford, which for the past two years has not materialised. The start for this year was the meeting run by Border City Wheelers in Carlisle on the Bank Holiday Sunday at the end of May, followed on the Monday by the meeting in Richmond, North Yorkshire. Both of these also included National Championships, with Carlisle having the 400m and Richmond the 8km (my favourite). The last time we did the Carlisle event it was the ladies championship which Sarra rode (I was just there for the supporting events), plus we mixed it in with a few days touring of the Northumbria coast and meeting the outlaws. This time was not too different as Bev & I combined it with a visit to relatives at my home town of Formby, and to two of my sisters, plus a bit of touring. One of the reasons for the visit was to dig into my family tree on my fathers side so went to see my only surviving aunty on that side of the family; we road from Lydiate (my sisters house) to Formby on the tandem and had to include a ride to the beach and a visit to the red squirrel reserve, then it was to a pub for lunch – prices are so much cheaper than Suffolk (this was a Green King pub, beer was cheap, but food was 2 meals for £6 – why don’t they do that here?). After lunch a ride along the coast road to Southport, a wander along the arcade of shops, then a ride inland to Ormskirk and back to Lydiate. The following day we drove up to Lancaster, stopping briefly at another sisters in Blackpool. We got to our accommodation at Claughton, just outside Lancaster, in time for lunch at the Fenwick Arms (about 100 meters from the farmhouse we were staying at) – this was the pub that featured on the Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares programme. The pub is the self proclaimed home of the “Campaign for Real Gravy”, but also able to cater for my diet, or it did at lunchtime. After a good lunch, we checked they could do something in the evening for me and booked a table. The rest of the day was spent exploring the excellent cycle routes into and out of Lancaster, and all the way to Morecambe. On heading out to the coast from Lancaster we could see the bottleneck of traffic hardly moving as we sped along the cycle route – all the routes are well used and the majority of people tend to use them well, though it did help that we had pumped up the air-horn for the selectively deaf.. The evening meal was amusing, in that we still don’t know how they got so confused on what we ordered – it all turned out OK, and we went there again the following evening, plus had a good chat to the owner.
On the Saturday we planned to meet up with my sister and family, from Blackpool, over at Garstang for lunch. We took a scenic and hilly route out from Claughton to drop down over the motorway and into Garstang (somewhere around here there is a fast 10 TT course). After a walk around some paths we came to the remains of a castle, then back into Garstang for lunch by the canal. Afterwards we picked up another cycle route and took a reasonably flat route back to Lancaster and back to the farmhouse.
The Sunday dawned wet, with heavy rain on the short journey up to Carlisle, though it just stayed showery for the day and did not disrupt the racing. Most of us put chunky tyred wheels on to gain a bit more grip. Just as the 400m final had started there was a heavy downpour of rain, which is not what is needed for a fast sprint event. One rider overcooked I on the penultimate bend and slid his front wheel bring another rider down. No major injuries just a bit of minor bruises and hurt pride for them. I found the day hard going on the soft ground, but enough to get me ready for the following day at Richmond. From Carlisle we headed over the Pennines to Yorkshire in showers and high winds to stay at a B&B in Dalton a few miles from Richmond. We got to Richmond on the Monday early as the grass track was all part of the three day festival f cycling, including a carnival procession in the morning, and car parking space could be at a premium, even if we did have passes. After watching the carnival we made our way across to the grass track which I a purpose built grass velodrome around the edge of the cricket pitch. The track has been there for over a hundred years and is a listed historic feature of the town and cannot be removed. The surface was excellent to ride on, with very short grass, nicely rolled (with one small bump). The banking helped to give spectators a good view of the riders, though with the weather being a bit showery and cool possibly kept the numbers own a bit – a lot of people were inside the cricket pavilion drinking beer. The 8km event was run off in 4km heats, though as not everyone had signed on meant we only had one rider to exclude from the final. The banking gave a lot more security and enabled a slightly higher gear to be used, though by the time we got towards the end of the 8km it felt like a mistake. The riders for the 8k were sheer quality, with a few of the semi-professional teams (Rapha-Condor, SIS, etc) sending riders. The event went off steadily, then there was a break of a couple of riders that did not get chased down quick enough such that half way through the ride the pace went up but not enough to catch the leading rider. I was stuck just off the back of the chase pack to eventually finish about 12th. Still it was a good day of racing and a new track to ride.
After getting back to the accommodation we went in search of a pub for food a few miles away on the tandem, following instructions from our hosts, who omitted to mention hills. The route to the pub took us down a 1 in 5 hill. Anyway after a good meal, and a chat to a cyclist who had been watching the Richmond event we went back up the hill. It wasn’t too long a stretch of 1 in 5, but was made a bit more fun with getting wheel spin on the rear of the tandem. Then it was back to Suffolk the following day, though we had contemplated stopping off part way home to ride around a different area.
Club evening TT’s
The club for 2007 are well underway , we are running our normal bi-weekly evening "10"s, but in addition we will be running an evening "25" on Thursday 5th July. To avoid the possibility of too many starters the "25" does not appear in the East District Handbook. We have had a great turn out so far and all have ‘enjoyed’ it, we have already had our annual detours to the housing estate at Bentwaters this year so it is safe to come out although some club members have been offered SatNav to make it back from the turn!
* Thursday 5th July "25" Start time: 18:45*
Course B25/2
Thursday 12th July “10” Start time: 19:00 Course B10/9
Thursday 26th July “10” Start time: 19:00 Course B10/9
Thursday 9th August “10” Start time: 19:00 Course B10/9
Thursday 23rd August “10” Start time: 18:45* Course B10/9
* - note early start.
PCC 2007 Dinner
As Ron was inundated with responses to the plea for ideas for the end of season awards dinner (he got none! Is anyone bothered?) the committee discussed the options at the last meeting and have decided on a venue. The preferred option is The Bell Hotel in Saxmundham. The Table D’Hote menu was £18:50, this may change but is a good indication; it gave 3 or 4 choices for starter, main and dessert. We would get a room to ourselves, served together and allow for a chance to socialise during the evening.
The others on the shortlist were:-