This coincided with the Thetford enduro, so Mark B and John C raced a tough 32 miles, while Viv headed off to Brandon to check out the other Plomesgate members.  As these were non-existent, Viv then played Norma no-mates round the black run, in between encouraging the racers.  Viv’s rather spectacular crash in a bomb hole got nil Abdu points because of the lack of spectators – just have to try better next time.  Chalky might have found the race easier if he’d done more than 10 miles in training!

Viv

March Club run

Hopefully there will be a good turn out for a ride from Framlingham on March 14^th.  Meet at Elms Car Park in Framlingham at 10am.  Coming into Framlingham on the B1116 from Wickham Market, come past the Art Shop on the left to the mini roundabout.  Go right and first left into New Road.  There is a motorbike cum bike shop on the right and the car park is on the right just after this.

March Open 10

Plomesgate’s first open event of 2004 is on Saturday 20^th March, based at Sudbourne village hall.  Hilary is organising this event, and would welcome any offers of assistance – mainly for marshals.  E-mail hilaryhg@aol.com or ring 01728 602563.

Talent Team Update

Becky Figgitt was invited to attend a special training camp at Manchester recently just for sprinters.  With the likes of Queally, Mclean, Hoy and Staff coming to the end of their respective careers, and apart from Ross Edgar and Vicky Pendleton, British Cycling are very conscious of the lack of sprinting talent coming through the ranks.  It is with this in mind that the "powers that be" have sent down instructions to look after any up and coming riders who have shown a talent for sprinting.  Hence the first National Talent Team Sprint camp was held at Manchester Velodrome, where under the instruction of National Junior coach, Marshall Thomas, and 6 track/sprint coaches, 13 riders ( 9 boys, 4 girls) were put through their paces and instructed in the art of match sprinting.  There will hopefully be further such specialised camps throughout the year.

Rumour has it that chocolate ice cream was on the menu for this camp, so I’m sure Becky is looking forward to the next one.

Becky hits big time

Becky Figgitt has just been invited to ride the last in the Revolutions series of Track Meetings at Manchester Velodrome - Revolutions 4.

Up until recently promoters of the big crowd pulling track meetings have been reluctant to include girls races as they felt they were not entertaining enough. However, with the increase in talent recently they feel there are sufficient girls who are tactically capable of putting on some entertaining racing, and guess what Becky is one of them.

This will be a fantastic opportunity for Becky, if it’s anything like the Revolutions 3 meeting (see separate report), there will be a capacity crowd.

For more information see :- http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/ or the Revolutions website at :-

http://www.cyclingrevolution.com/.

Handbooks

If you want to race Time Trials this year then you will need a handbook to know what's on. Trevor has got both CTT handbooks at £5 and East District handbooks at £2.

When I were a lad…

Many of you have often heard these words uttered from my mouth about cycling stories from the past.  Well whilst cycling near Lichfield on a damp grey Saturday this February I met an old ex club mate of mine which sparked off some fantastic memories which I would like to share with you.

The person in question is Mick Scott, commonly known as Scottie.  By the time I joined Walsall RCC as a fresh faced youth of 15, Scottie was already a legend, known for being very economic in both his racing style, and his finances.  I often used to hear stories of what a hard rider he was and how amazingly tight he was, but was willing to take many of these stories with a pinch of salt, in fact one hot summer’s day he even bought me a drink.  Which brings me nicely on to the first tale about Scottie…

I was probably a couple of months off my 18^th birthday, it was a nice hot summer Sunday morning and I had decided to ride into Shropshire to meet the club in the Clee Hills, a journey of about 36miles.  As I rode out of Wolverhampton I heard a voice from behind and up alongside came Scottie.  Probably in his late 40’s Scottie was not a tall man, but still he cut a distinguished figure with his tanned bald head and his moustache, that is until you looked a little closer at his clothes and bike!  In my years as a club official and then secretary I never saw Scottie buy a club jersey, in fact the club design had changed twice and still he some how got away with sporting the original club jersey and design from the late 60’s!  His bike, invariably fixed wheel, was a collection of rusty, pitted parts from an age gone by, but boy he was fit.  My memories are very vague from this point on but I can remember Scottie teaching me the art of half wheeling like the master he was.  For those of you yet to find out, an expert half wheeler is that person who consistently taunts you by riding half a wheel in front of you, and by doing so eggs you on to an artificially high pace.  It was a tactic often used by tough old club riders to teach the young whippersnappers a thing or two, and show them who was boss.  All the way through Bridgnorth and up into the hills the pace was kept high, now I was determined to hang on as it had just dawned on me that Scottie knew the route and I didn’t.  Another thing to bear in mind was that back in the 70’s you were deemed to be something of a lightweight if you carried a water bottle, I can remember being told that “only puffs carry a bottle in a 50mile TT son”. So I probably had very little fluid on me and I doubt Scottie had any as it would have meant investing in a bottle and bottle cage.  We eventually reached the destination, I can’t remember exactly where it was as I was pretty delirious by this stage.  I do remember my club mates all sat outside in the pub garden greeting us as we arrived.  It was then that it went silent, you could hear a pin drop, and I realised Scottie was asking me something …..”Do you want a drink, son.?..” he appeared to be saying.  I probably just nodded as my throat and mouth were achingly bone dry at this point.  I can remember jokes about moths as Scottie produced an old leather purse from his back pocket, and disappeared into the pub.  A few minutes later he emerged with two half pints of lager, and once again the club were dumbstruck. He presented me with my drink which I thirstily gulped down.  Any of you that have been very dehydrated will probably guess what happened next, the drink didn’t stay down for long.  Was I sick.  This was met with more shock and disgust by my fellow club mates and club officials than anything else.  Not only had they witnessed Scottie buy somebody a drink but I had immediately thrown it back up.  This was unforgivable.  In fact it made it on to the agenda of the next committee meeting.  In my defence, I was in a pretty bad state and was completely incapable of keeping any fluid or food down and had to call my parents to pick me up.  Oh happy days.

I will treat you to another story about Scottie in the next newsletter, he reminded me of this on our little ride when he told me he was 50 when he won the club hill climb.

Trevor

Members’ News

Welcome to Jessica Donaldson, aged 6.

Subscriptions Due

Have you paid your subs yet?  If not, please do so now.  The club accepts cash or cheques made payable to ‘Plomesgate CC’, which should be sent (together with your name!) to Steve Jones, 4 Leicester Close, Ipswich, IP2 9EX.  For over 18s it is £10, under 18 and over 12s, £5, and under 12s free.  If you are a second claim member half of the above fee is due.

Manchester Track

Whilst the East was suffering from snow and ice, Becky and I managed to get a 3 hour session on Manchester Velodrome at the end of February. The talk before the start was of the previous nights excellent racing in the Revolutions 3 meeting.

The session organised by Max Pendleton, was attended by some familiar faces from our are from Ipswich BC, Anglia Sport, Mildenhall CC, CC Breckland and a few other to boot.  Starting off steady doing laps we eventually were allowed to do some timed sessions which was interesting. Some of us did flying 200m TTs, essential if you want to do the sprint disciplines.  The fastest was Richard Kennedy (Chesterfield Coureurs) with 12.49, Richard was a quarter finalist at last years Nationals.  There were a couple more sub 13s, and a couple of short 13s.  I eventually got my go and although not too pleased with my line, having dived down too early, I was too fast into the first banking and couldn't hold the black line as I came out of the bank.  Still I was reasonably pleased with my time of 13.69, especially as it is 0.01s faster than Becky went in the Nationals last year.  Becky was not too happy with her time of 14.60, but a low gear and a cold were good enough excuses.

We did some more fast laps and then we practised standing starts, we didn't get to use the electronic start gate though. I chose to do a full lap and was hoping for a time but the "timekeeper" forgot to start the watch...!  Becky had 2 goes and was really pleased with her second ride getting a good start she did 22.46 for the lap which she reckoned was her fastest ever standing start lap.

Next session is at Newport on March 27th and Harry is threatening to have ago then.

Trevor

New Web Site

The Plomesgate web site has moved, and can now be found at http://www.plomesgate.co.uk.  Thanks to Jon Smith for his sterling efforts with the web site.  If you would like to send an e-mail to Plomesgate CC, try info@plomesgate.co.uk.  Please remember to update any bookmarks you have for the web site.

Revolutions 3

You may or may not be aware of the latest series of high status track meetings that are being held at Manchester Velodrome.  Anyway the revolutions series was devised by none other than David Millar's sister's management team, with the emphasis on bringing big stars in for a spectacular evenings entertainment. As we were in Manchester anyway for a training session we decided to get tickets to see the 3rd of these meetings, held on February 28th. We (Myself, Becky and Harry) were very excited about it as the French sprint stars including Arnaud Tournant and Florien Rousseau were on the start list.

As we approached the velodrome we were startled to find traffic congestion, thinking it was a throw over from the afternoon's Manchester City game, we were soon surprised to find out it was the traffic trying to get to the velodrome. This meant that we were promised a capacity crowd, and it was.

The racing was absolutely brilliant with all the top road and track starts from the UK riding the distance events, but for us the highlight of the evening had to be the sprint events. Our top sprinters, Hoy, McLean and Queally up against Tournand, Rousseau and Gregory Bauge (The new kid on the block and already a past Junior World Champion). We were not disappointed the French knew how to entertain, with some excellent skill in the match sprints including track stands on the steepest part of the banking !!

The finale was the team sprint. The earlier stages of the competition had gone to plan so the last event of the night was the final with Great Britain in the home straight and France (reigning Olympic Champions) in the back straight. From the start Bauge flew away setting a  blistering pace, after 1 lap GBR were down by 0.2s. McLean took the lead and immediately pulled that deficit back, he peeled off leaving Queally up against his arch rival Tournant, for the last lap. It was close as they crossed the line but Queally had done enough and we had won, by 0.2s,  ! The noise was incredible with most of the stadium on their feet screaming and cheering, what an atmosphere. I haven't experienced a night like that since watching the six day races in Ghent, Belgium some years ago.....

This is definitely one of the ways cycle racing should be portrayed to the public, spectacular racing in a carnival atmosphere. Just one issue......where were the TV cameras ??!!

Trevor

Results

Club 200m record

At the track session on 29^th February Trevor did a timed flying 200m TTs in 13.69 which is faster than Becky's fastest by 0.01s, which he reckons is an unofficial club record.......

(just in case you missed this earlier)

Audax

Mark H did an audax – how about writing about it for the next newsletter?

Orienteering

Why not try orienteering?  The idea is to find a number of controls in the forest in the right order, using your skill with a map and compass.  Suffolk orienteering club is organizing an event on Sunday 21^st March in Rendlesham forest. 

There will be a number of courses, varying in difficulty from easy to technical, and from around 2km to 10km straight line distance.  You can either walk, jog or run round the course, and can go on your own or with company.  The short courses are suitable for children.  Registration is from 10am – 12 noon, with starts between 10:30 and 12:30.  Cost is £5 adults, £2? Juniors, plus 50p to hire an electronic dibber to store the details of the course you have followed.  You need a compass, but it you haven’t got one we may be able to lend you one.  If you want any more information ring Mark or Viv (01728 452143) or e-mail.  Parking is at grid ref 353484, which is the Rendlesham forest car park at Tangham.

MTB Coaching

There is an interesting coaching article about mountain biking.  See http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/coaching/Features/2004/cf0102_mtbxc.shtml for details.

Dates For The Calendar

11^th March Committee meeting at Benhall, 8pm.

14^th March, Club run, Framlingham, 10am

20^th March, Plomesgate CC Open ‘10’

21^st March, Orienteering Rendlesham Forest.

Tuesday evening – 8pm MTB in the dark from Sizewell T car park.

13^th, 20^th & 27^th March, Milton Keynes Bowl WCRA Ladies Handicap & supporting races.  Further details from Helen.ellis@talk21.com.

Sunday mornings – 9:30am training ride from Northgate, Ipswich unless there is a club run.

Evening events 2004:

Starting on Thursday April 29^th, followed by May 6th and then fortnightly until the last one on Thursday 26^th  August.  Start at 7pm except for first and last ones.

East Anglian Children’s Hospice have organised two Rides for Life this year:

16^th May, Thetford Forest

5^th September, Rendlesham Forest.

Contact Simon Hempsall on 01953 888604 for details, or see www.each.org.uk

Newsletter contributions

Send us any news of events, results etc so that they can be included in the newsletter.

Our e-mail address is broughton.m@btopenworld.com