Thanks to Pete for organizing the April club run.  Fortunately it was dry so the promised rough surfaces of the first half weren’t too difficult.  Elevenses were at the Farm Café at Marlesford, then off home for the Broughtons and more cob

Viv

May Club run

This month's Club run will be around Colchester and the North Essex/South Suffolk Border area on Sunday 21st May.

The start will be at my house at 10:30am with the aim of riding for an hour or so before some late Elvenses and then riding on to a pub for lunch, then back to mine for a mug of tea and a cake.

Planned route can be seen at...

You can find details of how to find my house at...

Parking space is a bit limited outside our house so if you look at the map given at the URL above and use the Visitors parking spaces it should help reduce congestion!

I hope to make use of some of the tracks / bridleways around the area so don't bring your hairy racing machinery - that said you won't really need a full suspension downhill MTB monster - a hybrid or touring bike (with tyres that aren't too thin!) will probably do.

If you are planning to go it would be good if you could drop me an e-mail at info@plomesgate.co.uk so I know how many cakes to rustle up for our return.

Hopefully see you out on two wheels on the day.

Jon

May Open ‘25’

Just to remind you all that this year’s Plomesgate Open 25 is on 13th May. That's the Saturday after next! The closing date for entries was Tuesday, so if you want to ride you should already have sent in your entry.

If you can't ride, would you like to marshal? All offers of help would be appreciated. My contact details are below.

Bev Whelan

22 Naverne Meadows, Woodbridge, IP12 1HU

Tel: 01394 385281, bev.whelan@talk21.com

Club Website

Regular visitors to the Club website will probably have noticed a few changes recently!

Wiggle 'Affinity' link

We now have a link on our site to Wiggle that earns 10% of the value of orders placed through it for the Club. So if you were thinking about buying something from Wiggle use the link and the Club will benefit!

To find/use the link go to...

1. Choose 'Useful Links' from the left hand menu

2. Choose 'Bike Shops' from the list of categories

3. You'll then see an animated Wiggle link to use.

Be sure to use the link every time (or book mark it once you're there) so that the Club's unique identifier is registered so we can get the wonga!

Alternatively if you wish to go directly there at any time you can go to the following URL:http://www.wiggle.co.uk/default.asp?ReferID=plomesgate

Note: This link and any other ones to shops/organisations does not constitute any recommendation from Plomesgate CC, nor is the Club responsible for the site/service linked out to.

Search within the site

On the home page there is now a google box that allows you to search within the Plomesgate website (as well as the wider web if you wish) so if you want to see how often you've been mentioned in Newsletters/Results sheets etc. why not try seeing if you can find yourself in the site! The site is indexed regularly by Google to keep the delay to a minimum before newly added articles are included. The website has hundreds of pages going back 9 years so being able to search within the site is definitely most useful!

Online Calendar

The Club now has an online calendar available from the graphic at the top of the page in our Events section. This can be used to see when the Open events are, the Thursday evening Club 10s, Club runs and other forthcoming attractions.

You can view daily, weekly or monthly calendars (the latter is probably the most useful as you can see a number of events at a time most times) and there is a preferences button that you can use to set how you wish to see the calendar.

If you have any other dates that I don't know of (e.g. road race/track events) that you would like me to add, please email them to me at info@plomesgate.co.uk and I'll get them added.

Suggestions

If you can think of anything else you'd like to see on the site let me know and I'll see what can be done!

Jon Smith

PCC Webmaster, info@plomesgate.co.uk

Herne Hill Easter

By Plomesgate CC Welsh correspondent!

Above the sounds of cars leaving the packed car park I am suddenly snapped out of my drowsy state by a London/Jamaican accent, “Move out me way mon, I wants to a picture of de CSC mon”. I turn around just in time to see the sun disappear behind the huge rastafarian as he bustled his way towards the Aussie CSC pro Luke Roberts, “CSC is me team ya see…”, he offered politely as some sort of an explanation, for his enthusiasm as he used his size to force his way through the throngs. This could only be Herne Hill, on the day of the famous and historical Good Friday Track Meeting. I meekly stepped to one side to allow him his moment of glory, and reflected on what had been a long day, my first trip down to the “hill”, the track that is the only remaining legacy of the London Olympics of 1948.

It had been a meeting which looked highly unlikely to take place as rain clouds queued up, one after another, eager to spoil the day. Eventually nearly three hours late the rain stopped, the derny motorbikes got on the track and it quickly dried out. The sun came out and we were treated to a full afternoon and early evening of sun drenched cycling action.

This was the first year that women had been allowed to enter the races at the traditional Good Friday meeting. Becky was there with one of her CC Cardiff team mates, and along with a selection of some other top women they mixed it with the men to help put on some good racing. Becky knew she was unlikely to win anything but it is a good event to support and be part of history in the process. She even had her own fan club, as Alan French and Chris Gingell were heard shouting encouragement from the stands, for which she was very grateful. Pity the banner didn’t materialise though….!

Olympic Champion Bradley Wiggins thrilled the huge crowd by winning the 10minute pursuit and the derny race, beating his Aussie rival in both events.

This event is typical of our friendly sport, where ordinary cyclists and fans mix with the stars of our great sport, no time for prima donnas. On the way to get a coffee, you brush past Wiggins as he cradles his child, nearly step on Malcolm Elliot’s foot, turn round to Sean Yates having a joke with a crowd of mates, and catch a glimpse of Magnus Backstedt discussing his injures, and of course move out the way of CSC fans.

If I ever needed any form of reassurance as to why I love cycling, and love watching cycling then I suppose I got it on Good Friday.

Trevor

In defence of the yellow jerseys

No not the ones won by leaders of the grand tours, our fluorescent yellow club strip. I have been to a couple of race meetings now with Becky since she defected and started wearing the red, white and black of the CC Cardiff. I must say this; it is so flippin’ difficult to spot her now in a bunch of riders.

At Herne Hill, on Good Friday, the bunches were 50 or 60 strong, and I couldn’t help thinking how much easier it would be if she was still in her bright yellow skin suit.

At Manchester, for the Easter Monday meeting, it wasn’t so difficult, here the bunches were smaller and the extra weetabix she had for breakfast, or was it the flaming sambucas she was drinking on Saturday night?, whatever, she was on fire. She and another girl were off the front in the scratch race and won it in a photo finish decision. She got in a two rider break in the course de primes, and ripped the race apart, with many riders giving up and dropping out, and she was second in the keirin again in a photo finish decision. What was even tastier was the fact that she was racing against the ODP riders, who got selected over her, so some scores were settled, and confidence levels were raised. Oh and they now know that the rumour that Becky had actually packed up, is well and truly false!

Becky has been asked to come up with a design for some track suit tops for the CC Cardiff, so this could be our first chance to get them to change their club strip to fluorescent yellow !

Trevor

Race News

Due to road works on the Attleborough bypass the Norwich ABC 25 mile time trial on Sunday May 14th has been shortened for safety reasons to 10 miles and will now follow the B10/3E course. Please contact Jeremy Howlett (Event organiser) on 01508 493606 for further details if required

Evening Drinks

After 30 years still learning lessons the hard way!!

I was off work yesterday and am still feeling a bit rough today. The only thing I can put it down to was drinking from a dirty drink bottle after the Tuesday evening Mountain Bike ride. Although I clean bottles out it often only amounts to swilling them out with cold water and perhaps some boiled water from the kettle, and I am perhaps guilty of not sterilising them often enough and may have paid the price. If you don't want a painful and uncomfortable reminder like me, then all you need to do is get some of those sterilising tablets that people use to sterilise babies bottles. Make up a solution in a washing up bowl and soak your drink bottles in it as per instructions.

Trevor

Grass Track Training

I am now running some grass-track 'training' sessions at St Mary's School field, Woodbridge, on a Tuesday evening for an hour from 7pm.

I have permission from the school to use the field, and provided the weather is suitable, i.e. not wet grass or raining, then they will go ahead each week.  We don't want to damage the field or else we jeopardise our own event in August (and the school running track), so we just need to be sensible about the conditions.

Anyone wanting to have a go, just turn up with your track bike and suitable 'grass' tyres, with a gearing of around 72".  Helmets must be worn.

With the North Road CC grass track event cancelled, the first in the region is the Mildenhall CC event at Letchworth on June 3rd.  Entries should be with Max Pendleton by 13th May.

Pete

Calendar Dates

Committee News

The next committee meeting will be at the Butley Oyster after the evening ‘10’ on Thursday 1^st June.  All club members are welcome to attend.

News 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