And so the time has come, the waiting is finally over. Last year saw the influx of new, faster and (relatively) younger members which made the club circuit race and hill climb championships much more competitive. A select group has been training through the winter, acquitting themselves very well on the murderous Sunday training rides to Great Dunmow and back. The 2014 season opened with a time trial or two to warm us up, but today was the day the fledgling Lea Valley racing team would get its first taste of road racing.

Saturday morning: Alex is having a tasty fry up, Matt is taking off his heavy winter tyres and putting on his lightweight racing ones, Harry is steeling himself for his first race on a circuit he has never even seen. What can possibly go wrong?

I met up with Harry and Matt at the town hall. The unexpected sunshine of the last two weekends had disappeared and been replaced with a cold wind and a menacing looking sky. Within minutes off us setting for Hainault a hailstorm came crashing down on us. Was this an omen? “Turn back, go home!” screamed the wind. We pressed on and were greeted with the site of the busiest Hog Hill I’ve ever seen: dozens of cars parked in the road as the car park was overflowing (a massive field of 120 women took part in the race after our one).

Our glorious leader, Trevor, was unable to race today so it fell to me to offer words of wisdom. “How early should you start sprinting for the finish?” asked Alex. I confessed that I’d only taken part in a couple of sprint finishes up the Hoggenberg (usually dropped before that) and these had seen me rolling in to claim 13th or 17th or some such irrelevant position, so I wasn’t best placed to answer this. We headed onto the circuit to familiarise ourselves (Harry had never been there, Alex and Matt had only ridden the Tuesday 10s in the opposite direction, and I hadn’t race on the full circuit for nearly a year) but were called to the start almost instantly so didn’t get a full lap in. The wind was blowing from west to east, which would make for a speedy descent and tricky cornering afterwards and a nasty headwind on the climb.

We lined up in a large field of about 65 riders. Briefing over, the whistle went and we were off! Immediately there was craziness with people needlessly sprinting to the first bend and weaving all over the place. The pace was fast and behind me I could see people getting dropped almost straight away, but up ahead I could make out the other Lea Valley riders with what looked like Harry well-positioned up in the top ten. Up the hill for the first time, suffering but still in contact, this was going to be good.

Or was it? Approaching the hill for the second or third time I saw Matt and another rider walking along the grass at the side carrying their bikes. What had happened? Then, at the top of the climb, I saw Harry at the side trying to pump up his tyres. What on earth was going on?

Meanwhile the hammer was down and the bunch was fragmenting. Fourth time up the hill I found myself losing contact. My average speed had been 23mph up to this point and I just couldn’t sustain it on this circuit. Up ahead of me a gap was opening, so the bunch that I was losing contact with was itself losing contact with what was left of the main group. Alex was in this mini-bunch of 8 or 9, but soon started drifting back to me. We looked at each other - less than 15 minutes gone and nothing much to aim for now, just the opportunity for some decent training. “Well, that was good,” I said. “I’m going to stick to cricket,” said Alex.

We were joined by another rider and set off in pursuit of the next group up the road. The race had been smashed to pieces now and there were several groups and loads of individual riders racing round in no man’s land. Unfortunately Alex lost contact, so I spent a while with a Dulwich Paragon rider fruitlessly trying to get back to the group. After 35 minutes or so, the inevitable happened and we were lapped by the leaders (who had been whittled down to a select group of just 9 or 10 riders with the next group on the road absolutely nowhere to be seen). I slotted in on the back and rode around with them - it was staggeringly easy. Partly this was because there was less chaos now that the group was so much smaller, but partly it was because they had slackened the pace right off to about 21mph per lap. I began to get confused: was this actually the leaders or was this a group of hopeless cases that had somehow formed behind me and swept me up? I asked one of them and he said “we are the leaders, we’re just going a bit slowly.” He looked strangely like Phil Hersey, the successful 1st cat rider from Eagle. That’s because he was Phil Hersey, the successful ex-1st cat rider from Eagle (who appears to have taken some time out from racing and consequently been busted back down to 3rd cat level). Not long after that they suddenly put the hammer down again and left me for dead on an innocuous flat section of the course.

Lapped riders were instructed to leave the circuit with 3 laps to go so I only had a couple of laps left to do now - cheered on by the rest of Lea Valley who were standing by the finish line recounting their various tales of woe. I chased down a Finsbury Park rider and unleashed a devastating sprint last time up the Hoggenberg (which, to be honest, he didn’t bother to try to react to) to secure that all-important uncredited 49th place (or whatever it was). Game over.

So - what had happened? Harry had been charging up the hill right near the front on the very first lap when he started to lose control and realised he had a puncture. Unfamiliar with the rules (notify the comms, take one lap out to sort out a mechanical, rejoin when and where they tell you to - realistically, if you haven’t got a spare wheel, your race is over), Harry went racing off to his locker to locate a spare inner tube, pump and tyre levers. Meanwhile, on just his second lap Matt’s wheel was punctured by some glass and he had to carry his bike back to the start, his race lasting less than five minutes. At around the three lap mark Alex had suddenly found himself throwing up his fried breakfast over the racing jersey he had borrowed from me - no wonder he was fading when I caught up with him shortly afterwards. And finally, Harry sneaked back into the action (almost certainly breaking the rules in the process) with his replaced inner tube, spent a short while chasing after us and then suffered yet another puncture. At that point, understandably, it was time to call it a day.

So - not a glorious opening race, but it’s early days yet. Hopefully that’s got all the bad luck out of the way for the season!

The weather forecast was horrendous so I was expecting to see a depleted line up in this year’s event, but we actually had a bumper field of 30 riders. The early starters managed to get their dose of torture out of the way before the heavens opened. I grabbed myself number 3 and approached the start line with Adam Bishop setting off a minute in front of me. He received the countdown: “5-4-3-2-1-go!” and powered away from the start line for all of two seconds before breaking his chain with a sickening crunch. We did our best to ignore him as he got to work with his chain tool.

Then it was my turn up the familiar slopes of Mott Street. I accelerated up the shallow early section, but then found myself running out of gears as I hit the first steep ramp before the false flat. Why was I struggling? I couldn’t understand it. Then I realised I had idiotically left it in the big ring from my descent to the start line. I belatedly flipped it onto the small ring for the second ramp and sprinted up to the line for a time more or less in line with what I was expecting.

Then I joined the spectators at the top of this Essex Alp to cheer the riders in. We had no time information at this point, but Justin Ursell seemed to come speeding across the line. In fact, he finished with such a huge effort that he was promptly sick. Hill climbing is all about digging as deep as you possibly can and pushing yourself through the pain barrier - it’s safe to say Justin did that.

Justin was one of about 8 newer club members trying this event for the first time - amazingly these newer riders filled all of the top spots. Barnaby Barford had first come to our attention zooming up this very climb on a late summer Tuesday evening club ride and he looked to be putting in a similar performance. Meanwhile, David Veitch, who had been tearing up the Strava record books for our Tuesday evening Chingford circuits, came flying up the hill so fast that he caught Nicola Toms just as they approached the line. Nicola, as reigning women’s champ from the circuit race, was vying with Monika to be the fastest LVCC woman on the day - Monika had been adamant she was only going to watch, but found herself persuaded to take part at the last minute.

Carsten Meilandt (victor in the club’s Len Cooper circuit race) was looking the most likely to challenge David for the win, but disastrously misjudged his timings and missed his start by 12 seconds. How would this affect things? The rain started to pour down, rider after rider crossed the line until it was all over - the starter and pusher-off made their way up the hill to the finish and we all retired to the cafe to try to get  dry and warm and wait for the results. Well, I say all of us….obviously this doesn’t include Adam, who was still trapped at the bottom of the hill trying to fix his chain on his own in the deluge, but we were doing our best not to think about that.

Finally, the results were in. Official fastest rider on the day was David Ross in 2:16 - some 12 seconds faster than he managed last year in much more favourable conditions. Second fastest time on the day, and fastest Lea Valley CC rider, was David Veitch, only just behind in 2:17 - all hail the new champion. But sympathy has to be extended to Carsten Meilandt - his official time of 2:20 was enough to get him 3rd place (and a Lea Valley silver medal), but if his penalty for late start is removed he actually rode fastest on the day in an astonishingly quick time. A lesson to be learnt the hard way.

Nicola Toms beat Monika Konieczna by just over four seconds to get the women’s prize, though fastest woman on the day was actually not a club member: Gretchen Miller of Rapha CC. There were also good debut performances by Tim Holmes and Simon McCann, and the ever-improving Huw Thomas also managed to break the magic 3-minute barrier. Too many other riders to mention everyone in detail, but well done to everyone for taking part (and for braving the extremely wet ride home again). Also well done to James Hislop for confessing that the time he was originally credited with was a minute faster than reality!

Here are the full (corrected) results:

Lea Valley CC:

David Veitch 2.17.41 
Carsten Meilandt 2.20.32 inc. 12 sec L/Start
Barnaby Barford 2.26.22
Justin Ursell 2.42.39 
Jamie Fake 2.43.51 
Tim Holmes 2.45.22 
Sinon McCann 2.54.26 
Huw Thomas 2.59.13 
Trevor Whittock 3.00.35 
Nicola Toms 3.17.89  1st Lady
James Bell 3.21.51 
Chris West 3.21.95 
Monika Konieczna 3.22.07 2nd Lady
James Hislop 3:31:20 
Mark Freeman 3.29.20 
Dave McCarthy 3.44.54 
Gareth Freeman 5.29.58 School Boy
Adam Bishop DNF Lea Valley CC Broken Chain

Others:
David Ross 2.16.32 Velo Club Motel 1st on day
Andrew Edwards 2.22.98 Pretorius Bikes
Sam Barker 2.36.11 Islington CC
Alex Holt 2.37.08
Matthew Toms 2.38.58 Pretorious
Collin Ross 2.42.08 Velo Club Motel
Anton Blaciot 2.44.98 Pretorious
Ed Harris 2.53.54
Svein Clouston 2.57.48
Gretchen Miller 3.06.09 Rapha CC 1st Lady on day
Jason Singer 3.06.35
Simon Tuck 3.18.36

So the new kit is here in all its glory and we’ve been out and about showing it to the world over the past month: racing through the streets of central London in the Nocturne, breaking another longstanding club time trial record, going flat out around the fens in the Tour of Cambridgeshire, doing the Tuesday Tens and the women’s rides at the Velopark circuit, and, of course, taking part in the ever more popular club runs.

I’ve just finished carrying out a survey of club members on all manner of things (results and discussion to come soon) and I can exclusively reveal that the verdict on the new kit was overwhelmingly positive. From a personal perspective, it’s not just the new design, it’s also the cut and materials - especially in the race tops. I can honestly say I’ve never had a better top. Debate has been raging on the ‘race squad’ Facebook page about the length of the shorts and socks (essentially splitting into two factions: those who favour shorter socks and those who revel in their own foolishness), but with further orders going in to Milltag in the future, I’m sure everyone will get exactly what they want. Talking of Milltag - take a look at the photo shoot they did with Charlie modelling the new kit: http://milltag.cc/news-1/lvcc-club-kit

There’s so much going on at the moment, it’s difficult to keep track of everything, so forgive me if anything has been overlooked. First off, a racing update. We had our second open time trial of the season on Saturday 7th May up on the fast 10-mile E2 course near Newmarket. Newish member Colin Ross set an impressive time of 22:13. In any normal season this kind of time would probably earn him silverware at the club’s annual dinner (I even managed to get the trophy one year with a time two minutes slower than this), but this is not a normal year. Step forward again David Veitch (or should that be 'Dave Hitch of Lee Valley Velo’ as the CTT website mystifyingly described him this weekend?). For the second month in a row David smashed a club record that had stood since the early nineties with an eye-watering time of 20:07 (just a shade under 30mph). Chapeau again Mr Hitch. Rhys Howells won the overall event with a time of 18:52 (David was ninth overall).

David has also impressed at our Tuesday Tens events at the Velopark (which, as the name strongly hints, are ten-mile time trials on Tuesday evenings) - last week he won with a time of 21:52. At the halfway point of the series, this is the only ride which has beaten the 22-minute barrier. The rides are as popular as ever (over 90 riders on a couple of occasions), but we have repeatedly been battered by less than ideal weather. Here’s some footage I shot of the extremely wet and windy edition I took part in:

You can see full results of the whole Tuesday Tens series on the forum: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/events/1700/

In other time trial news, several of us took part in the opening 10.2-mile time trial of the season run by Victoria CC up near Saffron Walden (again, for more information on these, look at the forum: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/286164/ ). Dave McCarthy, Chris Pollard and Mark Freeman took part in the three-up time event and together set a time of 29:18. Carolyn Upson and Emma Ferguson did the two-up event and for a brief while topped the leader board with a blistering time of 23:54 until it was recognised that this had been mistranscribed and their time was corrected to a far more realistic 32:54 (yes, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have grassed you up). In the solo event, Chris West got a time of 27:08, but the fastest Lea Valley rider was Jamie Fake (aka 'me’) with 26:16. Eat your heart out, Dave Hitch. Any new members looking for a relatively gentle introduction to time trialling should give the Victoria events a go - there’s still time to enter the ones in July and August.

Further back in time, the ECCA Festival took place, as always, over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend. On the Saturday Alex Sweeting and Tim Holmes took part in the 3rd & 4th cat crit at Hog Hill. The following day I was beaten by James Hodges in the 25-mile time trial on a previously unknown course from Hatfield Heath out towards Chelmsford and back again. But all of us were overshadowed again by David Veitch who claimed second place (beaten only by serial winner Colin Ward) in Monday’s 10-mile time trial with a time of 21:48 on the notoriously slow E91 course in the Rodings. One final piece of time trial news: Adam Bishop managed to fend off the snails for once and set a new PB with a 1:03:01 in the Chelmer 25 last weekend - congratulations.

Meanwhile, in the world of road racing, Carsten Meilandt and Paul Roberts were lucky enough to take part in the London Nocturne. Thousands of people lined the streets near St Paul’s Cathedral (a new course a short distance away from the old Smithfield circuit) to see a whole series of races, including penny farthing and Brompton events. Carsten and Paul were in the 'Leigh Day’ 2/¾-cat race. Carsten got a great 7th place and Paul claimed 33rd (out of nearly 80 riders) both cheered on by a large contingent of Lea Valley supporters.

Soeren Hansen nearly picked up points in his first attempt at a 3rd-cat race with an 11th place finish at Hog Hill. Also at Hog Hill, Pedro Lopes has been getting some solid results (but no points as yet) there in the weekly Thursday evening crits. That man again, David Veitch, also took a bit of time off from time trialling to get a 6th place and an 8th place in a couple of 3rd cat races.

Lower down the pecking order, I joined Tim Holmes and Tom Orr (who was making his racing debut) in a 4th-cat race run by Hackney CC at the Velopark in perfect conditions on a sunny Saturday morning in early May. There was a big field of about 70 riders and the pace was so high (26.5 mph) that no attacks could stick. The whole bunch stayed more or less intact until a sickening crash with less than half a mile to go right at the front of the group - I think the third or fourth rider went down and took out another half a dozen with him with the loss of a lot of skin and a suspected broken collar bone. Never nice to see, but the three of us managed to pick our way safely around it and come in 19th (Tom), 20th (Tim) and 27th (me). I fared a bit better in the 'Hog Without The Hill’ crit put on by CC London and picked up 15th place. The following week Tim joined me in a repeat of the same event - I’m afraid to say I completely blew up after 35 minutes, but at least this meant I was able to film the action in the final few laps. Tim rolled in in 15th place, the same as my result the previous week, but it has to be said he looked far more likely than me to break the top ten - perfectly positioned with one lap to go, but victim of another rider accidentally unclipping in front of him as the sprint started to wind up.

On 5th June we also had seven riders taking part in the 135km Tour of Cambridgeshire Gran Fondo. Like Ride London, this event has thousands of riders taking part on completely closed roads, but whereas as the former heads through city streets and the leafy hills of Surrey, your biggest enemy in this event is the gusty winds blowing across the flat Fenland near Peterborough. Barnaby reports: “Eight of of us went up: me, Soren, Carsten, Pedro, Alex, Tim, Simon McCann and Mark Jennings. We left at the crack of dawn to get there to sign on and all drove up in convoy except for the last roundabout where we got totally separated. When we arrived it was cold and overcast. Anyway, it was a big event with thousands of entries - had to queue up for an hour and a half before the start time - not the ideal warm up. Then off we go at breakneck speed most of us staying in the front group of 18-34 year olds (I snuck in under the radar due to my youthful looks). The first 20km was at an average of 44km/h - super fast and splitting into smaller groups quite early on. After 20 mins I wanted to give up, but stuck at it. I got dropped from the leading group which still had Alex, Carsten and Soren in it, then got caught soon by the second group and managed to work in that group for a long time. As time went on inevitably things split up more and more and you pick people up and drop people etc etc. It was a flat course but a very windy day. Soren did amazingly well: came in the first group with a time of 03:18:23 and 36th overall. Alex did 03:28 for 221st overall. Then me in 03:30:28 and 284th overall (47th in age group)  - average speed of 38.4kmh and absolutely shot by the end. I really wasn’t expecting it to be such a race, I thought it was a sportive. Unbeknown to us, Carsten punctured early on then took it 'easy’ for the rest of the time, but still going very fast. Pedro, poor chap, cramped up early but still managed to post a good time and Tim did 03:35:10. Unfortunately Simon crashed, but was OK in the end just needs a new pair of shorts. So we all qualify for the UCL race in Australia….unsure emoticon”

Simon has said it was a bit more serious than damage to shorts: in addition to road race he got a pretty big gash in his knee and there was nothing to stitch him up with at the time so he’ll bear the battle scars forever. Anyway, the good news is he was able to ride on to the finish (in approx 4:10) and Milltag say they might be able to fix his shorts.

By the way, here are Soren’s impressive stats via Strava (85 miles at over 25mph): https://www.strava.com/activities/599397353

Away from racing, the club runs are still going from strength to strength. Again, just to give a sneak preview of the survey results, I can report that a sizeable majority see the club runs as the single most important element of being in the club and that people are very keen on having designated ride leaders and clearly stated average speeds (which are kept to!). More on this in the next blog - we need to work out the best way to do this, given the ever-shifting nature of who is out each week. But anyway, I’ve been impressed with the numbers each time I’ve been out. I’ve been racing the last three weekends so not on the club run, but the last time I went I found myself leading 16 riders in the 'medium-fast’ group on a great ride in some rare sun in the lanes out round Navestock, Norton Heath and Matching Green. Here’s some video footage:

We are usually able to have three or more groups setting off each Sunday now, to cater for a wide range of speeds. The 'social’ group ride has also been really well attended:

We get many people messaging our Facebook page asking if it’s OK to come along and try the social ride or join one of the faster groups - the answer is 'yes’. Come along and give it a go, just turn up at the town hall gates a little bit before 9am on a Sunday. It’s worth checking our Facebook page the day before to see if a route has been posted and also to check how many are likely to be there (some weeks we will be a bit depleted because of race/marshalling commitments, but there should still be a ride almost every week).

On top of the Sunday club runs, we have also started up Thursday evening women’s rides. Chrystyna Sofia has been organising these - at first on the roads in the Olympic Park and more recently actually paying to use the Velopark circuit. Chrystyna says: “Every Thursday we have a women’s ride from 6.30-8pm (join in at any time) at the velopark in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (Abercrombie Road E20 3AB). The session is an informal way to either get into club cycling, boost your training or just meet other female cyclists. The sessions are relaxed - those who feel like going flat out can do so, while others take a more relaxed approach. All are welcome! Entry is £4 - pay at reception and then join us on the circuit.”

Last but not least, a reminder of a couple of upcoming events on the same day, Sunday 10th July. In the morning we have our annual club 25-mile time trial championship, aka the 'Bill Major’. This is based at our race HQ in Ugley. Details on the forum: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/events/1877/#comment13031341

And then a couple of hours later in the afternoon is our annual reunion event just round the corner in Burton End: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/287916/

Why not devote the whole day to cycling and do both (and if you’re fit enough, you could ride home afterwards)?

The season is getting well and truly underway and it won’t be long now until our new kit arrives. Last season’s curse of crashes seems to have been replaced with a curse of random knee pain, but there are enough fit and able people out there to get some stories together for this blog. Before we get stared on that, I should mention that Chrystyna has started organising women’s rides on Thursday evenings. It’s early days yet but this will hopefully be a regular thing - quite a few have expressed interest. Details on the forum: 

https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/285104/

Racing stories from the world of time trials and road races to come later. First off, tales from Portugal. Pedro invited some of Lea Valley’s finest to join him over there for an Easter training week:

Lea Valley Cycling Club
Climbing Training Camp
Justes, Portugal
31.3.16 to 5.4.16

First ride with stop in Sao Leonardo da Galafura viewpoint

 On the evening of Thursday, 31^st of March, 4 intrepid LVCC cyclists arrived in Justes with a contagious mix of excitement and uneasiness. They came prepared to climb, but they were not quite ready for the struggles awaiting them.    

Climbing mountains was no longer a fantasy but a brutal reality. The Training camp was based in Justes which is situated in the North of Portugal at 800m of altitude and with just a population of 350.

This picturesque village is situated in the cultural landscape of the Alto Douro which is an outstanding wine producing region. For this reason, it has been granted World Heritage Site Status by UNESCO.

The Douro awes by being the legendary work of giants who transformed it into a singular territory, where throughout millions of years’ natural dynamics were set in motion. The sinuous contours of these grand scenarios created a region which has a hot dry micro climate and rocky soil. This results in ideal conditions for wine making, and amazing backdrops for cycling.

 The boys stayed at Vilma’s B&B which might not have offered central heating or locks on doors but it compensated in hospitality and friendliness. The B&B owner was like a mother to our team and they really enjoyed congregating around the fireplace and the generous snacks prepared by Vilma.

 The stunning scenery and quiet mountain roads provided an excellent platform for long rides. The only thing missing was the LVCC train.

Contemplating the long day ahead of us…

On Friday, the first day, we braved the road with the sun on our backs to embark in what would be a discovery. The route was only 120 km with 2170 meters of climbing but it offered some of the best scenery in the region.

 The day was sunny and the spirits were high. The pace of the ride varied for the first 80 km with everyone trying to race up the short climbs.  There were punchy climbs on tarmac and cobble stones which was a first to some. As the saying goes what goes up needs to come down and so we did, with some breathtaking descents with vertiginous hairpins.

After such a good start we stopped in Pinhao where we had a quick snack of the famous Portuguese pastry, Pastel de Nata. I also took this opportunity to explain some of the wines of the region. After a well-deserved break, the final 40 km was uphill with sections of 15% gradient which was exciting and daunting at the same time. Everyone managed to get back, some in better condition than others. Unfortunately, Tim crashed going uphill because he touched wheels with Carsten which proved that the curse keeps on haunting the LVCC riders! As for Charlie, he miscalculated his food intake and fatigue and bonked with 4 km to go which meant the LVCC train had to pace him up the rest of the climb. It was a wake-up call for the sort of climbing we would be doing in the next few days.

In the evening after everyone had relaxed and recovered for a few hours we went to typical Portuguese restaurant to have a famous dish from Porto. The ‘Francesinha’ even though not the best of recovery meals was a delight amongst us.

Pedro, the tour guide!

Saturday, the next day there was an epic ride waiting for us. We were going to tackle the majority of a stage from the Tour of Portugal which involved doing 150 km with 3500 meters of climbing. The ride involved going up a famous climb that features many times in the Tour of Portugal!

The day was sunny as well and we decided to leave a bit earlier at 8:30, because we knew it was going to be a long day on the saddle. The first major climb came with just 20 km and it was a brute of a climb with a sector of cobbles in it which was the steepest part of the climb. The climb was 10 km long with 550 meters of continuous climbing.

With the first climb of the day overcome we descended into the waterfalls of the river Olo which presented us with a natural spectacle of light and sound. We took this opportunity to take some pictures and descend again to the most challenging part of the ride which was half way the total distance. Senhora da Graca climb is an amazing climb, 14 km long with views of 360 degrees on the top. The gradients of the climb averaged around 9% with the steepest sections going up 13%.

Me and Carsten managed to finish the climb in 30 minutes but the pros do it in 20 minutes according to Strava! The Climb was an epic challenge for me not only because of its gradients but also for trying to hold pace with Carsten. I am sure it was for him too! As for the others, Søren was the third followed by Tim and Charlie. The suffering was obvious but it quickly gave way to elation as we reached the top of the climb. As the saying goes, nothing comes for free but we earned it with our efforts. After a few moments at the top we took to the descent which was astonishing with its sweeping corners and absence of traffic.

On the way back from the epic climb we still needed to do 80 km which proved hard going on everyone nonetheless because we needed a lunch break and we were in the middle of nowhere!

Fortunately, Carsten spotted a sign for a restaurant which meant we had go up a steep climb to get to the restaurant. Once at the restaurant we had a well-deserved lunch which included beef stew, grilled blood sausages and chicken sausages, cheese, marmalade, grapes and dried cured meats. After such a delicious meal we took our time to get back to the HQ which involved climbing the third mountain top of the day. We finally arrived home at 6 pm tired but pleased with our efforts.

To top up a great day on our bikes we had an amazing dinner at the HQ that my parents prepared.

Portugal is stunning…

At the top of Senhora da Graca Climb

On Sunday, Charlie and Tim decided to take a rest day with a bit riding to keep the legs working for the following day. As for me Søren and Carsten we decided to start riding at 7:30 am because we had planned the day before to meet a club run at 8 am but to our surprise there weren’t any hardcore riders to ride with us since it was raining. So we just went for a quick ride of 100 km with 1400 meters of climbing on the rain with a few spells of sun. Despite that it was a good ride and Carsten really enjoyed it. We arrived at the HQ early which meant there was all the afternoon to recover and watch the Tour of Flanders.

However, as we arrived at the HQ we found news that Tim had fallen from his bike yet again, because of the rain and was a bit shaken up with a bruised knee. His bike wasn’t in better condition since the front wheel was buckled.

During the afternoon it was time to relax with the Eurosport on!

Carsten, Pedro and Søren Chasing the Sun…

On Monday it was a full recovery day for everyone since it was pouring down. So I decided to take the boys to a wine cellar for some wine tasting of local wine as well as port wine and to taste some local delicacies in a local pastry shop. After that we took Søren to the Coach station since he was leaving the LVCC training camp earlier. The afternoon was chilled with only Charlie and Carsten going for quick spin to pick up Tim’s wheel from the bike shop.

Wine Tasting on the recovery day!

Wine Cellar visit

Tuesday the sun was out again and the strength of our legs had come back as well. So we embarked on a route of 160 km with two mountain tops to climb. The ride started well but just after 40 km Charlie complained of knee pain so we stopped and advised him to turn back because we wouldn’t want him to make matters worse or get stranded. As Charlie turned back and rode back to the HQ slowly, we rode on to another glorious day on our bikes. Tim, me and Carsten took on amazing climbs and traffic free roads which made for some fast descending. Casrten and me also managed to take some hard fought KOM’s.

Downhill for once…

Tim, Carsten and Pedro enjoying the lasts days of riding together in Portugal!

Profile of the penultimate ride of the LVCC training camp

 Wednesday was the last day, time to say goodbye and enjoy a last ride…

LVCC Training camp HQ, sunrise…

This is what they had to say…

 Søren: “Overall I think it was a great training camp. It was a good mix of cycling while exploring Portugal - despite coming for the cycling, I still feel like I left with a good taste of what the region had to offer. The cycling itself was amazing too; wonderful views, climbing, cobbles, coffee stops, and good company”

 Tim: “North of Portugal, it turns out, is very mountainous. Every mountain was followed by another valley and more mountains. They never stopped! I had not done riding like this before. 40 minutes of climbing followed by 10 minutes of descending is exhilarating. What I wasn’t prepared for was just how much the climate changes. Climbs were boiling, then cold as you got to the top and the descents were predictably freezing. Very different from anything we have in Essex, or even Great Britain.

Great routes, fantastic scenery, top club mates. The perfect training camp! And the cherry on top? The Portuguese are super friendly, and there’s proper coffee everywhere! Even in the tiniest villages!”

 If in doubt, keep pedalling

==============================================================

Meanwhile, back in England, Saturday 7th May saw our second open event of the season, a 25-mile time trial on the ‘dragstrip’ E2 course up near Newmarket. It was a fast day and (relatively) new member Colin Ross took advantage to sneak just under the hour with a time of 59:55. A good ride, but somewhat eclipsed by David Veitch who absolutely obliterated his previous PB with a stunning time of 50:55. I haven’t had it officially confirmed yet, but I believe this is a new club record, breaking a record which had stood since the 90s. Chapeau! However, even this time was only good enough for 16th overall. The winner was Matthew Smith in a mind-boggling 47:57 (over 31mph)!

Full results and details of all the volunteers who deserve thanks can be seen here:

http://thehippy.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/LVCC-E2_25-9.4.16-Results.pdf

Four of us were in action at Hog Hill on Saturday for the first event in the ‘Hog Without The Hill’ series of criteriums. These are supposed to take place entirely on the lower circuit, thus avoiding the hill (hence the name). However, the weather had other ideas - heavy rain on Friday night left us with four or five inches of standing water on parts of the lower circuit. The organisers were determined to go ahead with some kind of race and managed to put together a new circuit for us: plunge straight down the Hoggenberg and turn 180-degrees to your right at the bottom and climb straight back up again, a brief downhill and then up the Alpine section to the finish line. This was just 1km and had no flat whatsoever - you didn’t even get to enjoy the descent because of the savage turn right at the bottom. Oh and did I mention it was raining and just 6C? And there was a headwind on the climb? No? Well, I don’t like to moan.

Me and Tim went first in the 4th cat race. The combination of the near-constant climbing, technical circuit and weather conditions meant things got fragmented very quickly and in just a handful of minutes the race had broken up in to a lead group of about six and then about 40 riders miserably grinding round in ones and twos. On such a short circuit the leaders were lapping in less than two minutes and it wasn’t long before they started to lap the back markers. And then the ones and twos started lapping and double-lapping other ones and twos. Before long it was just a never-ending procession of riders. I had no idea what was going on - it was impossible to tell who was on my lap and who was ahead of / behind me. My average speed was appalling, the worst I’ve ever managed in a race, but this seemed to be common to everyone - even the winner only managed less than 21mph. I pulled out with five to go to avoid getting in the way. Tim carried on manfully for a mystery position somewhere in the field - the organisers did well to get the top ten, to be honest, they had their work cut out for them.

After this came two races run on the same circuit simultaneously: the 3rd cat race featuring Alex and the E/½ race featuring Carsten (fresh from working the night shift). That sounded like a recipe for chaos in the conditions, but fortunately these two races managed to hold together a bit better than the 4ths.

Alex started brightly, but soon mysteriously got dropped and cut a forlorn figure riding around alone while oddly shouting at us “have you got a charger?”

Eventually he joined us in the warmth of the cafe and revealed that the batteries in his Di2 had run out, leaving him trapped in one gear on the small chain ring. Well, that’s what he claimed anyway.

So this left Carsten in the elite race. What a performance: Carsten was active on the front throughout, constantly attacking. As the race entered its latter stages he found himself off the front with three others for company. Unfortunately these three were all from the same team (Pedal Heaven Excel Academy), which made his job rather difficult.

Eventually one of them broke clear (Matthew Clarke) and came in alone to win by about 5 seconds, but Carsten managed to drop one of the other two and narrowly outsprinted the other to take a fantastic second place.

And finally, the club runs are becoming ever more popular. Recently we’ve had more than 20 riders assembling at the town hall and we’ve been able to split into as many as five different paced groups.

Happy New Year and a belated Merry Christmas to everyone! There hasn’t been a club blog since mid-August (which feels a lifetime ago in the current weather), so it’s time to write about what happened in the rest of 2017.

As usual, the end of August saw our outgoing President’s traditional long-distance ‘Summerhayes Summer Saunter’ bank holiday ride, this year to Southend. In addition to this, the weekend before I organised a car-assisted ‘East Anglian Adventure’ using this 82-mile route which starts and finishes in Thaxted and takes in some of the most picturesque places in that neck of the woods (Lavenham, Cavendish, Finchingfield, etc): https://www.strava.com/routes/6175019.

I was joined by Huw, Caroline, Alex and Tim. We set a decent enough pace in the sunshine, despite the fact that Alex’s front mech immediately stopped working and he spent the entire ride trapped in the small ring. One of our village sign sprints (to Radwinter) was a bit more dramatic than usual – just as Alex, Tim and I opened it up we were overtaken at high speed by a never-ending convoy of motorbikes which added a bit more danger than anticipated. We stopped at a pub for lunch just outside Lavenham and then rode the remaining stretch into a headwind. In the final miles Huw (who had cunningly avoided all of the sprints over the previous hours) left us all for dead and disappeared out of sight.

It’s nice to get out and explore some different roads every now and again like this with the aid of a car or a train. I’ve just bought a ‘Lost Lanes of the south-east’ book (http://lostlanes.thebikeshow.net/) with about thirty rides in it – I intend to try to do one a month in 2018, which obviously means getting a train or driving to the start/finish of each ride. Hopefully we can organise some unusual club runs in Kent, Sussex, Suffolk, The Chilterns and maybe even further afield.

September saw David Veitch break a club time trial record yet again and in some style. Back on the E2 25-mile course again, he smashed through the 50-minute (30 mph) barrier and then some, setting an incredible time of 49:07.

Meanwhile some of us were racing at Hog Hill. This video is cunningly edited to make it look as if Charlie and I were always at the front of the 4^th cat race:

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case when we actually got to the finish line. The same afternoon Tim took part in the 3^rd cat race and also finished in the bunch. Racing with rather more success that month was Patrick McGrath who took just two races in quick succession to amass enough points to move up to 3^rd cat, with a 3^rd place in just his second race. One to watch next season!

Late September / early October always sees our ‘Crescent 30’ and ‘Comet 25’ open time trial events. These are named after the two clubs that joined together to form Lea Valley CC in 1969 (so the events have been running longer than our club has been existence). I was marshalling for the 30-mile event at the roundabout by Duxford Imperial War Museum. To our surprise, there was an airshow on that day and the roads became increasingly clogged with traffic that at some points was stationary around three-quarters of the roundabout, and one of the two lanes was coned off just to add to the confusion. Nevertheless, the riders managed to pick their way through and still set impressive times. Colin Ward of Essex Roads CC won again with a time of 1:03:17. The fastest Lea Valley rider was Colin Ross who came 13^th overall in 1:11:25 (25.2 mph). Full results here: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/311505/

The following week’s 25-mile was held in typical end of season conditions: strong winds and loads of standing water from the overnight deluge. David McGraw of Cambridge CC won in 54:52 while Chris Parker was the fastest Lea Valley rider with 1:03:55. Again, full results are here: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/311506/

 Then came our ‘Gordon Atwell Tourist Trial’ event. As last year’s winner, Alex Sweeting was charged with organising it this year. It’s a bit difficult to explain this event if you haven’t done it. It’s kind of a mixture of a sportive, an old-fashioned reliability ride and a mystery tour. You aren’t given a route to download and stick on your Garmin – instead part of the challenge is reading instructions which you are given at the Burton End HQ beforehand and trying to plot them on a map. You then have to aim to get back at a certain time which corresponds to a particular average speed. Whoever gets back closest to their allotted time is the winner.

This is more difficult than it sounds – if you don’t know exactly how far you will be riding it’s difficult to judge how fast you should be going. Things were further complicated this year by a savagely strong west-to-east wind, which meant the return leg of the ride would be much harder than the initial miles. I rode with James Morris and we made the task even more challenging by repeatedly getting lost to the extent that during the first half of the ride we were scarcely ever on the official route (and at one point when we did finally get back onto it, we rode it in the wrong direction for several miles before realising something had gone wrong). We also lost a good ten to fifteen minutes in a Good Samaritan act helping a man who had somehow managed to wrap his chain round and round his pedal. Actually, I say ‘we’ helped him, but it would be more accurate to say James single-handedly removed the chain and the rear mech and got covered in oil sorting everything out while I stood around saying useful things like ‘how did you do that?’ and ‘I think you’ll need a lift home’. Anyway, needless to say we didn’t win. That honour went to Rosie Sweeting (who had recently married the organiser – I’m not saying that interfered with the judging, but some people might smell conspiracy there) and Jeanette Degiorgio.

Following this came the annual hill climb on Mott Street. This has been getting bigger and bigger in recent years and this year it was as big as possible: we had a full field of 60 riders and had more who wanted to ride that we couldn’t offer a place to. Our numbers were boosted by CC London, who had decided to hold their club event on the same day, and various other local clubs, especially Shaftesbury CC.

It was a very close-fought battle for first place with two Lea Valley riders a good ten seconds clear of the rest of the field. Last year’s winner David Veitch set a blistering time of 2:12 but that was only good enough for second place. Michael Krukov took first with a time of 2:11. We had about 25 riders from our club taking place – far too many to give a detailed account of everyone, but it’s worth pointing out very impressive debut performances from Steven Boyle, George Kemp and Lewis Miles and a significant improvement from young Aidan Kerrigan. The full results are here: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/312632/

Tim Stout of Shaftesbury CC took many photos of the event which you can find here: https://keepsnap.com/timstout/gallery/3500 They are available for download for approx £1.50 per photo (part of which will be donated to Children In Need) – the photos will be online for about one more month and then deleted.

The week after that was our club’s annual circuit race, the Len Cooper, at Hog Hill. The weather was cold, but much sunnier than last year’s foggy edition. As is traditional, we started off with a neutralised President’s lap and kept the pace relatively gentle during the unofficial ‘truce’ after that: 

Then the pace lifted as the hooter went to signal a prime would be held at the end of the next lap and this is where the race split apart:

In the second video clip above around the 1:30 mark you can hear the hooter and my rear cam shows Michael Krukov and David Veitch, the top two from the previous week’s hill climb, sitting just behind me at the front of the bunch. This was the shape of things to come (apart from me, obviously – as you can see from the rest of the clip I expertly slid from the front of the bunch to the back just in time to miss all the action). Michael won the prime and a front group of five emerged, initially closely followed by a second group of about six or seven. Before too long Michael and David had shaken off the rest of the front group and they spent the rest of the race in each other’s company, while Alex Sweeting, Paul Roberts (who already had a race from the previous day in his legs as he desperately searched for the single point he needed to maintain his second cat status) and Steven Boyle slowly dropped back to swell the numbers of the second group on the road.

David won the second prime and, as Michael freely admitted, was the stronger of the two of them on the day, but he was unable to get rid of Michael. The two of them lapped even the second group before going clear again to contest the sprint, in which Michael surged off David’s wheel to claim victory for the second week in a row. When the second group came round, Paul Roberts won a close sprint for third place from Steve Boyle. 

At the end of November we had our annual lunch / prize giving at Wanstead Golf Club. This year we were treated to Michael Hutchinson (multiple time trial record breaker and national champion) as our guest speaker. He did it as Q&A session and dealt well with our questions on topics ranging from the relatively safe topics of his own career and his Cycling Weekly column to more controversial issues such as the reputation of Wiggins and Team Sky in the wake of the TUE and mystery package revelations. Michael brought along some copies of his latest book (https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/recyclists-9781472925596/) to sign and sell – I bought it myself this summer and can recommend it.

As always, a lot of silverware was dished out – so much that it would be impossible to list every single prize here, but here is a taste…

Colin Ross picked up multiple prizes including Club Time Trial Champion, Club Best All-Rounder, Club Time Trial Handicap Champion, Best 30-mile TT, Best 50-mile TT and Best 100-mile TT

Trudy Sharam picked up prizes for Best Women’s 10-mile TT and Best Women’s 25-mile TT (breaking both club records in the process)

David Veitch won the Best 10-mile TT and Best 24-mile TT setting new club records of 19:29 and 49:07 

Paul Roberts became both Club Road Race Champion & Club Track Champion

Michael Krukov won the Len Cooper circuit race, the Hill Climb and became Senior Road Race Champion 

Most improved riders: Jemma Taylor & James Morris (who also won the Betts Trophy for the ill-fated first day of his ride up to Edinburgh)

Winners of the Gordon Atwell Tourist Trial, Rosie Sweeting & Jeanette Degiorgio

The club runs are still going strong, despite the wintery weather. Alice Cutter has taken over running the Women’s Rides from Chrystyna (who has now had her baby, we’re glad to hear) and these are still happening once every couple of months. Here is their Blackmore café stop on the November ride – the next one is coming up in January.

Meanwhile, the usual reminder that ideally everyone should have a rear mudguard during the winter months, otherwise you will end up looking like these guys (Lewis, Simon and Simon):

Even more extreme, this is George Kemp’s bath after he decided to try off-roading in Epping Forest with James Morris and Chris West:

Over the festive period we had about 15 riders on the Christmas Eve club runs – some doing 45 miles with a supposed coffee stop at a pub that was actually closed (and which we only discovered wasn’t going to open after we had sat outside it in the cold for 15 minutes), and some doing 70+ miles with a loop around Hanningfield Reservoir. One week later only 8 of us braved the weather on New Year’s Eve – not surprising given that there was something of a storm going on when daylight broke, but in the end it wasn’t that bad on the ride.

Away from riding we had a good turnout at The Castle in Walthamstow Village for our drinks to celebrate Christmas and also a multitude of birthdays – by a strange coincidence about half a dozen members have their birthdays either on or just before Christmas Day.

Less successful was our AGM the week before. In order to actually pass any votes and elect club officials (including the new President to replace John) the meeting has to be quorate. Given the ever-growing membership of the club that now means we need about 30 members to turn up on the night, but we only had 12 and so nothing could actually be voted on. We have had to reschedule the AGM to have a second attempt: it will now be on Tuesday 9^th January from 8pm – 10pm. (Edit: No, it won’t! It will now be the following Tuesday, i.e. 16th January). Please make every effort to attend if you can, otherwise we’ll be in administrative limbo (and John might have to remain club President for eternity). In case you didn’t know, club nights are no longer weekly, they are monthly, and they aren’t in the church hall any more. We are now based in the Scout Hall, 205a Wood St, Walthamstow, London E17 3NU. See you there and have a good 2018!

Jamie 1/1/18

Hi again. Time for an update on what’s been happening since April before the Tour de France gets underway and takes all of our attention. First off, some good news: Alex Sweeting is back on his bike again after several months out following his nasty crash and recently got married to Rosie. In the meantime several of us have tried to emulate his crashing skills, including Adam Luck who was suffered a terrible crash in a road race, Harry Sewell faceplanting into the back of a car, Roland Karthaus wrecking his shoulder, Barnaby Barford hitting the ground with his pedal while cornering in the Nocturne Brompton race and somersaulting off his bike (while wearing a jacket and tie - the indignity!), and last (and definitely least) my slow-motion embarrassment as I rode into the kerb while stopping at Hatfield Heath in the club run.

Yet more club time trial records have been broken (subject to official ratification, etc.). Trudy Sharam set a new fastest women’s time for 25 miles in our open time trial on the E2 course in April with a time of 1:04:53. She then followed this up by breaking the club record for 10 miles the following month, again in our open event on the E2, doing 25:32. Congratulations Trudy! In the same event, David Veitch broke the club record for the men’s 10-mile, crashing decisively through the 20-minute barrier with a fantastic time of 19:29 (an average speed of 30.8mph). David also won the 10-mile event at the ECCA Festival. Chapeau again!

These are by no means the only good times that have been set by our riders recently - there have been PBs all over the place. This is not necessarily an exhaustive list (it’s difficult to keep track of everything with so many people riding for the club these days), but some of the highlights:

Colin Ross did a 20:49 in our 10-mile event. He also did 56:05 in the ECCA 25-mile TT in late May and managed 1:58:12 in his 50-mile debut.

Ellen Dyverfeldt was not far behind Trudy in the 25 with a time of 1:06:09.

James Morris has broken through the hour barrier a couple of times, with his best being a 57:55 in the VC Norwich event in May. He also managed 23:59 in an ECCA 10-mile event.

Adam Bishop (who recently saw a cat) also set a PB in the VC Norwich event with a time of 58:14.

Mark Freeman recently smashed his 25-mile PB to pieces with a 1:06:55 on the E2 course. He’s also done some good work with Karly Bunyan and Dave McCarthy in the three-up section of the Victoria CC 10.2-mile time trials.

And Neil Davies and Alex Galloway came a creditable 2nd* in the two-up 10-mile event at the ECCA Festival with a time of 24:59.

Apologies to anyone who has been missed out!

Sticking to the world of time trialling, our Tuesday Tens have been proving as popular as ever this year. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to make it to a single event this season as I’ve been working every Tuesday evening, but from scanning the results, it would appear that the fastest Lea Valley riders taking part have tended to be Paul Roberts and Tim Holmes, both racking up top ten placings with times of about 23.5 minutes. Well done to everyone who has been racing in these (or helping out - always appreciated. Some photos from the Velopark:

Talking of Paul Roberts, he has been quite consistent in road races this season with an 8th place at the Velopark in April, a 9th at Hog Hill in May, and another 9th in Milton Keynes the same month. Here he is in action at the recent London Nocturne event:

And here is Roland (pre-accident) also at the Nocturne:

Tim Holmes also has also scored some BC points this season with a 6th place at Hog Hill in May. Tim and Paul also raced together in a road race at the start of May, which meant they missed our club-members-only circuit race on the lower circuit at Hog Hill. This left they field open for Michael Krukov, our latest second cat racer, to dominate the race. The race took place on a grey and chilly Sunday morning and was unofficially neutralised for the opening laps until the first prime was announced:

With the prime announced I attacked hard near the turn halfway up the hill. Not long after, Michael caught and passed me and disappeared off into the distance never to return:

This left a group of about ten of us fighting it out for second place, occasionally lapping dropped riders, but never catching a glimpse of Michael until, with the race nearing its conclusion, he came round to lap all of us!

At this point I decided to latch onto his wheel in a cunning attempt to drop the rest of the bunch. Needless to say, Michael son dropped me (and everyone else) before soloing to victory more than a lap ahead of the field.

The final laps saw a flurry of attacks in the battle for second place. Aidan Kerrigan, Harry Sewell and Trevor Whittock all tried to get away, but I heroically and selflessly chased them down before being outsprinted by wheelsucking scum who had hidden all race (not that I’m bitter about it).

In all seriousness, Harry sprinted well to claim second place, with a close battle behind going (we think) to Lewis Dixon ahead of Aidan and George Kemp. (Edit: just seen the official results and Aidan actually beat Lewis!)

Another brief racing mention: well done to all those who took part in the Tour of Cambridgeshire event

The club runs are going very well. Over the last month, the B group seems to have got faster and faster (to the extent that we might need to change the definitions given in the FAQs: https://leavalleycc.tumblr.com/post/158561646193/lea-valley-cc-club-runs-faqs

The B group have averaged over 19mph several times recently and even 20mph on this sun-drenched club run:

Here are a taste of some of the many photos from A group, B group, C group and Social rides in the last couple of months:

I should also mention that Huw Thomas successfully completed the frighteningly ‘challenging’ Fred Whitton sportive in the Lake District, while James Hislop did and end-to-end in Ireland: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2017/jun/07/mizen-to-malin-bike-blog-six-days-ireland-lands-end-john-o-groats

And finally, some upcoming events. We have the ‘Bill Major’ 25-mile time trial on the E1 course (based at our HQ in Ugley) on Sunday 9th July. This is not an ‘open’ event so the field will be quite small (probably 20 riders). If you’re interested in entering or marshalling (help needed as always!), have a look on the forum: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/events/3098/

One week later, on Sunday 16th July, is the annual reunion event at our other HQ at Burton End (near Stansted Airport). A great chance to eat, drink and socialise (plus some of us will be riding up there and maybe back again), get more details here: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/events/3102/

Spring is here at last and the racing season is well and truly underway. One of the traditional ‘season openers’, on the first Sunday in March, is the Hainault Hilly time trial which follows a route a shade under 30 miles that takes in the climb of Theydon Mount twice. We had three riders entered for this, but things didn’t really go according to plan: the weather forecast was for hours of torrential rain, strong winds and temperatures of just 2C. Two of us bailed leaving just Adam Bishop to take part. He discovered that they had had to amend the route (so the hill was no longer in it), but he didn’t get that far anyway, puncturing after just 20 minutes. A resounding success for Lea Valley.
The following weekend saw the first event that we organise each year: the Frank Truman 25-mile time trial on the E1 course which starts and finishes near our race HQ in Ugley. The weather forecast was pretty similar to the previous week, but fortunately this was wrong and the event took place in dry conditions and without usual killer headwind on the return leg. The E1 is not a fast course and you are doing well if you can get under an hour there – nevertheless, the top 18 riders all managed this and the winner, Stuart Travis (Team Bottrill / HSS Hire) set a cracking time of 51:49, more than two minutes ahead of the second-placed rider and only about the same margin short of Alex Dowsett’s course record.
We had eleven riders from our club taking part in the solo event: Colin Ross, Barnaby Barford, Charlie Gregory, Alex Galloway, Adam Bishop, James Morris, Tim Holmes, Chris West, Jamie Fake, Neil Davies and Chris Pollard (in that order). Colin did a 1:01:05, 15 seconds faster than Barnaby, while Chris’s time was 1:08:07 which meant that even our slowest riders averaged over 22mph on a slow course in their first race of this season – a better sign than the previous week’s washout.
This time trial also contained a two-up event. The fastest pair were John Mulvey (Cambridge University) and Sebastian Dickson (Thanet RC) who got a time of 52:52, while from Lea Valley our pair of Mark Freeman and Dave McCarthy did 1:12:31 and Trevor Whittock came out of semi-retirement to partner ex-LVCC Gary Boyd 1:08:51.

The following weekend there was a smaller ‘interclub’ time trial (between Shaftesbury CC and ourselves) on the same course but in brutally windy conditions. James Morris and George Kemp took part and both managed about 1:07:00 on a day which was probably two minutes slower than the previous weekend.
On the first weekend in April, many of us were in road racing action. On the Saturday four of us headed over to Hog Hill for CC London’s ‘Hog With The Occasional Hill’ crits. This involved an unusual course: most of the race is on the lower circuit and in this edition it involved taking the lower cut-through (rather than the usual one halfway up the hill), but every twelve minutes or so we would be directed up the Hoggenberg to complete a lap of the full circuit. To be honest, the lower cut-through didn’t prove popular with us: the corner is really designed to be taken from the opposite direction which made it very tight. Unless you were at the front of the bunch you had to grind to a virtual standstill to squeeze round it which made everyone bunch right up and people got squeezed out every time.
Anyway, there were just under fifty starters in the fourth cat race, including me (Jamie), Charlie and Huw Thomas. Charlie was most active at or near the front, although Huw did manage a short-lived dig off the front mid-race. The pack stayed largely together, though a few were shelled out early on and others lost contact each time we were directed up the climb. The riding was a bit sketchy and jittery and there were a number of small crashes, although thankfully most of the time this just involved single riders going onto the grass and managing to get back up again. The exception came when we were in the closing stages of the race – as we descended the full hill from the third and final full circuit it meant we were approaching the right handers at nearer 40mph (instead of accelerating up from about 5mph having squeezed round the cut-through). On the second and longer bend there appeared to be a touch of wheels between two riders on the outside just ahead of me and one went somersaulting off at high speed. As we continued round for our final laps we could see him lying on his back not moving while the organisers tried to look after him: a constant reminder of the danger of cycle racing.

After 45 minutes the race reached its climax and Charlie found himself in a good position for the sprint with space opening up ahead of him on the right hand side. One guy got a length or two clear to claim first place, but the battle for second was an incredibly close four-way lunge with Charlie being judged to have come fourth overall in the photo finish. With those early season points on his licence it shouldn’t be long before Charlie makes the move up to 3rd cat.

Huw finished mid-pack in 24th place and I was a second or so behind in 30th. After that, Tim was our sole representative in the 2nd & 3rd cat race. This was also over 45 minutes and on the same course, but whereas our race had average 24.4mph, Tim’s one showed the higher standard with an average of 25.6mph. I think this was Tim’s first race involving 2nd cats, so a bit of a shock to the system after the winter months off, but he coped well with it and managed to come in with the bunch in 31st place.
The following day saw more riders in action in the two road races put on by Chelmer CC on a 14-mile loop in the Roxwell / Leaden Roding / Willingale area of Essex. The two races are run simultaneously (about ten minutes apart) with the ‘challenge’ event (which is mostly 4th cats with a handful of 3rd cats) doing 42 miles and the higher cat race doing over 70 miles. The challenge event is very rare in that it prioritises entries from 4th cats giving them an opportunity to race on the open road which can be difficult to come by normally (most 3rd/4th races are the other way round: 90% 3rd cats and a handful of 4ths). We hoped to have a team of six or seven riders in this event, but unfortunately it was massively oversubscribed (the organiser said he had over a hundred entries) and in the end only Barnaby Barford made the cut, with Tom Orr making it onto the reserve list.
On the day, Tom did get a ride. He was with the bunch for the first twenty minutes, but then found himself suddenly losing contact: “Was badly placed going into a corner and wasn’t expecting the mega acceleration out of it, so found myself about 10m off the back, and couldn’t close. I knew it was over for me as a race when the commissaire came through I pretty much knew I wouldn’t get back on. Swept up a few other dropped riders, but none of them wanted to ride with me so I basically rode a 30 mile TT.”
Barnaby, on the other hand, had a much more successful race (until the very end): “That was fun, classic Barford. I’ve been on tougher club runs to be honest. I didn’t listen to Uncle Trevor or Michael. It was fairly easy, put in 4 or 5 attacks, chased down attacks, kept in the first 6 riders most of the race. Wasn’t sketchy at all, quite polite actually, knew a few ELV riders so that was nice. Got to the final km or so and a Range Rover came the opposite way heard a big fall behind me, the clattering of carbon on road – ouch! Only a few left in the sprint I was super well-placed, I could almost smell victory, got up to sprint and my hamstring totally cramped - haha! Had to sit up for the last couple of hundred metres and didn’t contest the sprint at all. So all in all good fun, quite a bit of faff one way and another. I’m not very good at sitting in, I found that a bit boring so it was fun having a go, but to be honest each time it was difficult to get a cohesive through and off break and as the race wasn’t that fast I think everyone still had the legs to close things down. I guess I hoped to do better but for my first race it was fun.” A major improvement on last season when Barnaby’s race-ending cramp occurred in the opening seconds of his first race.
Meanwhile, new member Michael Krukov was in the higher category race on the same course. Michael has only started racing this winter but has been making incredible progress and had already been promoted to 2nd cat status by the time most people started their seasons. He has been racing crits mainly, but is very keen to get involved in the ERRL road races and this was his first taste of the action. “My race was just over 71miles, covered at a 25.7mph average. If anyone wants a breakdown… There were some very strong riders/teams on my start list so I got paranoid that a break would go from the first lap, never to be seen again. I spent the first 30mins near/at the front, responding to everything and my Garmin showed 310W -5W/kg (normalized) so I was close to blowing up. Having wasted enough energy and it looking unlikely that a break would form, I went to the back of the bunch, where I sat for 90 minutes, soft-pedalling and averaging 180W, which felt amazing. With about 45mins to go, I followed the wheel of a rider overtaking the bunch and slotted in among the first 10 riders at the head of the race, a position I held until around 3miles from the line, when I started rapidly losing position because the rider I was drafting faded hard (possibly cramped?) and trains of riders moved up on both sides of me. Rolled in with the congested bunch despite legs wanting to sprint! All the big hitters I singled out before the race placed outside the top 9 so the finish was a bit of a lottery as the race wasn’t really hilly/windy, which would have rewarded those strong/brave enough to detach themselves from the bunch. A few lessons learned and absolutely stunning weather are the positives! Not too many negatives as it’s only my first road race and there’s a lot to learn!”
Michael was back in action the following weekend in the CCA Primavera 2nd/3rd/4th cat race near Cambridge. “The race was a lap too long. I ran out of fluid/food early, which had a huge impact in today’s heat. Five went off the front with 2 laps remaining and the bunch completely gave up, almost coming to a standstill.
I attacked on the last lap with another rider - we got a solid gap quickly and caught one up the road. Worked well as a 3-up before I got dropped on the long climb with around 10km to go. Happy I didn’t give 100% to stay in contact, as I would have likely blown up and been swallowed and spat out by the entire bunch.
Dehydrated and dying, I have no idea how I held on solo to the line, before collapsing. 10 points in the bag though, but can’t stop thinking about what might have been if the race was shorter or I had just two more gels.”
That same weekend saw our club’s second open event of the season, a 25-mile time trial on the fast E2 course up near Newmarket. This attracted a VERY high quality field and the times were superfast. Amazingly 24 riders went under 50 minutes with two riders managing 45s: Matthew Smith in 45:59 and winner John Dewey (both of Team Bottrill / HSS Hire) in 45:20. Until last year, this would have been the competition record!
Our own David Veitch came 30th overall with a time of 50:23. This was a personal best, beating last year’s time by about 30 seconds, and means he has broken the club record again for the second year in a row! Rather than celebrating, David was bemoaning the fact his power was 25 watts down on last year. I recognise this perfectionist streak in myself: many is the time that I’ve sprinted to 31st place in a 4th cat race but instead of basking in the post-race glory, I’ve berated myself because I knew deep down that if I had focused more and tried harder I could have been 28th. Anyway, congratulations (yet again) to David and thanks to everyone who helped out with marshalling and other duties at the event – we will be looking for more volunteers for our next time trial, a 10-mile time trial (also on the E2 course near Newmarket) on Saturday 6th May.
Other dates for the calendar: the very next day (Sunday 7th May) we will have a circuit race on the lower circuit at Hog Hill. This is for club members only: you should have received a newsletter the other week which told you about this – if you didn’t get this, your membership has probably lapsed so click here to renew: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/club/profile/1376/lea_valley_cc  And following hot on the heels of this, our Tuesday Tens series of time trials at the Velopark circuit begins again on Tuesday 9th May.
The club runs are still going strong and we have been able to split into more and more groups to cater for people wanting to go different distances / at different speeds. The ladies’ group rides have now become a regular monthly event and Monika is leading the next one tomorrow (Easter Sunday). Now that the evenings are lighter and warmer again the plan is also to revive the weekly Thursday evening rides on the Velopark circuit – this should happen later this month.

Happy Easter!

You might be thinking about racing on the road for the first time, but don’t really know how it all works. Here’s a little guide to try to explain it all.

First of all, the big divide is between road racing and time trialling. Road racing is where you all start at the same time and the winner is the first rider across the finish line, whereas time trialling is where you ride individually against the clock (usually the riders are set off at one-minute intervals to keep them apart). For historical reasons there are actually two different governing bodies controlling these events: road races are under the control of British Cycling (which used to be known as the BCF – British Cycling Federation) while time trials are controlled by CTT (Cycling Time Trials, previously known as the RTTC).
Doing a road race in a bunch takes a certain amount of bike-handling skill and courage, plus, of course, you have to be strong enough to keep up with everyone else. For this reason, most people trying out racing for the first time start off by doing time trials – you are far less likely to crash and you go at whatever speed you can personally manage. So, we’ll look at time trials before road races.

The majority of time trials are held over a particular fixed distance. The most common distances are 10 miles and 25 miles, though there are also races at 30 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles and (for the masochistic) 12-hour events (where you ride as far as you can in 12 hours). Usually these courses go out and back on the same road: for a typical 10-mile race you would ride in one direction for approximately five miles, do a 180-degree turn at a roundabout, then ride back in the opposite direction to the finish line which is fairly close to the start line.
Broadly speaking there are two types of courses. A ‘dragstrip’ is a course where you can expect to set a fast time – these are usually busy dual carriageways and are fairly flat. A ‘sporting’ course is slower and would usually be on quieter, smaller roads and be a bit more undulating. Time trials are not held on closed roads, so you will constantly have vehicles overtaking you and you may well have to slow down or even stop at roundabouts. There are marshals on the courses, but their job is not to stop the traffic – they simply point you in the right direction.

The CTT splits the country up into about 20 districts. We are in the ‘London East’ district (which extends into Essex and beyond), which means our courses begin with the letter ‘E’. All time trial courses have a code name (a tradition dating back many decades to when cycle racing had to be carried out secretly) which begins with the letter of the district. The courses that we use for our own events are the E1 and the E2 (in fact the names are a bit longer than that as they also include the distance), both up in northern Essex / southern Cambridgeshire. On the CTT website you can find maps of the various courses. Here is the E1/25b: https://cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/course-details/e1-25b . This is a sporting course on B-roads which we use for several of our events. We have our own Race HQ building nearby: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/253853/.

Meanwhile, the E2 course is a dragstrip on the A11 dual carriageway near Newmarket: https://cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/course-details/e2-10

To take part in a CTT event you have to be a member of CTT-affiliated club (which Lea Valley CC is). Perhaps a little confusingly, to pay your £25 annual subscription and sign up to the club you actually have to go to the BC website (even if you have no intention of taking part in any BC events). Follow this link and then click on the ‘join our club’ button: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/club/profile/1376/lea_valley_cc

Time Trials are usually either ‘Open’ events or ‘Club’ events. A club event is intended to be only for members of one club and can be quite a small affair with just a dozen riders or so. An open event is open to members of any CTT-affiliated club and can have a field as large as 120 riders. Riders are seeded according to their ability (when you complete the entry form you give your previous fastest times, if you have any, so that the organiser knows how good you are). The fastest riders are given the numbers finishing with ‘0’, the next fastest riders are given the numbers finishing with ‘5’, and so on. The idea is to minimise the chance of riders of a similar ability ending up riding together – you are not allowed to ride with anyone else. You are set off at one-minute intervals. If a rider catches you and overtakes you, you must not try to sit on their wheel – you have to let them draw clear of you and not take shelter.

The serious time trialists (or ‘testers’ as they are known) scour the country looking for the flattest, fastest dragstrip courses and live in hope of a ‘float day’ when the weather is absolutely perfect and they can set a personal best. Because of this, races on the fastest courses are usually oversubscribed and organisers only let the fastest 120 riders onto the start list. If you are looking to race for the first time, it would be best to enter a race on a slower course like the E2 or the E91 (in The Rodings area of Essex) as these don’t usually fill up – or, of course, enter a club event.

You can find lists of events on the CTT website and nowadays you can enter them online. Follow this link (and then filter the district to ‘London East’): https://cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/find-events

There are some time trials that are a bit different to these. Several are described as ‘hilly’ and follow a course which involves plenty of climbing and a series of left turns instead of just out and back. These are usually over non-standard distances (e.g. the ‘Hainault Hilly’ is about 29 miles long). Also, at the end of the season in October and the start of November there are a series of hill climbs. These are very short and involve just a few minutes of agony racing up the steepest hills in the area.

In terms of equipment, you can race a time trial on a normal road bike, but you will find that the fastest riders are using specialist time trial bikes with aero bars, aero helmets, disc wheels, etc. If your budget doesn’t stretch that far, you can spend less than £100 on some clip-on aero bars that will probably make you about 1mph faster – quite a good investment when every second counts.

Now we turn to road racing. The biggest road racing organisation is British Cycling*. To take part in their races, you need to become a BC member (gold or silver) and pay for a racing licence: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/membership

When you first get a licence you will be a ‘4th cat’ rider. If you manage to finish in the top positions of a 4th cat race, you will gain some points (typically ten for first place, down to one for tenth). Once you have gained at least 12 points in one season you will be promoted to 3rd cat status. Similarly, if you get enough points at 3rd cat level you can move up to 2nd cat and so on. Races can be held for more than one category to compete in, so for example a 2/¾ race is open to 2nd, 3rd and 4th cat riders. At the higher levels you need to earn a certain number of points per year to keep your status, otherwise you get relegated down to the category below, but 3rd cats can never be relegated to 4th cat status.

You are most likely to start out by doing ‘crits’ (or ‘criteriums’ to give them their full name) on purpose-built road circuits. Traditionally, the famous circuit in our area was Eastway, but this was bulldozed to make way for the Olympic Park. However, there are three circuits within easy reach which have opened up in recent years. The Velopark circuit is about one mile long and loops round by the Velodrome in the Olympic Park (near Stratford and Leyton) – this is fairly flat and not terribly technical. Hog Hill (aka Redbridge Cycling Centre) is a bit further afield near Hainault. If the full circuit is used it’s about 1.25 miles long and involves a vicious climb on every lap, but sometimes the races use a shorter version and avoid the hill. Hog Hill is more challenging than the Velopark, both in terms of climbing and in terms of technical cornering. On one hand, this makes it harder to race – it’s much harder to sit in the bunch than at the velopark and races are often quite attritional at Hog Hill, with the bunch getting thinned out every time it goes up the hill. On the other hand, it’s actually safer with fewer crashes – partly because the bunch gets thinned out and partly because the sprint finish is up a steep climb. Outside of London, but still easy to get to in less than an hour, the Cyclopark circuit is just off the A2 on the outskirts of Gravesend. This is 1.8 miles long: there are couple of tight bends and a long, draggy climb rather than anything steep. Although most people see the race season as running from March to September/October, you can actually find crits organised on these circuits all through the year.

A typical crit for 4th cats will be over a set time, rather than a set distance. So the race might be described as “40 minutes plus 5 laps”. This kind of racing requires a very different effort to a time trial. Instead of one constant level of exertion, you are constantly having to vary how hard you work: one minute you will be sprinting as hard as you possibly can just to stay in touch, the next minute everyone is free-wheeling and looking at each other. Initially it’s all about being able to stay with the bunch (it’s so much easier to ride in the pack than on your own, so if you get dropped it’s very difficult to fight your way back to the bunch). As you get better at that, it’s all about learning to maintain a good position or even being able join the right break and stay clear and, of course, being able to sprint at the end of the race.

Races on the open road are longer than crits. While a crit would usually be between 15 and 30 miles, a road would be between 40 and 100 miles or more (depending on the level of riders taking part). These races are based on circuits (usually raced anti-clockwise so that every turn is a left turn) between 5 miles and 15 miles in length. The roads are not closed, but you ride in a convoy, so up ahead of the bunch there will be at least two cars to warn oncoming traffic of what is coming up behind them, while behind the bunch there will be a commissaire’s car, a first aid car and (if you’re lucky) a car with spare wheels and so on. You must stay on the left hand side of the road when there are white lines down the middle.

You can search for events using the ‘calendar’ on the BC website: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/events?zuv_bc_discipline_filter_id=21
As mentioned earlier, you’re more likely to have a crash in a crit or road race than in a time trial as you will be riding in very close proximity to dozens of other riders (perhaps even 80 riders in one group). Because of this you need to have experience of group riding before taking part in a race. It’s also well worth watching the series ‘Ride Smart’ and ‘Race Smart’ videos to learn about racing safely in a bunch. Here is one of them: britishcycling.org.uk/knowle­dge/article/izn20141117-Road-How-to-corn­er-in-a-bunch—Racesmart-0
Good luck!

*There are also races organised by other organisations, such as TLI and LVRC.

NB - this was originally written in March 2017, some things have changed so I’ve added a few edits

When do you go?
We have club runs on Sundays almost every week (unless it’s Christmas Day or the weather is truly apocalyptic).

Where  and when do you meet?
We meet at the gates to the Town Hall on Forest Road in Walthamstow: http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=537723&Y=189785&A=Y&Z=115
The idea is for the various groups to depart at 9:00 am. Inevitably, things can get delayed by 5 minutes or so, but you shouldn’t gamble on this – if you turn up at ten past you will probably find everyone has gone. A few meet up for a pre-ride coffee in the Winwood Art District café (just round the corner at the top of Chingford Road, near The Bell), but most just turn up at the town hall from 8:55 am onwards.
The idea is to have a second meeting point at ‘Acorn Hut’ (aka the green tea hut) at High Beach in Epping Forest:
http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?X=541127&Y=198305&A=Y&Z=120
There are often several different groups (more details below) – the more ‘social’-paced groups try to meet there with the intention of departing again at 9:45 am. The faster groups sometimes do this too (on these occasions they normally take a diversion to do a climb up Mott Street on the way there, while the social group rides straight up the Epping New Road), but on other occasions they will get there earlier and depart nearer 9:30 am, or some weeks not go through there at all. If in any doubt, it’s best to check on the club’s Facebook page for the latest plans.

How many riders are there?
Obviously this varies from week to week, but I would say typically we might have about 20 when we set off from Walthamstow and pick up another five or so at High Beach. However, we don’t ride in one group – partly because different groups of people want to go at different speeds, and partly because of safety (a big group makes it very difficult for cars to overtake us and could lead to unpleasantness). Typically a group would have 8-10 riders in it. When the weather is bad, fewer people are likely to be out (although having said that, we still had over 20 riders when the temperature was -5C) and there are several weekends when the club organizes a race or other event and this means many people are not available for the club run – as above, check on Facebook to see what the situation is.

How far do you go and how fast do you go?
Again, this varies from week to week. We have started trying to designate different groups/rides with letters to make it simpler:
Group A: fast and hard, ranging from 19 mph to >20 mph chaingang, if you’re dropped no one is likely to wait for you (usually 50-70 miles)
Group B: moderately fast, with an average speed from 17 mph to 18.5 mph, possibly a coffee stop depending on what people want (usually 50-60 miles) (Edit: the pace for this group tends to rise when the weather gets warmer. For a while in the summer of 2017 the Bs were averaging 20mph)
Group C: social, 14-16mph, coffee stop very likely – distance as above, but depends on when people want to get back (Edit: this has now evolved into two separate groups, C going at 16-17mph, and Social going at around 14mph, generally following different routes)
Introductory ride, gentle pace (12-13mph), shorter distance (maybe 25-30 miles)
This doesn’t mean all of these groups necessarily happen every week, though: there should be a ‘B’ group and a social (‘C’) group almost every week, but A will only happen if there are enough fast riders around that weekend. Similarly, the introductory (‘D’) ride only happens if there is someone to lead it. We aim to put a route up on the club’s Facebook page by Thursday or Friday, which will be followed by the A/B groups, though not necessarily by the others. There is usually a discussion on that thread where people negotiate which groups they will be in and who will be the ride leader.
There is now also a monthly Women’s Group ride which has been going since December. This is usually slightly shorter (more like 40-45 miles) with a café stop and the aim is to go at a pace that everyone can manage (perhaps 14mph). This is also announced on Facebook, usually several weeks in advance. Of course, women are welcome on the normal rides every week as well, but are normally outnumbered eight to one or more – the women’s rides redress the balance a bit!

If you are coming out with us for the first time, try to choose the most appropriate group. If you are new to cycling and haven’t ridden far before, the introductory ride is the best place to start. If you are more experienced, it’s probably best to err on the side of caution in terms of which average speed would suit you best (i.e. if you’re not sure whether to go with B group or the C group, try the C group first) - you don’t want to get dropped on your first ride.

When would I get home again?
This depends on the distance and pace (see above), whether there is a café stop, whether you have to stop because someone has a puncture, whether there’s a horrendous headwind on the way back, etc. As a rule of thumb, the B group would normally get back to Walthamstow* some time between 12pm and 1:30pm. The A group is usually similar. If John is leading the social ride he often tailors the distance to what people say they have time to do – if enough people are up for a long one, they might not get back till 3pm, but if people want to get back earlier, then that’s what happens. You often get people who say “I have to be home by X o’clock” who peel off and turn back early, or who plough on when others stop for a coffee, so don’t feel obliged to stay to the bitter end if you’ve got other commitments.
*not that everyone goes back to Walthamstow – as the ride leaves Essex and returns to the fringes of London the groups start splitting up as people head their separate ways to Leytonstone, Hackney, Chingford, Stratford, or wherever they live.

What do I need to bring with me?
At the absolute minimum, everyone should have at least one spare inner tube, some tyre levers and a mini-pump. Ideally, you should also have a puncture repair kit, a little multi-tool and perhaps another inner tube. If it’s the winter or it’s raining, it’s best if you have mudguards (out of consideration for whoever is riding behind you) – race blades are fairly easy to fit (and remove) on most road bikes. If you’re likely to be out when the light is fading, or if the weather is particularly bleak, you should also have a front and rear light.
Without wanting to sound alarmist, you also need to be prepared for the worst – you could end up being involved in an accident that completely wrecks your bike and/or leaves you in hospital. Make sure you have some money with you if you end up having to get a taxi or train and some kind of ID and contact details if people have to call your next of kin. Take your phone as well, so that you can call for a taxi / lift from a friend if you need it. If it’s going to be raining, make sure your phone is in one of those waterproof pouches (I learnt this lesson the hard way).
Common sense says you should have at least one drinks bottle with you and something to eat (most people favour a banana and some energy gels), especially if your group is not going to have a café stop. When the weather is hot we often end up having to call in at a shop to buy more drinks.
Also, you should know how to get home. If you aren’t familiar with the roads in Essex (or sometimes Herts) you should take a map – or, much more common nowadays, either a phone on which you can access a map, or better still a Garmin with maps on it. If you’re going on the A/B group ride and you have a Garmin, download the route we stick up on Facebook and put it on your device. We don’t want anyone to get dropped on any of the rides and try to avoid this, but you should be prepared.

What is a ride leader? Who are the ride leaders?
The ride leader should know the route and either lead the way or shout out directions (though, hopefully, other riders in the group should also have the route on their Garmins). Ideally, the ride leader should also keep an eye on how many riders there are in the group to keep track and check if anyone has been dropped (especially as we can get separated at junctions / on climbs). The ride leader should also give a shout out if he/she feels there is a need to stop / slow down / go single file for whatever reason (though anyone can do this – it doesn’t have to be the ride leader).
We try to negotiate ride leaders for different groups each week on Facebook. If there is an A group, the leader is often David or Barnaby, the B group is often led by me (Jamie), Karl often leads the C group, John often leads a social group, Edward is the person most likely to lead an introductory ride, and Chrystyna and Monika have been organising the women’s group rides (Edit: now Alice).

Where do you go?
We have different routes every week, but the vast majority of the rides are in Essex. Broadly speaking, some routes head east of Epping Forest through places such as Abridge, Navestock, Ongar, Blackmore and Hanningfield. Others head north-east through places such as Theydon Bois, Toot Hill, Moreton, Matching Green and Hatfield Heath. Less frequently, we head north-west through places such as Nazeing, Roydon, Much Hadham, Broxbourne and Essendon.
Every now and then there are train-assisted rides where we ride out somewhere and get the train back. In recent times we have gone to Saffron Walden, Cambridge and Brighton.

What kind of bike do I need?
You should have a road bike. To be honest, unless you’re on an introductory ride, you would struggle to keep up if you were riding some kind of mountain bike or hybrid. Similarly, you ought to have cycling shoes and pedals that you clip into or you will find it very difficult. Although tri-bars (aka aero-bars) are great for reducing wind resistance in time trials, they are not appropriate for group rides so please don’t use them.

What do I need to know about group riding?
We have to share the road with other users, so be considerate. Unless we’re out in the middle of nowhere and we can clearly see that there’s no other traffic around, we’ll be riding either single file or two abreast, not sprawling all over the road. Two abreast is generally preferred – it means you can communicate with each other more easily and it also means any cars don’t have to travel so far to overtake us (i.e. a line of five pairs of riders is half the length of a line of ten individual riders) – but there will be times when it’s safer to ride single file (e.g. approaching horses, or approaching a tight bend on a narrow lane, or going at high speed on a descent).
You want to ride close enough to the wheel in front that you get the benefit of riding in their slipstream, but not so close that if they suddenly touch their brakes you crash into the back of them. Ride alongside the person next to you – i.e. your front wheels should be level with each other. Don’t ride with your front wheel level with someone’s back wheel – they can’t see you and could swing out and knock you down / slice your spokes.
Bear in mind that lots of people are riding close to you and they need to know if you’re going to do anything unpredictable. Whoever is at the front of the group should make people aware of hazards. If there is a pothole or something lying in the road, people will point at it – those behind should copy this so that the instruction filters all the way back (if it’s a serious hole, people will shout out ‘hole!’). If there is an obstruction on the left (e.g. a parked car, someone walking a dog, a jogger, a slower cyclist about to be overtaken), people will put their left hand behind their back and point to the right (before moving out that way). If someone wants to push in the line in front of you (perhaps when the group is changing to single file) they will point to show that’s where they want to go.
If you’re at the back and there is a car (or other vehicle) following the group and looking to overtake, let the group know by shouting ‘car back!’ or ‘car behind!’. If we’re on a main road with lots of cars, don’t feel the need to do this for every car, but if we’re on a narrow country lane and the car can’t get past unless we go single file, it’s important to know. When the car starts to overtake you can shout ‘car through!’. Again, if it’s a narrow country lane (especially a twisty one) and you’re at the front of the group, you should ‘car up!’ or ‘car ahead!’ if a car is coming towards us**. Whoever is at the front should also shout ‘slowing!’ or ‘stopping!’ if we approach a red light or a traffic jam. When we come to a junction, those at the front should say if we have to stop – if not, shout ‘clear!’. See also: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/knowledge/article/izn20121221-group-ride-0
Be careful around horses. Slow down and go single file. Give a shout to let the riders and horses know you are coming. Pass as wide as you can. More tips here: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/knowledge/skills/article/izn20150106-Horses-on-the-road-0#wimtWI78eQXPPAg1.99

**a long-time club member has pointed out that the traditional shouts around this part of the world are ‘oil up!’ if there’s a car behind and ‘oil down’ if there’s a car ahead. To be honest, you will hear several variations (not least because the riders on the club run will come from all over the place), but if the shout comes from the front of the group it’s almost certainly a car ahead and if the shout comes from the back of the group it will be a car behind.

Will I be eaten by bears?
Bears have been extinct in Britain for more than a thousand years, so this is very unlikely to happen.

What if I don’t use Facebook?
Unfortunately, a lot of the communication about club runs between members currently takes place via Facebook. Hopefully when we have revamped our website the forum will get more use. This thread on the forum is sometimes updated with the route – you could try posting a question there: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/289309/