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/

The period of hibernation is almost over with the start of the season just a month away now - time to look back on what’s been happening over the last three months. The last blog told the story of our annual circuit race, the Len Cooper, which was held at Hog Hill and won by David Veitch: http://leavalleycc.tumblr.com/post/153824557288/len-cooper-2016

This time we pick up the action one week later with the club’s annual Hill Climb up Mott Street in Epping Forest. As always, the event was held on the first Sunday in November and this year it was sunny, but cold. We had a great turnout: 13 riders from within Lea Valley CC and nearly 40 in total with several from Hackney CC, Islington CC and Shaftesbury CC joining in the action (in Shaftesbury’s case this was because the event also counted as the 32nd Association Hill Climb). There’s not much you can say to report a hill climb: everyone set off at one-minute intervals and put in one big effort for two to four minutes that left them with their lungs burning, but then at least they could relax. Well, apart from one poor bloke who got 90% of the way up the hill and then found his way blocked by a combination of vehicles and horses – he had to go back down to the start and do it all again.

This video gives a flavour of what it’s all about:

Harry Sewell was back on photographer duties again, here is a selection of his photos:

In the 2015 edition, David Ross was the fastest rider with a time of 2:20. David isn’t actually in LVCC (although his brother Colin is) so the club champion in 2015 was Pedro Lopes (third overall with a time just under 2:24, with David Veitch and Carsten Meilandt bunched up within 3 seconds of him). Carsten wasn’t around to challenge this year, but Pedro and the two Davids were. This year’s winner (not only for LVCC, but overall as well) was David Veitch with a stunning time of just over 2:11, about two seconds ahead of David Ross in second place. There was no real competition to David from within the club this year: Nestor Salazar was our next best rider over 20 seconds back and Pedro sank to fourth overall within LVCC behind Tim Holmes. Well done to everyone who took part – a special ‘chapeau’ to Trevor Whittock (previous winner of this event on many occasions) who has not raced for a couple of years and hardly rides now, yet still turned up and beat me by five seconds to my dismay.

Full results here:
Rider / Time / Club / Overall Position / LVCC position / 32nd Association pos
18 David Veitch 2.11.42 Lea Valley CC 1 1 1
15 David Ross 2.13.67 Velo Club Motel 2
33 Matt Steel 2.20.98 Shaftesbury CC 3 2
10 Logan Moncheux-Irons 2.24.67 CC Hackney 4
19 Nestor Salazar 2.33.13 Lea Valley CC 5 2 3
26 Blake Gravenor 2.33.70 Islington CC 6
31 Dan Ryan 2.35.01 North Road CC 7
34 Samuel Thienel 2.35.95 Shaftesbury CC 8 4
20 Richard Parrota 2.36.39 Shaftesbury CC 9 5
22 Tim Holmes 2.36.70 Lea Valley CC 10 3 6
17 Pedro Lopes 2.39.95 Lea Valley CC 11 4 7
21 Johnathan Sutcliffe 2.42.82 Islington CC 12
08 Joshua Willis 2.43.07 Lea Valley CC 13 5 8
30 Serakhsa Kuthn 2.43.98 Islington CC 14
25 Trevor Whittock 2.47.32 Lea Valley CC 15 6 9
07 Colin Ross 2.50.20 Lea Valley CC 16 7 10
04 Andy Hodkinson 2.50.36 Shaftesbury CC 17 11
23 Jamie Fake 2.52.57 Lea Valley CC 18 8 12
02 Richard Johnson 2.58.09 Shaftesbury CC 19 13
27 Hannah Wylie 3.00.01 Islington CC 20
03 Aidan Kerrigan 3.01.54 Lea Valley Youth CC 21
01 James Morris 3.02.09 Lea Valley CC 22 9 14
05 Chris West 3.08.32 Lea Valley CC 23 10 15
13 Connor Dash 3.08.67 CC Hackney 24
11 Kat Wates 3.09.30 CC Hackney 25
09 Neil Irons 3.09.92 CC Hackney 26
16 Adam Jones 3.23.36 Hub Velo 27
37 Lucie Mouler 3.24.45 Private 28
39 Laurence Bellamy 3.25.07 Shaftesbury CC 29 16
06 Stewart Weston 3.34.18 Shaftesbury CC 30 17
32 Gary Jackson 3.36.82 Shaftesbury CC 31 18
28 Kath Hibbert 3.40.82 Islington CC 32
38 Derek Trangmar 3.40.86 Lea Valley CC 33 11 19
29 Alice Honetson 3.43.32 Islington CC 34
35 Mark Freeman 3.54.73 Lea Valley CC 35 12 20
36 William Green 3.54.95 CC Hackney 36
24 Dave McCarthy 3.55.61 Lea Valley CC 37 13 21
14 Jessie Feeney-Davies 3.58.09 CC Hackney 38
12 Charlie Dash 4.10.70 CC Hackney 39

In December we had our annual awards lunch in Wanstead - another great event. No surprise that David Veitch picked up a tonne of silverware after his annus mirabilis (in addition to winning the hill climb and circuit race in consecutive weeks he also broke the club record for the fastest 10-mile and 25-mile time trials), but there were plenty of others in on the action including Paul Roberts as the best road racer (he managed to move up to 2nd cat before the season was over), Adam Bishop with the fastest 50-mile TT (amongst others) and Neil Davies with the fastest 30-mile TT. Mike Keen was surprised to find himself winning the Betts Trophy for his trike-related foolishness. Special mention also went to Nicola Toms for her stunning performance in the track World Masters this year.

The club runs have been going strong through the winter, despite the conditions. Two weeks ago it was so icy that we had to stick to the route of the old A11 up to Sawbridgeworth and back - the temperature hit -6C on the way up and never climbed above zero for the whole ride. Despite this, we had over 20 riders and had to split into three groups. December also saw the first of the women’s rides organised by Chrystyna and Monika:

The next one is coming up next weekend (12th February). The whole idea of the women’s ride is that nobody gets left behind, so don’t worry about the pace. Check our Facebook page for details or if you want to ask Chrystyna or Monika any questions.

On the subject of club runs, the feedback we had from the survey last summer (see here: http://leavalleycc.tumblr.com/post/146913040653/july-2016-survey-results ) made it clear that people would like a designated ride leader and agreed average speed before they set off. We have been trying to implement that: this post on the forum explains the intended system with A / B / C / D groups: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/298206/#comment13398460. Where possible, a post will go up on Facebook / the forum by Thursday or Friday with the intended route and any ride leaders who have already stepped up. Please respond to these posts to let us know if you will be out, if so - in which group, and if you want to be ride leader. Every week we get newcomers contacting us through the Facebook who ask about joining the rides - often people are worried about overdoing it on their first club run so they want to know if there will be a slower/shorter group they could join. It’s a great help to us if we know exactly which groups will be out on the weekend coming up so that we can give people the right advice.

If you’re reading this on Saturday evening, you might like to know that tomorrow’s B-group are planning to go to Cambridge. Some will get halfway there and turn back, some will ride Cambridge and get the train back, and a hardy few are planning to do over 110 miles riding there and back. At some point we should have another train/car-assisted ride to take in the vicious hills of Surrey/Kent, especially seeing as Pedro has moved down there.

Our second wave of new club kit recently arrived - people were able to pick up their winter gear from the church hall on Havant Road on the Monday evening. Emma will be doing this again the coming Monday (6th Feb) so it’s not too late to get some kit (even if you haven’t pre-ordered). We will have another purchase window opening soon for delivery in the spring, have a look at what to choose from: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/299103/#comment13432093

And finally, if you’re thinking of racing this season, it’s time to start thinking about which early season races to enter (unless, like Tom and Charlie, you’ve already started doing freezing January crits). Several of us will opening our accounts at the Hainault Hilly time trial on the 5th March. Details here: https://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/race-details/14558

The following Sunday (12th March) is the club’s first event of the year: our 25-mile time trial on the E1 course (based at our race HQ in Ugley, not far from Stansted Airport). You can enter this as a solo rider or with a partner as a ‘two-up’ (but don’t forget, you must have paid your subs before you can enter any races as a Lea Valley CC rider - do it here: https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/club/profile/1376/lea_valley_cc

As always, if you aren’t riding we would be grateful for anyone to help out with marshalling. See you there!

Sunday 30th October saw the latest edition of our club circuit race challenge, the ‘Len Cooper’. Just like last year, it was held on the lower circuit of Hog Hill (Redbridge Cycling Centre), which means you only have climb the lower (and less steep) slopes before hanging a very sharp left and descending. The 2015 edition had been won by Carsten Meilandt, but this year was certain to see a new victor, as Carsten was busy with his nuptials:

We woke up that Sunday morning to discover thick fog. The more optimistic among us assumed it would have burnt off by the time of the race, but in fact it was here to stay, making for a chilly and damp race. Nevertheless, we still managed a field of 24, most of them sporting the new club kit. For several (perfectly valid) reasons, none of our female members were able to take part in last year’s race, so it was a welcome relief that this year that prize was also going to be contested, with Rosie Smith taking on Monika Koniecza.

We descended into the fog and did a few warm up laps. Incredibly, three people suffered punctures while warming up, so the start was delayed while this was sorted out.

Finally, we all assembled at the start line and, as is traditional, we were led out by club President , John Summerhayes, for the neutralised ‘President’s Lap’.

Although I had my video camera fitted, this year it suffered a nervous breakdown in the fog and recorded nothing (apart from several random photos at the start line). Fortunately, Alex Sweeting’s virb was working, so we have him to thank for all the video action this year. Here is the nice and easy opening to the race:

Last year the attacks started immediately at the end of the neutralised lap and the race was blasted into tiny groups within just two minutes. This most people out of the running within a minute or two of the action starting, so this year we agreed to have a 'truce’ up to the first prime. That’s not to say we kept up the genteel pace of the President’s lap - the average lap speed leapt up from a very sedate 12.5mph to far more respectable 20-23mph (though it would ratchet up to 24-26mph once the truce was over). John raised his hand, pulled over to the side and waved us on.

During the truce we managed to keep a decent-sized bunch of over twenty together:

Rob Smart and Monika were the first to get dropped:

There was a prime about twenty minutes into the race. David Veitch sprinted to victory in this and the truce was now officially over. The pace went up and more and more people went out the back:

Trevor Whittock, winner of this event multiple times in previous years but no longer racing, decided to go out in a blaze, launching an attack off the front only to be caught and dropped before the lap was out. A select front group of twelve had now formed, with Trevor going back to join a second group of five.

The attacks were flying, but nobody was really able to get away:

…though it was clear that David was the man to mark as the race entered the final five laps…

However, knowing something is probably going to happen and being able to actually do something about it are two different things. With three and a half laps to go, David just rode away - not even an attack as such, he just disappeared off into the fog. Paul Roberts, Alex and Colin Ross each made an effort to close the gap, but to no avail.

David even managed to catch and lap the second group as he approached the finish line, then came in solo to claim victory 20 seconds ahead of the chasing pack.

Confusingly, in the race for what turned out to be 11th place, Adam Bishop then sprinted hard for the line to lead the second group through. However, as they handed been given the bell on the previous lap, they still had one more lap to go - nice photo Adam, but no cigar.

Meanwhile the race was on for second place. The group of twelve had been thinned out - David was off the front, Steven Boyle had punctured and couldn’t continue, while Pedro Lopes had the frustration of puncturing on the final lap and being passed by the second group before he had finished carrying his bike to the line. In the end it was Paul who won the sprint from this group, though Alex came very close to catching him:

The final results were:

1       DAVID VEITCH  

2       PAUL ROBERTS (at 20 seconds)

3       ALEX SWEETING      

4       SOREN HANSEN      

5       CHARLIE GREGORY

6       COLLIN ROSS  

7       TIM HOLMES    

8       HUGH THOMAS        

9       JAMIE FAKE      

10     NESTOR SALAZAR  

11     TREVOR WHITTOCK (at one lap)

12     ADAM BISHOP  

13     TOM ORR

14     LEWIS DIXON    

15     JAMES MORRIS        

16     PEDRO LOPEZ (carrying his bike)

17     CHRIS WEST     (further back…)

18     KARL BUNYAN

19     CHRIS POLLARD      

20     ROSY SMITH    1st Lady

21     DAVE MCCARTHY    

22     MONICA KONIECZA  2nd Lady

23     ROB SMART      

24     STEVEN BOYLE          (DNF - puncture)

Massive thanks to Harry Sewell and Jessamy Robinson, who gave up their Sunday morning to came and stand in the freezing fog - without them we wouldn’t have any of these photos. Thanks also, obviously, to Trevor for organising the event and for Joe, Edward, Stan and others for the various judging tasks on the day.

So David Veitch became club circuit race champion. Could he back this up with victory in the hill climb one week later? Stay tuned for the next blog…

Well, September is here with that ‘back to school’ feeling, but let’s have a look back at the last month of summer, starting with probably the biggest cycling event of the year in this country - Prudential Ride London. I didn’t ride it myself this year (choosing to take it easy in the south of France instead), but we had more than 20 riders taking part this time and I’ve managed to get a few to tell their stories.

In addition to the many who got in as individual riders, we managed to enter two teams of four via British Cycling - a women’s team:

and a men’s team:

Huw Thomas and Tim Holmes from the men’s team report back:

Huw: “Met Rob McCall, Karl Bunyan and Tim at the bag drop. Got in our wave and all took it in turns to have a nervous pee. Me, Tim and Rob set off in a fast group. I got a bit excited and went too fast and got told off by Tim :-). Lost Rob at Richmond Park as the road went up slightly. Then lost Tim as he jumped onto a super quick chaingang with who other but Carsten leading it. I tried to latch on but was boxed in and missed my chance (probably a blessing in disguise from the speed they both managed). Goodbye Tim.

Rode the rest on my own. Trying to keep my pace up. Jumping from group to group. It was tough going. Realised when I got to Leith Hill my legs were shot. So just spun slowly up the climb at my own pace. Had to do the same on Box as well. My slowest times up both but I was shattered at this point.

Desperately holding on to the wheels in front on the way back. So, so tired by this stage. Painful.

Riding along the Embankment I was hoping the sight of Big Ben would give me the much needed lift (as per last year). This time nothing happened..lol..no adrenaline hit, my legs were blown. Turning onto the mall and the only thought was "the finish looks so far, do I have to cycle all that way” Ha :)

 Crossing the line, I clocked 4.33. Over 10mins faster then my target at the start of the day so really pleased.Even though it’s not a difficult 100 the speed makes it so hard and I really suffered for large portions of it. I would say it’s the most tired I’ve ever been. But in saying that I still can’t wait for next year- this time managed to place 1439 out 23000. So next year’s target - top 1000!“

 Tim: "Alex once described Ride London to me as the most fun you can ever have on a bike. I think he might right. Cycling around London on closed roads with nobody other than fellow cyclists about is an absolute joy. Central London forms the beginning of the route, and it turns out that with no traffic you can cross London pretty quickly. With the sightseeing done, it’s time to get down to some real racing.

Huw and I rode together through London, going out at a steady pace. As we made our way through Richmond Park, I heard someone call my name. I looked around I saw the Great Dane himself. Carsten was leading out a train of maybe a dozen riders. I knew I had to get on that wheel. I make my apologies to Huw and chased.
Carsten and I rode together in a strong group for much of the ride. That was until Leith Hill, where he seemingly sailed up the climb. I was left to battle the hills and growing cramp solo. Because our start time was so early, both Leith Hill and Box Hill were fairly quiet, I could take my own lines up. A nice reward for getting up at ten past four that morning.
Once the climbing is done, all that is left to do is get a wiggle on back into London. For me this was a battle between forming a strong group to share the work and the cramp that had developed in my quads and calves.
My official finish time was 4:13:36, knocking over 17 minutes off last year’s time. I’m very pleased with that! In fact, all the LVCC riders did very well, some very impressive times all round! As for Carsten. I did catch up with him, but in Green Park at the bag pick up. Turns out that he beat the bag lorry to finish too!”

As Tim and Huw have said, Carsten did indeed go painfully fast. In fact he was the 70th fastest (out of what - 20,000 or so?) clocking a time of 4:00:50, just a fraction under 25mph. I was impressed with my 20mph last year, my mind boggles at the idea of doing it at 25mph, and yet Carsten wasn’t even the fastest Lea Valley CC rider. David Veitch, taking time off from breaking club time trial records, went even faster (3:58:44) and was the 27th fastest overall. That is seriously impressive.

 David tells his story: “Started in the second group at 6:08 with Alex Sweeting and Barnaby Barford, about 4 mins after the first. Decent pace down the dual carriageways away from the Olympic Park with the large bunch, immediately starting to sweep up the slower riders from the first group. With closed roads you would think there would be lots of space but there were quite a few crashes around some the tighter corners as we made our way out of town. Not one to miss a crash, Alex managed to bounce his way through one albeit with a hard knock to his hand. 

 The group remained pretty large all the way out of London and down to the hills. However, most were hangers-on that would just ride up towards the front but not take a turn which kept stalling the group - very frustrating! The pace up the modicum of hills was relatively brisk to start with but slowed as fatigue blunted the initial exuberance. In true pro style, Barnaby had his soigneur waiting at this key point of the course with a bottle of coke, taking time out from her other role in life as his mum. Whilst going up was physical, going down was mental with the abundance of sketchy riding around some of the gravely lanes.  

 By the time the road flattened out again as we headed back to London, my legs were starting to feel it but I still managed to have a nice stint on the front of the bunch through Parliament as everyone started playing cat and mouse for the finish. I think some people thought they were in the pro race coming afterwards?! Still, it felt pretty amazing leading through all the crowds before I was swept out of the way on the mall finish, but I didn’t really care. Overall average speed of just over 25mph without that much effort, shows what riding in a big group can do for you if you can put up with it!”

 Here are David, Alex and Barnaby (who also did ridiculously fast times and finished in the top 200 themselves):

In fact, there were extraordinary performances from too many people to possibly go into full detail here. Take a look at these times - this isn’t even everyone from our club who did it, just the ones who were listed as having 'Lea Valley’ as their club, but I know of at least three more who took part:

I think we had 9 female riders in total, which is a very good showing. This included Gayle:

Jessamy:

and Monika:

Jess and Monika (who fought for the unofficial 'Queen of LVCC’ title back in the summer of 2013 at Hog Hill) had both recently returned to cycling after enforced breaks due to the joys of motherhood (!) but both managed to complete the course with good times.

Monika says “Overall a great day on the saddle. Start of the ride wasn’t so great for me as I felt a little bit dehydrated and low on energy. I was stressing myself about the climbs and just wanted to get them over and done with. Once they were out of the way I concentrated on the rest of the ride. At around mile 75 I saw my Garmin showing still under 5 hours and that just motivated me to finish strong. The last few miles went quick. I got to The Mall with a time of 5h 12min which was a big achievement considering that I only have been riding a bike for two months.”

 Meanwhile, in the world of racing, August was a fantastic month for Tim Holmes. Tim has been religiously following a training plan all season and was clearly reaping the benefits. We could see he was coming into form (this video taken by Alex, shows our 'sprint’ up Claypit Hill towards the end of a club run in late July - you can see Tim utterly destroy me and Alex: 

…but he hadn’t quite been able to turn his fitness into placings in races. That all changed on 13th August with his first ever victory in the Big Events 4th cat crit at Hog Hill. Here is Tim’s race report:

 "The group was small, maybe 40 or so riders. There were a few familiar faces from previous races, so I quickly worked out whose wheel I should stick on. There was a lot of bad riding in the bunch. I feel like I come away from most races saying “that was particularly bad today”, but it certainly was the case this time.

 My tactic, as ever, was to stick in the bunch until 3 or 4 laps to go. I did absolutely no work on the front. The only work I did was to catch wheels when breakaway attempts were made. Several audacious breakaway attempts were made. None of them stuck, but it livened up the race! The peloton slowly chased them all down.

So it all came down to the last few laps. With three laps to go I moved up the group on the hill. By this point, you could see that people were flagging. The bunch looked as though it was about to fracture, and I made sure I was towards the front. It’s at this point in races that I begin to doubt myself. This is the point that I lose. So much of competing is psychological. Perhaps buoyed on by my 9th place finish at the Velopark the previous week, I told myself that I was going to win it.

 I had considered going early, perhaps breaking away with a lap to go. But I didn’t really have the legs to battle the headwind solo. I would have to contest the final sprint. On the final lap, I moved up the bunch with surprising ease. Repeatedly sprinting up Hog Hill really does exhaust riders. By the time we were on the lower part of the Hoggenberg I was third from the front, but had been forced off the wheel of the guy immediately in front of me. I was in the no man’s land of not quite being at the front but suffering all the wind (which was rather strong).

 We were about half way up the climb, just before it really kicks and gets steep, but no one was attacking. In fact, the riders in front seemed to be slowing. This was my chance. I attacked! Sprinting as hard as I could, accelerating into the steepest part of the climb. I saw my nearest competitor slip from the corner of my eye. Amazingly, no one else came past. I had done it! First place!

 Afterwards a chap watching the race congratulated me and told me that no one had managed to hold my wheel. So that’s two top ten finishes on the trot! And now only 1 point for 3rd category! Roll on next Saturday!“

In fact, Tim’s next race (which was at the Velopark) had to be ended with two laps to go due to a nasty crash (not involving Tim). However, he was back in action last weekend with me down at the Cyclopark in Kent in another 4th cat race. I managed to last 30 minutes (out of 50) in the bunch before my lack of racing legs showed (I hadn’t raced since early June) and I disappeared out the back. Within a minute of this the bunch itself broke into two groups and I could see that Tim had got himself in the front one (chasing a lone breakaway rider who had been out front since the start more or less). Things fractured even more and from my viewpoint about half a lap behind, it appeared that Tim was in a group of four fighting it out for 3rd to 6th place. Exactly what happened at the end is a bit confusing - things broke up even further, somebody had a mechanical, and Tim came in alone to claim what we initially thought was 4th place. Great news: Tim now had enough points to get promoted to 3rd cat. Except then we found out the lone leader who had 'won’ the race after being out on his own for most of it was actually a 2nd cat who had somehow ridden the wrong race! Bizarre. So even better for Tim - this meant 3rd place.

In the world of time trials, David Veitch has been at it again, picking up 2nd place in the Bedfordshire Road CC 25-mile event at the start of August with a time of 53:40 on a rather windy day. He also won our own club-only event, the Bill Major 25-mile time trial back in July (held in the morning before our annual reunion event at Burton End) battling a horrendous headwind for the return leg. Results of that:

1. David Veitch 56:47
2. Colin Ross 1:01:32
3. Adam Bishop 1:04:06
4. Jamie Fake 1:07:13*
5. Trevor Whittock 1:08:43
6. Don Keen 1:09:05 (power-assisted)
7. Neil Davis 1:10:35
8. Mark Freeman 1:15:51
9. Sam Ibbut 1:16:26
10. Dave McCarthy 1:20:26
11. Rob Smart 1:21:32
12. Emma Ferguson 1:21:55
13. Armin Hersch 1:25:57
14. Carolyn Upson 1:30:23
        PTS
        David Ross 1:00:21
        Neil Hornsey 1:03:56

 *I foolishly chose to get up early and ride up to Ugley for this race - a 36-mile warm-up. I now know this is definitely not a good idea.

 The reunion itself was another success and well-attended and the food was, as ever, delicious.

 Speaking of time trials, we have several club events coming up. Mark Freeman is organising the Crescent 30 on 25th September and the following weekend (2nd October) Dave McCarthy is organising the Comet 25. Please get in touch if you can help out with marshalling for either of these events (they’re both on the E1 course based at our HQ in Ugley, near Stansted Airport and a lift can usually be sorted for people who can’t drive there). Marshalling a time trial is very easy - you don’t have to control the traffic or anything, just stand by a roundabout for an hour or two and about once a minute point which way the rider has to go. October will also see the Gordon Atwell Reliability Ride - this is a social ride, not a race, and there are two distances to choose from, details here: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/events/2129/#comment13187530. And, at the end of October, we should be having our Len Cooper club-only circuit race at Hog Hill.

 In track racing, Paul Roberts took part in the National Derny Championships at the Velodrome on 20th August.

Also at the Velodrome, but not on the track, there are watt bikes in the Velostudio which  we are hoping to use  for group training sessions through the winter. If you’re interested, get in touch with Neil on the forum: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/290477/

 The club runs are still attracting new riders every week. A clear message to come out of the survey carried out this summer is that people think it’s very important that there is a designated ride leader for each group and an agreed pace for each group before it sets off. This is easier said than done: it’s often not clear until late on exactly who will be out on any given Sunday and there is usually a mixture of people who want very different things in terms of pace / distance / cafe stop / time of return. Take last (Bank Holiday) Sunday for example - we had the annual car-assisted 'Summerhayes Summer Saunter’ led by John which took all day to do a longish ride at an easy pace with a lunch stop (report on this below), we also had the LVCC 'Dad’s club’ ride setting off at stupid o'clock in the morning and roaring around at a crazy pace (21mph for 60 miles) for those who had to be back very early for parental duties, and this still left perhaps another 20 riders at the town hall looking for the 'usual’ club runs. We managed to split into a fast group (which was supposed to go at 18mph, but actually went at 19mph) and a medium group going at about 16mph, but ideally we should have had the 'no one gets left behind’ group for newcomers as well (this usually covers a shorter distance at a much easier pace).

I have been trying to make sure that there is a route available for download from the ridewithgps website each Saturday evening and have started a forum thread where this should be posted each week: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/289309/#comment13182091. However, obviously I’m not on the club run myself every week, so I need other people to do this sometimes. It helps with the faster groups if plenty of people have got the route on their Garmins so that if things do get split up, we know that nobody is going to get lost in the middle of nowhere. Whereas in the past many of the faster group rides turned east at The Castle (in Woodford) and headed out through Chigwell Row and Stapleford Abbots, I’m trying to standardise things a bit so that the fast groups go up through High Beach as well as the more social group(s) - this often means riding up through Chingford and then climbing Mott Street to ensure that we arrive at High Beach at the same kind of time as the slower group. This means people can join us there if they live further out. It also means that people can change groups there if they realise the pace is wrong for them. We’ve also been trying to do it so that the two faster groups tend to use the same route as each other, so if someone gets dropped from the fastest group there will be a broomwagon along after ten minutes that they can slip into.

 One other innovation - we’re trying out cafe stops on some (but not all) of the faster group rides. On one hand, the faster groups have several riders who only have limited time available for a ride as they have to get back for family duties (including myself). On the other hand, it’s nice to actually stop and chat (without gasping for breath and dodging oncoming cars) for 20 minutes and see people without helmets and sunglasses on. As a compromise, the other Sunday we chopped about ten miles off the usual distance (down from 60-something to 50-something) to accommodate a cafe stop in Blackmore. We won’t do this every week, but every now and then.

 I mentioned the car-assisted Summerhayes Summer Saunter earlier. Here’s a report on it from Mark Jennings: ”The weather was set fair, with the possibility of some lights showers, when a small group set out on the LVCC Summer Saunter from Ugley to Maldon. No Gold, Silver or Bronze (or Cat 3s!) were on offer, just the chance to get out on the bike and experience the pleasures of the Essex lanes, at a moderate pace and with enjoyable company.

 El Presidente led the ride, utilising his trusty OS map reading skills. We made good time on the way out and arrived (to the surprise of some) on schedule. We had a leisurely lunch at The Queen’s Head on the River Blackwater. After a brief stroll along the quayside and an ice cream we set off on the return journey.

 On the way back we went through Danbury (apparently the highest point between Essex and Moscow, according to El Pres and part of our old road race course); Great Easton - a short stop to admire the Rolls Royces and Bentleys from a bygone era; and photo stops in Cock Green and Cobbler’s Green - I’m not making these names up! A last minute puncture meant that we didn’t get back before the rain came down but it didn’t dampen our spirits and I’m looking forward to next year’s saunter.“

And finally, the latest gimmick. If you use Strava, check out the 'Relive’ app that you can download for free and link to your account. It will give you a visualisation of your ride like this:

https://www.relive.cc/view/693209122

(as you can see from the photo taken at Toot Hill, Chris Pollard was suffering the effects of being thrown into this afterno proper riding for several months).

 So, farewell to summer and hope to see you on the club runs and at our upcoming events this autumn.

Last month I posted on the club forum: “ It feels like there has been a huge influx of new members over the last 2-3 years. Not so long ago the club run might have attracted just six or seven riders, we now regularly have over twenty and are able to split into two, three or even four groups going at different paces. Where once there might have just been two members racing on any given weekend, there can now be ten or more, and what’s more many of them are getting decent results, even wins. The kit has been redesigned and has helped give the club a much more visible presence in East London and out on the lanes in Essex. The Tuesday Tens have never been more popular and (as long as it’s not raining) can get over 90 riders taking part.

But on the other hand, the club night at the church hall is very poorly attended. In addition to this, the club puts on many races each season (considerably more than other similar-sized clubs) which means a lot of people are required for marshalling and other duties and often the organisers are left desperately scrabbling around for volunteers as race day approaches. This could well get worse in the future as some of the long-standing members who have spent many years as timekeepers and organisers are moving away.

Given all this, I thought it would be useful to get a sense of what we, as members of the club, actually want the club to do. What kind of events do people want to take part in (both cycling and social)? To what extent are members able and willing to help out at events? What kind of club runs should we have? When we know what people want, it will help us make the right decisions about what we should be doing in the future.”

For this reason I carried out a survey to gauge opinion within the club. Here is an in-depth look at the results.

Who are we?

The survey was completed by 43 people (well, kind of 44, but one person only answered a few questions and left the rest), of whom the vast majority (77%) were current members of the club, with five people saying they were intending to join in the future and another four who were lapsed members.

An even larger majority (89%) of respondents were male. While it is true that cycling (or certainly cycle racing) is and has been male-dominated and that you would struggle to find many clubs whose membership was 50/50 male/female, that still doesn’t look like a healthy ratio and I think we should be more active in recruiting more female members.

There has been a large increase in the membership over the last few years and this can clearly be seen in the results of the question about how long people have been members:

The survey suggests that three-quarters of members have joined in the last five years.

The age profile was also interesting. It appears that the average age of our club’s members is somewhere in the late thirties:

Just under half of the respondents said they were members of British Cycling, but without a racing licence. Just over a quarter said they were BC members and had a racing licence, while the same proportion said they were not BC members at all.

Part of the club identity is the kit, which has just had a major revamp with totally new designs and materials. The response to this was overwhelmingly positive: 88% said they liked the new kit and 79% said they wanted to buy more new kit in the next purchase window. There were many comments about this, again most of them very positive (e.g. “Love it! Had very positive comments from multiple total strangers too”), though some wanted longer socks / shorts and one person was worried that it looked like other clubs’ designs.

What kind of riding do we do?

The survey asked people which cycling activities they had taken part in during the last three years. By far the most popular activity was the normal weekly club run (which sets off from Waltham Forest Town Hall at 9am on Sundays) with 51% saying they frequently went on these and just 7% saying they never went on them. Variations on the usual out-and-back club run scored less well: only about 20% had been on either a train-assisted or car-assisted club ride and these people said they had only been on “one or two” of them. Even fewer people had taken part in the women-only rides, but then these have only just started up and there were only 5 female respondents to the survey (and all of them expressed an interest in taking part in them even if they hadn’t already done so).

There were two other activities that a clear majority of respondents took part in (only 20-25% said that they never did them): sportives (56% did these ‘frequently’ or 'occasionally’) and the Tuesday Tens time trials on the Velopark circuit (39% have done these 'frequently’ or 'occasionally’).

A narrow majority of respondents (51%) said that they had taken part in the members-only circuit races at Hog Hill or the Velopark, with most of those reporting that they had done them 'once or twice’. To be honest, it would be difficult to respond that you did these frequently as they are only held once or twice a year as things currently stand.

The numbers drop away as we start looking at other types of races. About 49% had taken part in time trials less busy B-roads, whereas only 10% had time trialled on busy dual carriageways (with just two members saying they had done this more than once or twice). About a third of members had taken part in criterium races on circuits such as Hog Hill, Cyclopark and the Velopark, and about 20% had taken part in road races actually out on public roads.

Comments about other activities included mention of the recent Tour of Cambridgeshire event (which is a kind of race and sportive combined), Audax events and club trips over to France to watch the Tour (including an ascent of Mont Ventoux).

What kind of riding do we want to do?

People were asked about their plans to participate in exactly the same activities over the next three years. There was a clear appetite to do more of everything: every single activity had a higher score for what people hoped to do in the future compared to what they had done in the past.

Club runs were still by far the most popular activity (with more than 95% saying they would be taking part in them at least occasionally). Although few people said they had been on car-assisted club rides (driving up to the race HQ in Ugley and doing a looped ride to/from there) or train-assisted ones (riding out somewhere and getting the train back to London), the number who said they would be interested in them was far, far higher. A good 70% or more said that they would like to do these perhaps two or three times a year. This is definitely something we should try to organise. Obviously car-assisted club runs can be tricky in that there are many members without cars so the logistics can be difficult to work out, but if a date is set for these far enough in advance, it should be possible for everyone to get a lift. These don’t have to be based at the race HQ either - I have considered trying to organise one where we drive down to Ide Hill (near Sevenoaks) and do a ride taking in the punishingly hard climbs in that part of the world. As for train-assisted rides: I rode down to Brighton with three others back in February and up to Saffron Walden in a group of ten or so the other weekend and really enjoyed the experience of getting onto roads that we don’t see every week. What’s more, we managed to get a group discount for the train back to London. The 'Summerhayes Summer Saunter’ usually involves a train back on the August Bank Holiday weeekend too.

There was also clearly a desire to do more racing. Nearly 80% wanted to take part in the club-only crits, about 65% in open criteriums and even 60% in road races on the open road. Similarly, nearly 70% were keen to take part in time trials on sporting courses and almost 50% in time trials on faster dual-carriageway courses (although 49% said that they did not want to ride or race on dual carriageways).

How do we meet off the bike?

In terms of social activities, just over half the respondents said that they hadn’t attended any club social events in the past year. Only seven people said that they frequently attended the weekly club nights at the church hall (and about twice as many said they attended 'rarely’). Personally, I can hardly ever go because of having to work in the evening, but I hear that few people have been going regularly. When I was able to go more regularly a couple of years ago, this was usually after a Tuesday evening club ride around the hills in Chingford. This bumped the attendance up to around twenty or so, but those midweek rides don’t seem to happen any more and evidently things have dwindled since then - not helped by some confusion earlier this year when the venue and day were changed. This was reflected in some of the comments in the survey, which included “I’m not sure what the actual point of the Monday/Tuesday night events is, and indeed when they’re happening. If there was a bit more clarity on the aim of the club nights I’d be more interested. Maybe if we could include bike maintenance/exercises/turbo stuff it would be more interesting?”. I will revisit this later on.

Monthly club nights at a pub (which don’t take place during the summer while we put on the Tuesday Tens) and the annual prize-giving meal were the most popular social events. Full figures here:

Helping Out

As a club we put on a lot of events - many more than other similar-sized clubs. We have the Tuesday Tens on the Velopark circuit every week for much of the summer, two open time trials on the E2 course near Newmarket, three open time trials on the E1 course near Saffron Walden (and club or association events on the same course, such as the Bill Major or the Len Waters events), an open road race near Haverhill and the club-only Len Cooper annual circuit race at either Hog Hill or the Velopark. For these events to take place we need helpers: timekeepers, marshals, people to man the sign-in desk, people to push off, people to judge at the finish line, people to cook bacon sandwiches - the list goes on and on. This has been the subject of some debate and there are many different schools of thought on this. Should we make it compulsory for every member to help out at least once per season? Do we have a large enough membership to justify putting on so many events? Is there an overreliance on the same faces helping out all the time and will these people be able or willing to do so forever?

The survey asked people how many events they helped out at last season. Nearly 63% said that they hadn’t helped at any events, but this included a large number of people who had only very recently joined and so wouldn’t have been able to help out last year. Even when the results are filtered to remove those people, there were still nearly 40% saying they hadn’t helped at any events. About 20% had helped at one event, about 15% at two events, and about 26% at three or more events. This certainly backs up the idea that the burden is not spread very evenly.

When people were asked which events they had helped at, the most common response was the Tuesday Tens (37%), followed by time trials on the E1 based at our race HQ in Ugley (30%), then time trials on the E1 near Newmarket (21%), then the club open road race (19%) and the members-only circuit race (14%).

The question “Do you think all club members should be obliged to help out at a certain number of events per year?” split opinions pretty evenly: 15 people said 'no’ (because people may well have work and/or family commitments which prevent them from helping out), 15 said 'yes’ but only once a year and 14 said 'yes’, twice a year. Nobody said three times a year. It’s worth bearing in mind that 49% agreed with the statement “I do not have a nine-to-five / Monday-Friday job so it is difficult to plan in advance which events I can take part in / help out at.”

People were then asked what kind of events they would be willing to help out at and how often per year. Some 64% said that they prefer to take part in or help out at events which are inside London and 51% said they find it difficult to get to events outside of London, so not surprisingly the most popular option was the Tuesday Tens at the nearby Velopark: 54% said they would be prepared to help out once a year at this event and 30% said they would help out more than once. It is fortunate that this is the most popular event as it is also the most frequently held event. There has been some talk about getting timing chips for this event, which would reduce the manpower required - in the long run this is almost certainly the way to go, but we have to see if it is affordable at the moment.

Next most popular were the E1 'Ugley’ time trials, with 65% saying they would help out once a year and 20% saying more than once. This compared favourably with the E2 Newmarket time trials: 56% said they would not be prepared to help at these, 36% said once a year and only 7% more than once. Why is this? Partly because the field is much larger in the E2 events - our '10’ and '25’ events on the E2 can have up to 180 riders set off at one-minute intervals which can mean it’s about four hours from the first rider starting to the last rider finishing. That’s a long time to spend standing by the side of dual carriageway / at a roundabout. By contrast, the events on the E1 usually have a field of about 60 riders which means the marshalling duty is over more quickly. It’s probably also because of the relative inaccessibility of the E2 - you have to drive for an hour or so to get there, whereas not only is the E1 less of a drive (about 45 minutes), but you can also get a train to/from there easily or even ride up and back (if you fancy a round trip of about 70 miles). It may also be that Saturday afternoons (when our E2 events take place) are less convenient for man of our members than Sunday mornings (when nearly all the E1 events are held).

Road races (both the open event and club-only circuit races) fell between the E1 and E2 time trials in terms of popularity for helping out at. It should also be borne in mind that people were generally not saying that they would be prepared to help at all of these events once a year - more that they were prepared to help once a year and they were indicating what kinds of event they were happy for this to be. So the number who could help out for any one event would be lower than the percentages given.

This was a hot topic and got 11 comments reflecting a wide range of opinions: “As an accredited marshal, I also help in approximately 8 other road races”, “Ideally I’d like to be competing in those events where available”, “With a young family finding time to get on the bike is hard enough but willing to commit time if needed. Tuesday Tens is probably the easiest as it does not impact the weekend”, “We should firmly imply that assisting at least once is a condition of membership, but with light enforcement”, “I’d rather race”, “E2 once a year - but only if the drive up can be shared… Otherwise I am out for ½ a day.”, “I started feeling obliged to help in events that I took part in (even if only occasionally). I think it’s hard to motivate people to marshal road races, especially given other time commitments, if they’re not taking part in that side of the club”, “Willing to help with events, but can only do so when I’m not racing in them!”, “I’d be happy to volunteer for any of the above if I’m not racing myself, however I have no experience in marshalling yet”, “Racing members should do their turn and stop relying on non racing members”, “Club-only events I would help with if more frequent but currently I’d rather ride them.”

Given that the Tuesday Tens require the greatest number of helpers over the year (because of their frequency) and given that they are relatively easy for people to help out at (given their location), it was asked “Would it be fair to say that all club members who take part in the Tuesday Tens must help out (and not race) at one of those events?”. The response was clear: 83% agreed and just 17% disagreed. This looks to be something we should implement next season.

Given the risk of being overstretched in terms of finding sufficient people to help out, people were also asked whether we should put on each type of event more often / less often or keep things as they are. The results of this question were interesting as the answers varied wildly depending on the type of event. There is clearly a high demand for the members-only circuit races: 54% said they wanted me more of these, 41% said to keep it as it is and only two people said we shouldn’t do them. We need to look at organising these more frequently - the insurance issues have been taken care of by running them as TLI events and they are obviously popular. In my opinion this should be a priority.

I had wondered if people would feel that the Tuesday Tens were held too frequently, but this was not the case: 71% said we should keep it as it is and twice as many people said we should do more of them than said we should reduce the frequency. For time trials on the E1 and the E2, there was a majority voting for the status quo: 61% for the E1 and 53% for the E2. Hardy anyone wanted us to do more time trials. About a third of respondents said we should we do fewer time trials (on both courses), while 8% said that we shouldn’t hold races on the E2 at all.

What should we do more of as a club?

In addition to putting on more members-only circuit races (see above), there was a clear appetite for several other things. A significant number of people expressed an interest in these activities: midweek evening club runs (62%), track sessions at the velodrome (59%), trips abroad to watch pro races (such as recent trips to catch the Tour de France and Tour of Flanders) (59%), training holidays (such as recent trips to Majorca, the Peak District and the Yorkshire Dales) (56%), and (as discussed earlier) train-assisted club runs (44%).

Again, there were many comments given in this section. Some were keen to say that we should be more involved in using the velodrome (especially given that our members are drawn from the areas immediately surrounding the Olympic Park). Others wanted more access to training and coaching, whether this be formal (i.e. qualified coaches delivering training sessions) or informal (educating people how to ride properly in a group on club runs). Another popular activity (which I must admit I had forgotten when I made the poll) were the Athletes Lab training sessions in central London.

Weekly Club Nights

As mentioned earlier, only a small number of members regularly attend these. There have been various attempts over the last few years to make these more alluring, some of which have met with success (e.g. roller racing nights, meeting in a pub once a month, having a midweek Chingford club run before the club night - these have seen about twenty people come along sometimes), but I have heard that there have been nights when hardly anyone has turned up. I asked a some questions to gauge people’s feelings about this.

Firstly, did people agree that it was important for the club to have weekly meetings? This was totally inconclusive: just under 30% said it was, almost the same proportion said it wasn’t, and the majority said that they didn’t know. This question attracted lots of comments: many of these said that although they thought  it was important to have meetings, it wasn’t necessary to have them so frequently - that it would be better to have them once a month or fortnightly. Also, several people were unhappy with the current venue (the church hall on Havant Road).

People were asked if they preferred to meet face-to-face to discuss cycling with their clubmates or if they preferred to use social media. Again, opinion was totally split on this one: 38% preferred to meet while 36% were happy to use the internet instead. Clearly there has to be a place for both sides: there are enough people who want to meet up (and who feel strongly about it) that this should definitely continue (although perhaps the venue and/or timing should change), but there is also a sizeable group that either don’t want to or can’t attend meetings and who find it easier to use social media. There were several comments from both sides of the divide which make it obvious that it is impossible to expect everyone to do one or the other - some people are never going to use the internet and some people are never (or hardly ever) going to go to meetings.

Next I asked about the two potential venue changes: we have had monthly pub meetings for two or three years now (in the off season when the Tuesday Tens aren’t running) and there was an experiment earlier this year to shift the weekly meeting to the cafe at the velodrome (although ultimately this seems to have caused confusion as to which night the club night was and where it was). Of those who expressed an opinion, people who preferred the pub nights outnumbered those who preferred the church hall nights by two-to-one. However, in the comments that were received it was clear that some people would feel excluded as they didn’t want to go to a pub and also there were some that felt that although it was a nice location for a social event once a month, it wasn’t an appropriate place to discuss club business (and so shouldn’t entirely replace the 'normal’ club meetings). The velodrome cafe was even more popular: four times as many people said they wanted to meet there than at the church hall. The bulk of the comments received on this one were negative: it seems that a large silent majority would like to go there, but those who don’t want to go there feel strongly about it (issues included the noise, the price of the drinks and the fact we could be 'slung out’).  Perhaps there is another location that could be considered? It certainly seems there is an appetite for change.

Club Runs

The club runs have been going from strength to strength over the last three years or so. We are now able to split into at least three groups most Sundays: usually a fast group (19-20mph) and a medium fast group (17-19mph) plus at least one social group going at a more leisurely pace (perhaps 15mph, though it depends who is involved). Two-thirds of respondents said that club runs were more important to them than racing. Moreover, club runs are by far the most popular club activity and for many people are the way they first encounter the club, so it is important we get them right.

I asked people how important certain elements were for club runs. The two most important were having a designated ride leader for each group and having an agreed expected speed for each group (65% said both of these were 'very important’ and almost nobody said it wasn’t important). This is something we need to think about. The problem is that you can never guarantee that the same people will be out every week. At the faster end of the spectrum, on any given weekend some will be racing rather than doing club runs. And of course, people have family commitments / holidays / injuries / illnesses. So we can’t expect the same people to lead groups every single week. I have been trying to co-ordinate the faster groups via Facebook and the forum so that people know in advance what we are planning to do - this has tended to focus on the expected speed and on the route, rather than designating anyone as ride leader, but it seems that in future we should always try to have one person who fills this role.

Only 28% said that having a route in advance was 'very important’, but another 61% said that it was a good idea. We have been building up a bank of suitable routes on ridewithgps.com - we tend to choose one for the faster groups a day or two before the club run and then post the link on Facebook / the forum so that people can download onto their Garmins (if they have one). Also, I’ve been trying to harmonise it so that the fast group routes go through High Beach (as the social ride always does for its second pick-up at 9:45). In the past, we have often set off to the east via Chigwell or Lambourne End, but I think it’s good if we can go via High Beach (usually going up through Chingford and doing one of the many Epping Forest hill climbs, rather than the more direct route up the Epping New Road) - this gives people a second chance to meet us and also allows a brief breather and an opportunity to switch groups if they realise the pace is wrong for them.

The final question was about a cafe stop. The social rides tend to have a cafe stop, but the faster group rides don’t: if there aren’t any punctures to deal with then you can end up riding 50-60 miles without stopping at all. This is good in as much as you can get some decent training in and still get home for family duties (which many of us have) by some time between 12pm and 1pm, but it does mean a certain social element is missing. I’ve met a great many people on rides, but it’s difficult to have much of a conversation on the road and it’s difficult to know what people look like without helmets and sunglasses obscuring virtually all their features. While 21% said that a cafe stop was 'not important’, 53% said it was a good idea and 26% said it was 'very important’. I think this is something that we start to try to build in to the fast group rides as well as the social ones (while, obviously, recognising that there will be some people who have to get back earlier - we can always have a designated point where the group splits and some head home while others push on and then have a coffee).

Social Media / The Internet

Finally, I thought it would be useful to gauge how many people are aware of and actually looking at the various web presences the club has. By far the most popular was the club’s Facebook page, with 88% saying they viewed it. Two-thirds also said that they used the club forum - this is encouraging and reflects the fact that the forum has somewhat sparked into life this year. There are certainly a lot more posts and discussion there than there used to be and it is important that we use it as not everyone is on Facebook. Approximately one third said that they followed the club’s twitter account and the same for the club’s instagram account.

About 72% said that they looked at the club’s semi-regular e-mail round-ups. At least one person commented that they haven’t received one for some months. As far as I know, the mailing list is linked to the club membership part of the British Cycling website. If you aren’t receiving e-mails it may be that you have forgotten to pay your subs? Or it might be that you signed up using an old e-mail address? If it’s neither of these things, it’s probably best to get in touch with Steve Maunder to sort it out.

Some commented that the club’s website needs an overhaul: firstly, to update the design / logo / photos to reflect the new kit and secondly, to increase its functionality. At the moment the website does very little apart from link to the forum, the Facebook page and other sites. As this may well be the first thing people come across when googling 'Lea Valley CC’, we need it to promote the club effectively.

Some people have requested that we have a 'secret’ forum alongside the 'public’ one, i.e. one that you have to log in to in order to read it. This could be to discuss club business which is not meant to be shared with the whole world, or, for example, to discuss tactics in upcoming races. Many other clubs have forums that work like this. At the moment, there is a 'closed group’ on Facebook called 'LVCC Race Squad’ where such discussions can take place, but again, this excludes people who for one reason or another don’t want to use Facebook. There are currently 40 people in that group (though some have not been active for some time) and 37% of people doing the survey said that they used it.

Last, but not least (in my opinion) was the club’s tumblr blog which I write. This was seen by only a rather disappointing 26%. It has become a de facto replacement for the old '90 rpm’ newsletter and contains photos, videos, race reports and all kinds of news. If you’re reading this sentence, you’re looking at the blog right now. If you haven’t checked it out before, why not have a look at last month’s blog: leavalleycc.tumblr.com/post/14597­8903058/june-2016-new-kit-new-record

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)?