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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jamie 1/1/18

Summer’s still just about here and the members of Lea Valley CC have been racking up the miles all over the place over the last couple of months. In this blog we have reports from The Alps, Scotland, Yorkshire, the Dunwich Dynamo and Ride London. Plus reports of our own events including the Bill Major 25-mile time trial and the annual reunion at Burton End.

First up, Barnaby Barford headed to do battle with Mont Ventoux:

I thought I would share recent experiences of cycling in Provence, including riding ‘Les Cinglés’ which is ascending Mont Ventoux three times in a day from three different routes.

We stayed at a lovely B&B called veloventoux (I would highly recommend them).  I went with a dear friend Tom from ELV who is a bloody strong rider and of course we didn’t take it easy on the first day doing a 110km windy smash fest. Lovely dinner and straight to bed, ready for an early morning departure at 6:30 the next day where we attempted Les Cinglés de Ventoux and yes, no surprises, it was ‘character building’ climbing it three times. I’ve certainly never done that much climbing on one ride: 195km / 5327m climbing.

So all in all moving time of around 6h30mins give or take, with an hour and a half break over all.  It was about an hour’s ride out to the start of the Bedoin climb.  We had decided not to hammer it up the first climb as we had a long day ahead of us but that went out of the window as soon as it got steep, each cyclist coming into view ahead a beacon to pass. Did the Bedoin climb in 1h27 average of 8% and ascent of 1539m.  This is the one Froome ran up last year, I couldn’t imagine racing up there, absolute hell.  It’s fairly easy for the first 4 km and then ramps up to between 8-12% for the rest. As you leave the forest you are totally exposed with wind swept rock all around you. As we anticipated gorgeous views of the valley below, we began climbing into a cloud of thick freezing fog and wind, as we reached the summit we could barely see 10m in front of us to be treated by balmy -1ºC! Luckily I had packed the club jacket (excellent piece of kit) but unfortunately no gloves. It was a teeth chattering, body shaking, exposed and very windy descent of 25 minutes until we reached a cafe at the bottom for a massive cuddle and rub to warm each other up!

Quick coffee and bite to eat and up the second climb of Malaucene.  Tough 1h51mins of climbing into a brute of a head wind (feature of the weekend the wind!) 20km 8% feeling more like 15%. The weather was getting warmer and it was truly amazing to see all sorts of people having a crack at this famous mountain, mountain bikes, electric bikes, even shopping bikes!

Unfortunately Tom’s knee went (old injury) late on the second climb but we met at the top refuelled and had a stunning descent into Sault where we had a longer break and straight back up.  Bit of a tail wind this time and a big ring ascent averaging about 5%, had to nurse Tom up this last climb for his knee but we made it up together in about 1h30mins.  This time, however, we were met with glorious views. It felt like we were in an aeroplane.  Absolutely stunning.

The next day whilst Tom was icing and stretching I went out with a guy from Stoke who helps at the B&B and I must say it was the most beautiful ride I have ever been on with views of gorges and mountains that I would like etched onto my eyelids, even got a view of Mont Blanc. We rode 168km at around 28.5km/h and by the next day i was absolutely spent, unable to turn the pedals. We did go for a short easy spin but I really could have stayed in bed with my feet up!

I would definitely recommend a trip down that way and would be happy to pass on any routes etc if you are looking for a cycling holiday, it really is stunning, wonderful food of course and excellent climbing.  

Having had our fill of Ventoux we headed back from Marseille only to meet some lads from Torquay who had just done it 6 times in 24 hours!……This is clearly now the challenge and planning has already started!

Meanwhile Neil Davies and Alex Galloway did L’Etape. Neil tells the tale:

It’s 6am.  I’m out on a bike, in the Alps shivering in my summer kit as we descend to the start line for the 2018 Etape du Tour.  I’m nervous too.  I always am before big events (this includes Tuesday 10s)  but I’m particularly nervous today because there’s a hell of a lot of climbing on the route, which takes in the upcoming stage 18 of the Tour between Briançon and the Col d’Izoard.   Here are the vital statistics: 181km of riding (plus 40km to get there and back); 3,529m of climbing over three categorised climbs including the 1st Category Col de Vars (9.3km at 7.5%) after 120km and the HC Col d’Izoard, set to be the scene of the third and final summit finish on the Tour in a few days’ time (14km at 7.3% with the last 10km averaging a brutal 10%).  I don’t get to do much climbing on our club runs – other than the 3 minute efforts up Mott Street and Banks Lane and I had no idea how my legs would handle it.

The whole thing was incredible. The weather was spot on, although baking up the climbs. The roads were newly surfaced and ready for the pros.  Alex Galloway and I rode together for most of the way, although he did a Landa on me up the climbs. We gave the first 100km plenty of respect, keeping our powder dry for the big climbs. We still managed 31kph/19mph. After the long drag up the Col de Vars, the 20km descent to the valley floor was mind-blowing – I’ve got my top speed recorded at 66kph. Thankfully, I had received some emergency descending tips from Barnaby the previous weekend which worked a treat.

After that descent, we started 15km of false flat valley floor before the big climb of the Izoard began.  Alex and I rode along chatting, preparing the legs, only to look behind and see a massive group hanging on. No one came past when I gave it the elbow so we pushed on.  The scene was set as we approached the early slopes of the Izoard with 15km to go.  My Garmin recorded the temperature at 33c on the climb before it cooled off at the top. It was a scene of devastation on the climb – people were pushing, collapsed at every hairpin with heatstroke, puking, the works. There was the option of the Broom Wagon at 15km and 5km from home and plenty took it. We saw one poor bloke’s chain snap in sight of the finish.

Pushing a solid 36-29 gear for 1 hour 44 minutes (apart from a short downhill burst in the middle where Froome launched a counter-attack against Bardet) I made it to the top.  Alex had been there for a while, which is amazing given the amount of cheese he ate on the way round (Strava clocks him at 1 hour 13, easily in the top 10% for the day).

With water and food stops we beat 9 hours: 7 hours 44 minutes riding for me and 7 hours 14 riding for Alex. The winner managed 5 hours 15. With a team car to hand out bottles and gels and a peloton to draft for most of the way, Warren Barguil managed 4 hours 40 to win the stage.  What a guy.

Stick the Etape on your cycling to-do list. You will not be disappointed. But buy the biggest cassette your bike will take first.

A little bit closer to home, I headed up to Scarborough to do a sportive in the North York Moors in late July. I had never been to that national park, but I knew it was well-known for viciously steep climbs, the most infamous of these being Rosedale Chimney which maxes out at an eye-watering 33%. When I was signing up for this ride I noticed that this climb was used about halfway through the 120-mile version of the route and I’m not ashamed to say I bottled it at that point. I opted for the 100-mile version instead which took a different route out of the village of Rosedale Abbey.

It was a long old drive up to Yorkshire on the Saturday and then an early start the next morning without any breakfast. As I lined up on the start grid and listened to the final instructions, I realised I had left both my drinks bottles back at the inn I was staying in so I had to hastily ride back and retrieve them (meaning I missed the official start slot for my distance and had already done 7 miles before I started). At first it was sunny and wooded, but as we got further north the sky turned a grim grey and the trees gave way to vast expanses of open moorland with purple heather and sheep and the hills started in earnest. Again and again and again I found myself either grinding up or plunging down slopes of 15%, 18%, 20%.

The worst of these was the ‘easy’ road out of Rosedale Abbey (which is only easy in comparison to the Chimney) which was a nightmarish 25%. As I approached the steepest bend a car up ahead stalled, rolled backwards and then stopped causing the rider ahead of me to unclip and I had no choice but to copy him a few seconds later. “What on earth am I supposed to do now?” I asked the riders straining up behind me (or words to that effect but a bit less polite). I didn’t fancy the choices of either descending and starting all over again or of walking the remaining half a mile in cleats, so I gambled everything on being able to get going again on a 25% slope. By going sideways, clipping in, turning 180-degrees, desperately getting a bit of momentum, then turning 90-degrees, I just about managed it.

By the end, I was a broken man. In fact, scratch that – I was a broken man long before the end, but I had no alternative but to keep grovelling on until I got back to civilisation. All told I did 3,250 metres of climbing, the majority of which was ridiculously steep. Without a doubt the hardest ride I’ve ever completed.

A week later it was time for Ride London. As always, it had proved very difficult for many of us to get accepted onto the ride through the ballot (only about half a dozen managed it this time) so when British Cycling offered the club one place for a team of four, nineteen of us had put our names down for it. In a rare stroke of good fortune, I found myself being one of the four names drawn out of the hat along with Adam Bishop, Mehrdad Safaieh and Glenn Prime.

We had a horrendously early start. I was up at 4:20am and met my near neighbours Adam and James Morris at 5:00 to ride down to the Olympic Park together in semi-darkness without lights (as the organisers had made everyone put a number on their bikes that went around the seat post and stuck out behind). James was in a later start wave than me and Adam, about 12 minutes behind. We looked around but couldn’t see any other Lea Valley kit amongst the people in our wave and wondered what had happened to the other two. However, not long after we had started, as we were making our way down towards the Blackwall Tunnel, we came across Glenn and rode with him briefly before leaving him behind.

Adam and I were trying to ride within ourselves in the opening section with the intention of blasting it back to London at the end. However, somewhere out near Chiswick I decided to latch onto a chain gang that was passing by and we upped our pace for a few miles. This came to an abrupt end when we hurtled towards a sharp right hand bend somewhere in south-west London, blinded by the low sun reflecting off the wet road surfaces (it wasn’t raining any more but it had tipped down overnight): people underestimated it and then realised a bit late that they needed to brake and this caused a ripple effect. The guy behind me lost control and skidded over, hitting my back wheel as he crashed. Luckily I managed to stay upright (and Adam saw the other guy later and he seemed to be fine), but this disruption spelt the end of our group.

Not long after this, as we went through Richmond Park, we spied more LVCC kit up ahead: it was Jemma Taylor, who had been given an even earlier start slot. Again, we had a brief chat and then left her to go at her own pace. Then, as we crossed the M25 on our journey deeper into Surrey, it was our turn to be caught as James suddenly appeared having already made up the 12 minute deficit. I tried to stick with his group for a little bit, but soon realised they were going at a pace I didn’t want to try to match for another 65 miles. As we hit the Surrey Hills I went solo as Adam is a bit less keen on climbing, but realised with some disappointment that I wasn’t going to hit my target of breaking the five-hour barrier. On the return leg I did my best to time trial and drag my average speed back up to the 20mph mark, but ended up agonisingly stuck at 19.9mph by the finish line (plus I had eight minutes of stoppages from a combination of the Newlands Corner and Leatherhead feed stations and three or four occasions when marshals stopped us riding so people could cross the road, so even 20mph wouldn’t have got me under five hours).

Feeling increasingly empty and rapidly going through my gels, I was surprised to hear Bob Mannion speaking at my shoulder somewhere near Wimbledon and looking fresh as a daisy. I asked him when he had started and his answer made no sense to me at all as it appeared to be three hours or more after me. It turned out that Bob was doing the 42-mile version instead and the routes merged on the return leg – he soon disappeared.

Then finally I was caught by Harry Sewell and Lewis Dixon who were speeding along having started maybe half an hour behind me. I spoke to both of them separately: Harry said he was suffering and hadn’t stopped at all and was riding faster than he felt comfortable with and blamed it on Lewis, while Lewis said almost exactly the same thing and blamed it on Harry. Anyway, I joined forces with them and we hammered the final miles back to Whitehall at an average of 24mph. I was hoping we could have a grand Lea Valley sprint finish on The Mall, but was a bit thwarted: first Lewis nearly took me into the barriers on the final left hander at Trafalgar Square, then our path to the line was blocked by many riders easing up and coasting home. Nevertheless, I tried to make a break for it up the left hand side, but the other two spotted it and reeled me in at the end.

As we regrouped for photos in front of Buckingham Palace Bob and Adam arrived and then Mehrdad, the invisible fourth member of my team crossed the line and joined – he actually had been in our start wave after all and had somehow ridden for five hours at more or less the same speed as me and Adam without ever bumping into us en route. After this we headed into Green Park to chill out with a gang of club mates – some who had done the 100 like us, some who had done the 42, and some who had just come along for the post-ride picnic (thanks for that,Chrystyna!).

Despite doing the best part of 120 miles that day, James wasn’t finished. After a brief rest on the Monday he set off on an adventure:

I set out on my trip from London on the Tuesday, with a train booked from Edinburgh on the following Monday. My plan was to do around 100 miles a day and find somewhere to camp up. I loosely used google maps as my guide, but as my main concern was battery power, I largely relied on Garmin’s compass pointing north. Day 1: first stop was Cambridge for lunch, but disaster struck 30 miles in when a badly strapped down gilet wrapped itself in my rear mech and snapped the hanger. After spending a significant amount of time attempting to find a single speed combination that worked, I made my way to Cambridge in search of the part… and on a train to Kings Cross to pick up the only one I could find. Several hours later, I’d fixed my bike and managed another 10 miles til dark. Only 70 miles in the day, but could have been terminal!

Day 2: Easy and flat with a massive tailwind most of the way. I left Cambridge and went north through Boston (surprisingly pretty town) and up to Grimsby. Had my first encounter with hills in the Lincolnshire Wolds, which at my total weight were pretty tough going and anything above 10% impossible to turn the pedals. 125 miles that day and I camped up by the sea in Cleethorpes

Day 3: I discovered how much you have to start eating when you’ve had a big day the day before. The aim today was Whitby - nestled down a hill in the middle of the North York moors. With my tailwind slowly turning into a crosswind, I left Grimsby and crossed the Humber (amazing views) to Hull. I took a disused train line across to Hornsea and then up along the coast through the York Wolds to Scarborough - a fair amount of climbing, but fantastic scenery. From Scarborough to Whitby was 22 mile route on a disused railway - rough, muddy and rugged terrain with long ascents, but a lot of fun. 110 miles and I camped in Whitby

Day 4: having gone to Whitby, I now had to cut in West for 30 miles into what was now a giant headwind, through the North York Moors. I took a mixture of road and trail and it was very hard going - I was genuinely concerned I wouldn’t make it through this section! Amazing view when I reached Danby Beacon but a very hard day. I eventually made it through, and limped my way through Stockton up to Durham where I called it a night having only done 70 miles, but feeling deserving of a rest!

Day 5: I needed a big day, and my aim was the border and hopefully a bit further. Up from Durham through “the greatest city on the planet” according to two older geordie gentlemen. Form there I went to the coast near Blyth and followed NCN route 1 up the coast through Alnmouth, Bamburgh and Berwick. At times the route was pretty rough going, and consisted of a single line of bike wheel mark through a former military target zone and a cow field. Incredible views up this stretch of the coast with plenty of castles to see. I made it to the border, and then did 10 miles of climbing up to a campsite for the night. 125 miles that day and a long day in the saddle.

Day 6: Got bitten to pieces setting down my tent, but fuelled by 2 McDonald’s breakfasts, I made it to Edinburgh in time for lunch and spent a day seeing the sights. It was a great trip and I enjoyed seeing all the cities and towns that I’d never been to before. I used every bit of kit I took with me aside from my first aid kit. 545 miles / 878km total 14.5mph / 23.3kph average speed 18212 feet / 5551m climbing 37.5 hours travel time 5.5 days total time 119 bpm average heart rate 127kg total bike/luggage/me weight 1 puncture 1 catastrophic mechanical 25,000 calories burnt 100 miles trail and singletrack 9 times I questioned my sanity

Yet more long-distance fun was to be had on the Dunwich Dynamo. Dave McCarthy, Nestor Salazar and Pedro Lopes completed the 111-mile overnight ride from East London to the sunrise at the Suffolk coast. You would think that would be enough suffering, but Nestor and Pedro then immediately set off and did another 81 miles headin back west to get to Saffron Walden. The mind boggles.

July also saw a couple of club events on consecutive Sundays. First up was the ‘Bill Major’ 25-mile time trial on the E1 course and based at our race HQ in Ugley. Ostensibly a club event for Lea Valley CC riders, we actually had a sizeable field of 20 starters, boosted by a large contingent of Shaftesbury CC riders and a few from other clubs. Fastest Lea Valley rider and the winner overall was David Veitch with a time of 55:47, about a minute faster than Matt Steel of Shaftesbury who claimed second place. They were the only two riders to go under the hour – full results are here: https://leavalleycc.microco.sm/comments/13740943/

Thanks to Trevor Whittock for the Bill Major photos.

The following weekend saw our annual reunion event at our Burton End ‘hut’. This was well attended with a mixture of young and old from the very new (some people had only joined the club that very month) to people who have been in the for decades. I particularly enjoyed looking at the old club scrapbooks and photo albums – seeing pictures of some of the people our various events are named after to commemorate them and also seeing how people like the Keen brothers have changed over the last five decades. As a taste of this, here are very youthful looking Trevor Whittock and John Summerhayes in the club hill climb back in 1985 (Trevor won the event with a time of 2:15):

A sizeable group of us made a day of it by taking a long route on the way up and then riding back through the rain afterwards. Thanks to Roland Karthaus for this video that he took of us:

Another club event, the evening before Ride London (which impacted the number of us who could go) was a bike fitting session organised by Racer Rosa. Here is Rosie getting involved:

Alice Cutter has taken over running our regular women-only rides and in July led a group on the Rapha 100km. They did a route out round Hanningfield Reservoir and back – hoping to get a report from Alice in time for the next blog.

Back in the world of racing, several riders have set new PBs in time trials: at 25 miles Trudy Sharam did 1:03:50 (and rode in the national championships in Wales), Neil Davies did 1:03:03, Alex Galloway did 59:01 and Adam Bishop managed 58:12. Meanwhile, Colin Ross did his debut 100-mile time trial and finished with a time of 4:08:45. In road racing Paul Roberts, Michael Krukov and Tim Holmes are still regularly finishing in the top twenty and occasionally the top ten of the higher category races, while me, Charlie Gregory and George Kemp have been finishing anonymously in the bunch of 4th cat races.

And finally, what’s coming up soon?

I believe El Presidente will be organising the ‘Summerhayes Summer Saunter’ once again for the upcoming Bank Holiday weekend.

On 24th September we have our 30-mile time trial organised by Mark Freeman and on the following Sunday (1st October) we have a 25-mile time trial organised by Dave McCarthy. Both events are on the E1 course and use our Ugley race HQ (north of Bishops Stortford). If you want to enter or want to volunteer to help out with marshalling etc follow these links (which include contact details for the organisers):
https://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/race-details/16010
https://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/race-details/16056

Alex Galloway has been taking part in duathlons at the Velopark on Tuesday evenings – if you’re interested in joining him take a look at this website: http://capitaltri.com/events

And last but not least, if anyone wants to do some mountain biking, get in touch with lonely Tom Orr.

Jamie, 21 August 2017

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/

My final two videos:

And if you want to see that again, but faster, here’s Alex’s version as the elite come roaring home:

Now reports from Chrystyna, Euan and Karl:

Chrystyna:
My previous RideLondon experience in 2013 was marred by an exploding tyre incident at mile 30 so my main aim was to get through unscathed and perhaps sneak under 5hrs30.

Though I was originally pretty smug about my relative lie-in for a 7.36am start, it turns out the price to pay was being stuck with riders riding at a much slower pace. I struggled to find people to ride with for the first 20 miles and just as I’d found a good group of three, my damned saddle bag came off and I had to recover it and lost my group. Saddle bag firmly in pocket (very bloody uncomfortable for 80miles!), I continued on, skipping from rider to rider trying to find a pace to settle with. I eventually found another woman looking like she was having the same challenge and after a few minutes of riding together we struck an agreement to carry on as a team.

We made it all the way to Surrey at a decent pace, took it fairly steady through the hills while trying to get past people walking or weaving their bikes across the path (yes – I did shout ‘hold your line’ several times). Whizzing back down the other side I realised we were still averaging comfortably over 20mph and I had a thought that we could carry on apace.

The only incident came at Dorking when for some bizarre reason a steward stuck out a stop sign and we had to slam on our breaks. I hear the inevitable desperate squeal of brakes and tyres and then a crunch of metal behind me as riders piled into one another. I never got chance to look back though, because it seemed the steward had no reason to stop us and we could carry on – the crash he caused was for no reason whatsoever. Hope everyone was ok!

We arrived at the 80 mile mark and I was feeling strong, my new found best friend seemed strong too but running low on water. By this point my clock was saying 3hrs56mins with 20 miles to go and a I realised, not only was 5hrs30 possible – sub 5hrs was. I tentatively suggested we could share my remaining drink and so the chase for sub-5 began. Again we found very little help from the steady-paced riders around us so our two-woman team slogged our guts out to get to the end within the hour. I made it in 4hrs56mins and Cat just over 5hrs. Pretty pleased with that (especially the fact we beat Laura Trott). Dare to dream of 4hrs45mins…?

And Euan:

I was in the second wave starting at 6.07am, so had to get up at 4.30am. Lucky my tactic of getting up at 5am every day in the week preceding meant I got six and a half hours of  unitnerupted sleep, so I was feeling pretty fresh at the start line.

I’d ridden in the inaugural event in 2013 and absolutely loved it, so this time around I was less nervous and raring to get going. My training had been pretty intense: I’d  been following my own version of RideLondon’s official 12 week ‘expert’ training plan (less boring intervals sessions, more hills and group rides) and been doing five sessions a week. But I’d also had a break of a few months over the winter, so I was starting from a pretty low base.

The first time around I got 5hrs 17mins, but I felt a lot fitter by race day this time, so my target was sub 5 hours. Apart from losing a full water bottle after 20 miles (pro-tip: don’t change your bottle cages the day before the race!), the ride was pretty much perfect and I rolled in at 4hrs 23mins.

I started on my own, but quickly found some  great groups to ride with, who set a challenging pace and shared the work well. So many good bits to choose from: the hills felt great and loved really going for it on the descents! I think the most enjoyable bit was once I got into the last 10 miles, and realised I hadn’t over-cooked it and was on for a good time. And of course, the obligatory sprint down The Mall was amazing!

And last, but not least, Karl:

Eighteen months ago, when I received my place in 2014’s Ride London I realised that I would have to put in some proper train if I was even going to survive the full distance. It was that ballot place which led me to join LVCC in the first place and, despite the weather last year, I enjoyed the ride and was happy to make it to the finish.

When another ballot place dropped through my letterbox back in February I was able to approach the 2015 ride with a wholly different attitude. For a start, I had more miles in my legs, so I didn’t want to just survive: I wanted to achieve a time that would show I’d improved over the year. I had entered a target time of 6 hours 50 minutes on the entry form, but, as the date drew closer, I became more ambitious. I thought I might be able to knock close to an hour off that, but anything close to 6 hours would be a major success. I was in possession of a shiny(ish) new(ish) road bike rather than last year’s hybrid and, of course, the weather conditions on the day couldn’t have been any better; a stark contrast to 2014. And I almost felt like a pro with the route profile taped to my bike frame, albeit mainly so I’d know where the toilets were.

I had a later start than most and was due to set off at 8:15am, which meant I could get a pretty good night’s sleep. Setting two alarms seemed to solve the problem of waking up every hour to check the clock, although the downside was that I didn’t want to wake up when it finally went off at 6am.

The hour long wait at the start area was occupied by chatting with a couple of cyclists, finding a portaloo to buy myself an extra hour before I needed to stop, and being thankful that I wasn’t one of the unlucky ones who already had a puncture to fix. We set off on schedule and, although I was determined to take the first 25 miles slowly, I’d forgotten just how much easier it was riding along in a large group without having to stop for lights, junctions, or anything else. I was grinning inside, and possibly outside too, as I cruised at close to 20mph with seemingly little effort.

The first half of the ride flew by and Newlands Corner, one of the big three hills, seemed neither particularly steep nor particularly long. With 52 miles to go I was still taking it steadily, but I was looking forward to Leith Hill and was ahead of even my most optimistic schedule.

But at the bottom of Leith Hill we came to a standstill. We cleared the road to allow a selection of ambulances and police motorbikes to pass by, and as the air ambulance landed in a nearby field it became obvious that something bad had happened ahead. It seemed too far from the summit to be a pile up on the descent, and it’s since emerged that a rider died of a suspected heart attack on the lower part of the climb.

I’m glad we didn’t know the full details at the time as, when the road re-opened, my focus was on navigating a thousand or so other cyclists trying, and often failing, to get started on the hill. From comparing speed with someone alongside me I learnt that my computer doesn’t register anything under 2mph.

After missing out on both Leith Hill and Box Hill due to the weather in 2014, I’d ridden up them in a sportive a few months later. I’d remembered Box Hill as quite pleasant, but Leith as a bit of a monster. This time, even the steeper parts of Leith seemed less punishing than I recalled. But there were a lot of tired legs around, and I was also overtaking riders who had been steered through a shortcut to avoid the road closure, so the roads were quite congested in places. As a result, progress both up and down the hills was slower than I would have liked.

With the hills out of the way and 25 miles to go, and the help of a tailwind, wider roads, and no need to stop again, I upped my pace to something I thought I could sustain for the remainder of the ride. My average speed was 20.6 mph over the last quarter, with the last 10 miles being the fastest of all, and far in excess of anything I could achieve on a solo ride. On the one hand I didn’t want the ride to end, but on the other I could feel fatigue starting to build, and was my saddle always this hard?

Riding along The Mall to the cheering and banging of hoardings is a great experience and the perfect finale. Two years ago I wouldn’t have dreamt I’d ever ride 100 miles, let alone set a target time. My official time was 6:35:58, but that includes 45 minutes stationary. On the bike time was more like 5 hours 40 minutes and, although not fast by absolute standards, I’m over the moon with it. Fingers are crossed for a ballot place next year, although I think that 2015’s Ride London may have set a high bar.

Stop Press - and here’s a last-minute addition by Huw:

Getting up ridiculously early is something I am not too unfamiliar with since the birth of my daughter but nonetheless with the excitement and anticipation preventing a decent night’s sleep the 5.15am wake-up call still came too soon. I thought I’d left myself plenty of time but after the usual pre-ride rituals and wolfing down a very poor attempt at scrambled eggs on toast, I realised I was running behind schedule and started to panic that I would miss my 6.30am wave loading cut-off. After going into time trail mode and putting out what felt like 400W (most unlikely J) down Lea Bridge Road I made it to the Olympic Park in time, actually loads of time, my initial worry was a pointless waste of energy as I settled into the slow cleated shuffle towards the start line. My Blue M wave departed at roughly 7.20am.

Cycling in a car-less world is simply a joy especially through the streets of London and on roads like the A12 which are normally out of bounds. Although firmly against “The Rules” my plan was to conserve energy and wheel suck as much as possible before the hills started in earnest around 40miles. This worked out well initially as I clung on to the largest wind shield I could find and  weaved through London at a reasonable pace. I was not the only one with this plan though as a glance behind saw a large chain developing all taking a pull for free. Bike karma however is never far away and a few miles down the road I was the one fighting against the wind with a girl and a guy clinging to my back wheel.  They were there for a good 15miles from Kingston to the Surrey Hills with not even a suggestion of co-operation on their part.  I finally lost them just before Leith Hill but that was only because I took a toilet break (making sure I locked the door, just in case.)

As with most of my rides of reasonable distance I am usually waiting for my left knee to remind me my hamstrings are too tight and my ITB is getting a friction burn. I did think my recently discovered yoga sessions had remedied that until a ride in Sardinia caused my right knee to flare up. I was hoping the extra stretches and foam rolling would cure it but just as I started to think the niggling feeling was all in my head (at 50miles) the right knee niggle became a shout.  

Leith Hill and Box Hill were next, both climbs I have done before and therefore keen (right knee or no right knee) to get a PB. Naturally these sections became more congested and attacking the climb was difficult, so instead I relaxed my gears and spun at a reasonable pace. For this reason I didn’t find the hills too taxing and slightly enjoyed the muscle aches taking my mind off the knee pain, which at this point had increased from a shout to a scream.

After Box Hill (at 75miles) I was simply focused on getting home as fast as possible for two main reasons 1)  I noticed my average after the hills was above 19mph and therefore a 20mph average was within my grasp and 2) to stop my knee hurting which would only come with the finishing line. With only one good leg  I resorted to my tried and tested plan of saving energy by hopping from back wheel to back wheel. The last few miles are a bit of a blur but the sight of Big Ben and seeing the crowds was magic and turning onto the Mall for the final sprint was a goosebump moment. If I am honest I don’t think I actually managed a Cav-esque sprint for the line, I was more intent on taking it all in and even then it all happened far too quickly.

All in all the ride was one of the best days I have spent on the bike, even with the painful 50miles - the closed roads, the atmosphere, the supporting crowds and Mall finish all brought about a fabulous “not to be missed” event. I am also quite proud to have raised over £1000 for Parkinson’s UK which is a charity close to my heart  and therefore offered plenty of incentives for me to push through to the finish line.

Official Time:  05:07:02 (Ride100 App - including breaks)

Moving Time: 04:59:42 (Strava Time)

Avg Speed:  20.4mph (Strava based on 101.6miles?)

If you’d like to make a donation here is a link to my just giving page http://www.justgiving.com/owner-email/pleasesponsor/huwride100 . Every donation is greatly appreciated and will make a huge difference to a great organization.

Well, it’s three months since Ride London and the last blog and the season is now over (with the exception of our upcoming circuit race) – time for a roundup of what’s been going on in that time both in terms of racing and, first of all, the more social side of riding. Karl Bunyan reports on a club jaunt to Yorkshire:

“A motley crew of six LVCC riders - Justin, Kevin, Ann, Tony, John and myself - set up base in the Yorkshire Dales for a week of leisurely riding. Or, as Kevin would have it, “training camp”. We’d been promised hills the likes of which we’d never find in Essex, and it didn’t take us long to find them. Pen-y-ghent at around 16% average was just the start, and attempting a 20% climb straight after a steak pie with chips for lunch is not to be recommended. And somehow the very same hills seemed even steeper the next day, and the next.

Day three was accident day when, firstly, Justin and I helped pull a motorbike out of a field after the rider lost control on a bend. Later on, when the two of us tacked an extra 25 miles onto the day’s ride, I had to search for a small spot of mobile reception to call out the recovery vehicle (Kevin and Tony) when Justin decided to test the build quality of his bike, his helmet, and himself, against a dry stone wall. Needless to say, the wall fared better in that encounter.

Fatigue was setting in, as was the showery weather, and, after a day of walking/climbing/falling, we weren’t good for much more than riding to the nearest cafe. But even with climbs, the crashes, the aching legs, and the poltergeist (another thing to ask Justin about), it’s hard to beat days riding in beautiful countryside followed by evenings of good food, maybe a recovery Guinness, and gloriously inane banter.”

Here’s a photo of Tony on one of those climbs – Karl has told me not to mention that Tony was off his bike and walking up it not long afterwards, so I’ll keep quiet about that.

The Bank Holiday weekend usually sees the ‘Summerhayes Summer Saunter’ with the club President (John Summerhayes) leading a ride out to the coast and everyone piling onto a train back again. This year so many people had so many commitments that it was decided to stagger it over two weekends – one would see a car-assisted ride in northern Essex (i.e. drive up there and then ride, not hang onto the side of a support car with a ‘sticky bottle’ for three hours) and the other would be a ride out to Southend. Sadly, August this year was a bit of a washout – the ride to Southend was in pouring rain while the northern Essex one was dry but unseasonably cold. My reporters tell me the pace was gentle with half a dozen riders on each ride. The Essex version involved a route which was something of a mystery (even to John) in search of the highest point in Essex before eventually abandoning the map and going off to gather apples (???).

Meanwhile, we had several well-attended club runs in September, with the ‘fast group’ getting some decent training in. I managed to film some bits and pieces:

Through-and-off heading up to Epping –

In the lanes and then sprinting for the Moreton village sign –

and Harry took this photo which I like:

The end of September / start of October also saw us heading up to the race HQ at Ugley for several time trials. First up came the ‘Len Waters Memorial’ which is a slightly difficult event to explain: it’s a team competition, but it’s based on individual riders’ times. So an unlimited number of riders from any club can take part, but they don’t ride together as a team – they do individual time trials and the fastest five riders from the club have their times added together for the team competition. Although we came nowhere near beating Shaftesbury and Eagle for the team prize, it was a good day: four of our five riders set new PBs. David Veitch was fastest, going under the hour with 58:56. Alex Sweeting got 1:01:03, James Hodges 1:03:50 and Jamie Fake (me) 1:04:12 - all of us taking substantial chunks off our previous records. Only Soren Hansen (a late replacement for a sickly Tim Holmes) was disappointed, coming home in 1:08:22 in his first individual time trial – disappointed because he knows he is capable of going much faster than this (as his circuit racing performances have shown).

The following morning saw the ‘Crescent 30’ (the Crescent being one of the two clubs that were merged to form Lea Valley CC in the 1960s) organised by Mark Freeman. In foggy, but dry and wind-free conditions, Colin Ward broke the course record (which was already held by him) to win the event in 1:05:06. Adam Bishop was the fastest Lea Valley rider in 1:20:21, followed by Mark himself with 1:35:30 and Armin Hersch in 1:35:30. Full results can be found on the forum: http://leavalleycc.microco.sm/comments/12546224/

One week later came the ‘Comet 25’ (Comet being the other club that formed Lea Valley) organised by Dave McCarthy. Our intrepid reporter says: “Another beautiful autumn morning, though the clear skies meant a cold start for the riders. The stately old E1b/25, even on a lovely day, managed to squeeze quite a few riders over the hour, but there were many other impressive rides.  Despite knocking over a minute off last year’s time, Rich Price (London Phoenix) was again pushed into second place, this time by Colin Ward (Essex Roads), with whom he has been battling for the SPOCO prize all year.  So another triumphant weekend for Colin. There were great improvements on their 2014 times by Julia Freeman (Easterley) and our own Chris West. Julia won the Ladies prize and Chris took the Handicap prize. Congratulations also to the East London Velo for taking the team award and, contrary to scurrilous gossip at the time, they would probably still have won even if the full Chelmer squad had turned up. No offence intended and no suggestion that any rider was complaining!  The Lea Valley trio scraped into third, well done chaps but unfortunately no prizes.”

Adam, David, Alex and Pedro Lopes headed off to Tring for the near 40-mile ‘Cog Café’ team time trial in a loop around Aylesbury. Adam was dropped a third of the way into the race but fought round on his own, while David and Alex did their best to stick with Pedro’s brutal pace – a sign of things to come in the hill climb?

Our final time trial of the season (or some might say several weeks after the season has finished) is the club hill climb up Mott Street in Epping Forest. Despite the thick fog that greeted us last Sunday, a very large field assembled (over forty riders – easily the biggest I’ve seen for the event) with several different clubs represented. Conditions weren’t too bad, but most people’s times were 5-10 seconds down on last year (though only Tim had to grind to a halt to avoid descending horses). There was a mistake in the provisional results on the day and Ross Hallard looked surprised to be declared the winner by a sizeable margin – sadly for Ross, this has now been corrected and he has slipped to tenth. This year’s winner was David Ross with a time of 2:20, just one second ahead of Ned Jackson from Islington CC. Fastest Lea Valley rider was Pedro, who came third overall with a time just under 2:24, narrowly beating other Lea Valley riders who filled the next three spots: Carsten Meilandt, David and Soren. Fastest woman was Alicia Speake, who managed the climb more than 20 seconds faster than her nearest rival. Picking up the woman’s prize for Lea Valley was Chrystyna Chymera. Full results available on the forum: http://leavalleycc.microco.sm/conversations/277155/#comment12612836

And finally, to road racing. Well, basically, things calmed down a bit after Carsten’s early summer purple patch. Those in their debut road racing season continued their promising starts: Tim picked up some points, as he reports: “Post Ride London, I raced in a few crits, most notably at the Velopark summer series. I think I raced three of them. For the race on the 19th August, I survived the 4th cat divebombers and got myself into a good position and contested the sprint finish. I came 8th. That was my first, and only, top ten finish. I was really grateful to Trevor Whittock, Adam Bishop and James Hodges who came along to support. Despite being pretty exhausted from a summer of racing and Ride London (in retrospect I probably should have taken a break from the bike) I was racing well tactically and felt strong enough to chase down breakaways and contest sprints. This led to a couple of desperate attempts to pick up more points at Hog Hill and Hillingdon. All to no avail. But lots of fun.”

Also in the 4th cat Velopark races in August were Charlie Gregory (racing for the first time) and Lewis Dixon, both managing to finish with the pack, though it wasn’t all good news for Lewis: “I got a mid place finish in my first one. Felt great. 2nd race, I crashed on the penultimate lap. Felt awful. That led to the lack of motivation that ended my season. Aside from that, I rode round brands hatch for 24 hours with a team of 4, which I really don’t recommend. Never doing that again.”

Personally, I did three more races at the Cyclopark circuit near Gravesend and finally got the hang of it, finishing with the bunch each time (though still nowhere near the points – 22nd was as good as it got for me).

In a year that has seen an unbelievable number of crashes for our riders, one man has definitely had more than his fair share, but Alex still found time to squeeze in one more (with another bike biting the dust). Prior to this, he managed a few more races: “I entered 3 1st/2nd/3rd races with Carsten and Paul at Velopark. Managed to avoid major mishap. But improved my ability to experience pain. Race 1 I managed to sprint past Paul for the minor placing a at the back of he bunch. Race 2 just about hung on after avoiding a massive crash. Hated it. Race 3 attacked from the gun. Lasted 10 mins. Rode home with my number still pinned on and was in bed before the race finished”.And last, but not least, Paul Roberts finally picked up a point in his comeback season, with 10th in a 1st/2nd/3rd crit at the Velopark. He also had plenty of good late season form with top twenty placings in both the Eagle and the Maldon & District road races. He and Carsten were also pestered by Alex Dowsett at Hog Hill who insisted on having his photo taken with them:

The final, final, final action of the season comes next weekend with the annual ‘Len Cooper’ circuit race for club members to decide who is the road race champion for 2015. This year we’ll be using the lower circuit at Hog Hill. Meet at Hog Hill at 9am next Sunday (15th November) – the race will be 45 minutes plus 5 laps. Further details on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1660222340926506/

And make sure you get in touch with Joe A.S.A.P. to book your ticket(s) for the annual lunch / awards giving which will be on 6th December:

Probably the most popular cycling event in the country and hugely oversubcribed – it’s very difficult to get a place for this one, but through a mixture of charity rides, individual ballots and one British Cycling team place we managed to get about 18 riders in. However, some of these obviously had second thoughts as the big day approached and did their utmost to avoid having to ride, either by breaking their bones, having babies or ‘accidentally’ booking a holiday that started on the very same day as the event. Nevertheless, we still had a decent number who were able to do it.

Start times are seeded, with those expected to go fastest set off first. Alex found himself in one of the very first groups to be set off, shortly after 6am. You’re supposed to arrive at the Olympic Park in Stratford an hour before your start time (half an hour before you start they close your ‘wave’ to loading). By the time you factor in riding to Stratford, this left a lot of us with ridiculously early starts. Alex had his alarm set for 4.20am – what lunacy is this? I went to bed earlier than usual at around 11.15pm and, surprisingly, quickly fell asleep. Normally when I know I have to get up early I find myself lying wide awake haunted by the nagging fear I will sleep in. Instead, this time I slept soundly. Until 2am, that is, when I woke up and then found myself lying wide awake haunted by you know what. I was just starting to doze off when my cruel alarm clock mocked me with its 4.40am wake up call. I rode down through the mystifyingly busy streets of Walthamstow and Leyton, passing the clubbers on their way home to bed, and met up with Lewis and Tim. Lewis was another victim of sleep deprivation as it seems virtually every flat in his street had decided to host a party that Saturday night.

We squeezed into the very back of our wave at the last minute and then, after half an hour of shuffling forwards, we were crossing the start line to (for no obvious reason) the strains of the ‘Batman’ theme tune and waved off by Matt Dawson of A Question Of Sport fame. The sun was very low and at times blinding, but what a joy and contrast to see it compared to last year’s water torture. We wound our way down the A12 to the shiny towers of Docklands then headed west and into The City. The pace was high and with no red lights to stop us (or rather plenty of red lights that we could legitimately ignore) Tim remarked that we had halved his normal commute time. Not long after we passed the Tower of London a police car screamed across the route from right to left causing a slowing down and bunching up of riders. I found myself separated from Tim and Lewis by about 20 other riders. I thought I would catch them back up, but (for the first of several hundred times that day) the rider that I thought had a Lea Valley top on was actually riding for MacMillan Cancer Support. By the time I had caught this person and realised it wasn’t Tim, the real Tim was long gone, never to be seen again.

Tim and Lewis stayed together for about 70 miles and both managed cracking times of about four and a half hours (along with the imaginary prize for fastest club riders up the climbs of Leith Hill and Box Hill respectively). However, they were well beaten by Alex who did it in an astonishing time of 4:11:49 (nearly 24mph). They were also beaten (by two or three minutes) by Nestor who did particularly well to set such a fast time given that he slept in and missed his alloted start with the faster riders. In fact, thanks to the magic of the Strava ‘Flyby’ function, I have replayed our rides and seen that Nestor set off eleven minutes after my 6.18am start, but had caught and passed me just after Walton-on-Thames (not that either of us noticed at the time). Flyby also showed that my neighbour Innes, who lives opposite me, set off not long before me and we spent dozens of miles in close proximity without ever actually meeting.

So, as last year, I rode the vast majority of the course alone. My target, which I wasn’t confident of achieving, was 20mph (or five hours). I made my first of four stops in Richmond Park after about an hour and I had already covered 21.6 miles at that point so I eased off a bit to make sure I didn’t burn out too soon. While out in Surrey I rode within myself on the flat and cautiously on the descents, but hammered it up the three main climbs of the day (Newlands Corner, Leith Hill and Box Hill). I hadn’t had the opportunity to do the latter two in last year’s ride (which was shortened for safety reasons because of the appalling weather) so I didn’t know quite what to expect. Leith Hill was steep in parts and seemed to go on forever – just when I thought we must finally be at the top we passed a sign that said ‘KOM – Start’ to my exasperation. Box Hill, on the other hand, was never too steep or troubling. In contrast to the descents (where I felt as if everybody else was overtaking me), I soared up these climbs, slowed only by having to pick my way through the riders.

Tragically, some time after I had passed through, one rider suffered a suspected heart attack on Leith Hill and died. Stephen Green was riding for charity and if you would like to make a donation you can find his page here: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=StepGreen&d-49489-p=4

Understandably, as the emergency services tried to deal with this awful situation, the ride came to a standstill. One of our riders, Carolyn, who was a later starter, was diverted (along with many others) to do a 92-mile route instead. I saw a crash right in front of me on a bend as we headed out of south-west London and I passed several ambulances dealing with people, but fortunately it seems the worst mishap that any of our riders had to deal with was Charlie with a broken chain.

As we crossed back over the M25 and started kicking for home I finally decided I could afford to empty the tank and started pushing hard for those final miles. My average speed had fallen down to 20.2mph at its lowest point, but with my South London Surge I lifted it back up to 20.8mph and crossed the line with a ride time of approximately 4 hours and 50 minutes. But my Garmin stops recording whenever I stop moving so this didn’t include my four ‘comfort breaks’. How long had I spent munching on flapjack and trying to wash energy gel off my thighs (I’m not going to bother to explain that one) at the top of Box Hill? Annoyingly, a bit too long, is the answer – my official time was five minutes over the five-hour mark. Looking at the official Lea Valley CC times on the Ride London website (and the ride times on Strava) I see that Huw, who hasn’t really been able to ride that much since becoming a father, almost matched me minute-for-minute (whereas I spent the fortnight leading up to this by piling on the miles with rides to Cambridge, Colchester, Eastbourne and Hastings) – chapeau, sir. I also see that Nicola, fresh from ripping up the Tuesday Tens, managed a fantastic 4:51.

Continued in part two…

We had a sizeable contingent in last summer’s inaugural event and their photos of dawn breaking in the Olympic Park and tales of easily being able to ride at over 20mph for 100 miles through London and Surrey surrounded by hundreds of other cyclists safely ignoring every red light were enough to lure plenty more of us into applying for this year’s edition. Some were successful individually, some got places by riding for charities of their choice, and then thanks to British Cycling we were able to enter a couple of teams of four. All in, about 15 Lea Valley riders were there on Sunday.

As the day grew nearer, the weather forecast got worse and worse. A group of us began obsessively checking it in the desperate hope it would improve, but it never did (unless you used Monika’s special website with its hopelessly optimistic forecasts). As each of us made the trek to the Excel centre to register, a large number of last minute purchases of supposedly waterproof jackets and overshoes was made. The day before the ride was spent with a sense of impending doom, rather than keen anticipation. With six hours of continuous heavy rain, thunder storms and blustery winds on their way, we joked with each other about what else could go wrong – perhaps a group of escaped tigers would wander onto the course and start eating the riders?

I don’t think anybody got much sleep before the event – not just because of the arrival of the tail-end of Hurricane Bertha, but also the combination of very early start times with unavoidable late nights (Matt returned from a wedding at about 2am and Adam was returning from Bristol even later). I had set my alarm for 5.10, so was puzzled to see the clock displaying 5.35 as I drifted into consciousness. Pro-tip: make sure you check the alarm is set for AM and not PM. With a frantic scramble I managed to meet up with Harry and Matt before our wave loading time ran out – there was even time to get a stranger to take a photo of us on my iPhone (a photo which will never see the light of day as my phone got so waterlogged it will never work again).

While we spent half an hour shuffling further forward towards the official start, other Lea Valley riders were shuffling along in other designated areas, while Alex was already bombing through the streets of London at high speed with the lead group. At this point, the rain was actually surprisingly light and it seemed that we might have been worrying unneccessarily.

Finally we were off and straight into the bizarre experience of cycling south on the northbound carriageway of the A12. I got separated from Matt and Harry very early on and couldn’t work out if they were in front of me or behind me – it turned out they had stopped to see if I’d had a mechanical, but eventually they chased back up to me. Meanwhile (unknown to us) Monika had suffered an instant puncture and lost quite a lot of time before she’d even got off the opening stretch.

Although the riders were supposed to be streamed (faster riders off first, slower riders off later) there were wildly different levels of ability, so it was a question of picking your way through groups moving at very different speeds. Harry was a man on a mission and went charging ahead – I slackened off a bit for a banana and by the time I’d eaten it I’d lost my companions for good. Famous landmarks rolled past and the pace was high through central and south-west London (I was averaging 21-22mph for the first hour or so).

 And then suddenly the light rain turned into the forecast heavy rain. And then some. It’s impossible to exaggerate just how wet it got. The rain was torrential and stayed that way for probably a couple of hours. All ‘waterproof’ clothing was quickly revealed to be anything but. At times you could scarcely see a thing. The roads became rivers of muddy water flowing at quite a speed. There were lakes at various places that were at least bottom bracket deep. I lost any interest in my average speed and just grimly ploughed on.

These photos from Newlands Corner give some sense of how wet it was:

https://www.facebook.com/523861794305590/photos/a.821164091242024.1073741937.523861794305590/821165121241921/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/523861794305590/photos/a.821164091242024.1073741937.523861794305590/821165914575175/?type=3&permPage=1

As do these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrjO6RE96aA

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iP-URLunIQ&feature=youtu.be

Amidst this deluge, both sides of the roads were lined with riders trying to deal with punctures and the occasional cluster of soaking spectators cheering from under their umbrellas (big respect to them!).

 The organizers had shortened the course, removing both Leith Hill and Box Hill for safety reasons, and this was the right decision in the circumstances. This made the distance ‘just’ 86 miles, but without a shadow of a doubt I would rather have ridden the full 100 miles in the dry.

 Eventually the rain eased off and I found the enthusiasm to crank up the pace again for the run in to central London, trying to drag my average speed back up to 20mph (but failing). Within two miles of the finish I realised that my back tyre was going down and before long it was right down to the rim. Rather than spend ages changing the inner tube, I frantically pumped it back up and set off again. On Whitehall, within sight of Trafalgar Square and just a minute or two from the finish line, I was back down to the rim again and had to pump one more time, before crawling over the line and heading straight for the Mavic services – it’s nice to get someone to do the dirty work for you.

 I didn’t manage to meet my team after the finish (because of the watery phone), but bumped into an equally soggy Dave and Nestor who had got changed and was getting ready to watch the pro race. However, Harry has these photos of himself and Chris from the finish.

Harry had managed an impressive time of 4:07, but Alex was the fastest with an incredible 3:44.

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

 On a sad final note, one rider tragically died of a heart attack on the route. His ‘just giving’ page is here if you’d like to make a donation:

https://www.justgiving.com/Kris-Cook

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!