Willesden Cycling Club

At the recent Newbury RC 12 Hour TT Stuart Birnie set a distance of 293.63 miles, finishing with a second place podium position. Hippy said on Facebook “Looks like I finally put that 12hr record to rest…”. Chapeau Hippy!

Willesden CC will be holding the next Rocco Memorial Ride on Sunday 20 July.   The route will follow the famous Bluebell Ride.

The Event HQ will be the traditional start point for Rocco’s Audax events, Manor Farm Ruislip.   However, this will not be an Audax event.

Please keep the date free and watch this space for further details.

Two Willesden riders, Marcus Jackson-Baker and Jane Moore, are taking part in this weekend’s
R.T.T.C National Championship 24 hour time trial, being held over several circuits centred around Hailsham in Sussex. Jane, on a trike, is in with a good chance of a VTTA medal. Marcus will be riding his normal steel Audax bike, though he’s removing the mudguards and saddlebag for the event, so it will be interesting to see how his time compares against riders on bling TT machines.

Good luck to you both. Forza Squadra Verde!!

We’ll be running three Audaxes from Jenners Cafe at Maidenhead on 6th July. They are a 200km ride, a new route called the Jack Eason Struggle, and what were formerly Mick Hill’s 10 Thames Bridges and Kaf-to-Kaf rides, at 8am, 9am and 10am respectively.

The Kaf-to-Kaf is now called the Jack Eason Giggle and at 62km (38 miles) and pretty flat is well suited as a first Audax

Full details are available on the club site

The Johnny Morris annual charity ride is a bit of a Willesden CC tradition. It is a fun day out on a bike, peppered with good stops ranging from Golf Clubs to pubs… well mainly pubs.

As usual the event is organised by John “Johnny” Morris of the Wembley Road Club and the Pickwick Bicycle Club. This John has chosen the Thames Valley Adventure Playground as his nominated charity for this ride. The marked route is a pleasant ride of about 35 miles through quiet lanes around Winchmore Hill, near Amersham (not the one in in North London!!).

The ride starts and finishes in The Plough in Winchmore Hill. This pub does excellent food and their early morning cappuccinos are wonderful .

Full details of the event is as follows –

Sunday 29th June 2014 – 10:00 a.m. (Registration from 9.15 a.m.)

Start & Finish – The Plough at Winchmore Hill, Amersham. (Click here for map)

Entry is free in return for sponsorship!

So see you there.

Ray Kelly

The French are far more red blooded than us Brits. We have “Cycling Weekly”, but the French call their cycling magazine “Cyclo Passion”. Oh la la!

Ray Kelly has just been leafing through some old copies of  “Cyclo Passion” and found some photos of the Willesden in the October 1995 edition.

Ray says “Willesden stars sharing a page with Miguel Indurain and Tony Rominger!”. ” Inside the same magazine, there is a great photo of Liz with Rocco from the PBP of that year.”

“Chris Kelly on the front and James Foster on his wheel. This was in Le Picardie event.” Ray Kelly

Here are edited highlights of both Tom’s and Janye’s Smithfield Nocturne races . Tom is featured at 6:35 and Jayne can be briefly seen at 9:47.

A full one hour programme of the meeting will be broadcast as follows –

Sky Sports 2: Tuesday 10th June, 10pm

Eurosport: Friday 13th June, 7.30pm

Channel 4: Saturday 14th June, 5.30am

PDF file of above page available here – B and K Times – 14-06-05

Brent and Kilburn Times – 5th June 14

Yes, there is a real place called Willesden and the 15th June club run will start there, sort of.

I will be leading a ride that will take us through several of the London Royal Parks and two of its cemeteries, it will feature the Thames, canal tow paths, a grand stately home, Soho, a quick blast around Regent Park and a visit to the Mausoleum of Richard Burton, the explorer, that is.

There will be a couple of bits of lifting bikes up and down a few steps and there maybe one or two short stretches along the Thames on earth/gravel (I can’t remember to be honest as its a while since I have cycled them), but it’s mainly roads, with some tarmacked cycle paths.

Arrangements

09:15ish Coffee/Tea/Biscuits
09:30 The ride will set off from my house
09:45 Official start from Willesden Junction station forecourt.
We’ll take a break when we feel like it. I have no particular place in mind, but there’s plenty en-route.
Around 2pm Finish at Three Bridges behind Ealing Hospital
Return to cars and Willesden Junction. We’ll pass Ealing Broadway and Ealing Common Stations en-route.

Getting to the start

My address is 68 St Dunstans Avenue London W3 6QJ.
The last bit from the A40 to my house is a bit convoluted. For those of you without GPS, here is a routesheet (see map). It starts at the second set of lights after the Hanger Gyratory underpass – there are swish offices on the corner. Parking on-street is free and pretty safe. 68 is the one with a mature red Volvo Estate outside, come down the side with your bike to the back garden.

Acton North, Ealing North and Acton Town are all handy Underground Stations. Acton Central on the Overground is very close. Acton Mainline has no Sunday service.

You can of course wait at Willesden Junction if that’s handier – I’d not be so comfortable about recommending parking there.

The ride route (it may change a bit) – can be found at http://ridewithgps.com/routes/4954176

In conjunction with a number of clubs, we are going to be running evening summer 10 mile time trials again this year, with a chance to win club medals.