Willesden Cycling Club

Rich Cooper, Richard Jerome and Pete Dixon were both in action at Hillingdon circuit this week on Tuesday Richard Jerome got confused in the sprint finish and sprinted a lap early along with quite a few others.

Rich Cooper got caught behind a crash when Michael Wilmot (team quest) brushed his pedal around one of the corners. Thankfully there were no injuries.

Pete Dixon finished well adding to his points tally towards his 3rd cat licence.

On Saturday Richard Jerome took part in the e/1/2/3 event and Pete inthe 4th cat event.

Rich was stuggling to find any form over the 45 laps and used the race as training after the bunch split into two.

Peter was pleased to finish 4th and is now a 3rd cat.

Well done!

Meurig James finished in the top 10 of the Hirwaun Wheelers 25 on Sunday with a personal best time of 52.15. He is now taking a week off to join his girlfriend who is competiting in the Dragon Boat Championships in Prague next week. He then plans to ride in the Welsh 12 hour.
Also riding a personal best this weekend was Joe Foley in the North Hampshire 25 at Farnham finishing in 1.05.04. Gill Reynold’s time of 1.06.25 in the same event gave her the fastest lady Vet award. Brian Moon and Chris James finished in 1.08.36 and 1.08.40.
On Sunday competing in the Hillingdon Old Crocks 10 at Gt. Missenden Jim McKay recorded 28.56, Alan Gallacher 29.03, Brian Wright 31.15 and Ron Purdy 32.56. In the Ladies Invitation event on the same course Gill Reynolds was 3rd in 27.29 and Joanna Austin 4th in 28.45.
All for now.
Cheers Gladys

In my experience very few riders seem to sport m*dguards on their commute to work. Surely it’s basic potty training for cyclists?

I have just seen a new product on the CW website that seems very original in its thinking and elegant in it solution. So far so good, but it has a really scuzzy name – the Crud Roadracer.

See http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/news/latest/394392/crud-roadracer-mudguards.html

Miles Back
21Aug 09

The annual John & Dulcie Walker road races have been forced to off the roads by Thames Valley Police and will now be held at Hillingdon Cycle Circuit on September 13.

The LEL (London-Edinburgh-London) has been been over for a couple of weeks now and riders have begun surface again to post some photos and films of the ride.

The Willesden CC were well represented on the LEL by Martin Lucas, Mel Kirkland, Yoshi, Mark Green, Peter Turnbull and Paul Stewart.

Here is one particularly good film that sums up the challenge of the event and the joy of an English summertime ride through the country.

Miles Back 20 Aug 09

Hi, I raced last night and got 7th place, now need four more points to
progress to Cat 3 (first season of racing), cheers, Peter Dixon.

Message from Suzz about the two-up time trial in September. A two-up is always great fun (no sniggering, I talking about cycling!), so let’s have a good turn out for the club. Just need someone to match my glacial pace and I’ll be on the line.

See Suzz’s note below for detail

Miles Back 18th Aug 09

The Next 25 mile time trial is to be held on 6^th September on the CC114 Circuit (near Great Missenden), with the first rider off at 07.31. It is a 2-up, but you can also ride as a Solo. The closing date for the event is Tuesday 25^th August, so If you would like to enter, then please could you let me know by Friday 21^st, as I shall be away most of next week.

Regards

Suzz

Despite the threat of rain on Saturday the 1st August we had clear sky’s and a fine afternoon for the club track champs with a turn out of 13 riders for the event. Although half were guest a good afternoons racing was enjoyed by all with Ray George winning the senior category and Kirsten Savage the under 16.

Meurig James has broken two Willesden CC records with a 19:56 for a ten and 3:45:48 for the 100.

The 100 was done at the Welsh National 100 and Meurig finished in 3rd place.

Well done.

Two cycling videos for your pleasure !

One total is total cheese, the other reasonablywitty. You decide!

Miles Back 15/8/09

(with due credit to NYC Bike Snob’s excellent blog).

Ray Kelly is organising a photo shoot and short ride with the Rt Hon Andy Burnham MP, the Secretary of State for Health at 11:00am on Thursday 13th August 2009

Please turn up in your best Willesden kit and best bike, as you’ll be in all the National papers, possibly even the Willesden & Brent Times. If you have any National or European medals, then bring those along too.

We need as many riders as possible so please make the effort to be there. The address is –

I decided to enter the points race in the Europeans as I had done so unexpectedly well in it in the National masters. Fortunately I didn’t wear my blue National Championship jersey, because i got absolutely thrashed and effectively came last. Them sprinters did me over! I decided that my best tactic for success was to attack early on and try to get away . And that’s what I did in the whole race – I attacked and tried to get away, repeatedly but was chased down. Anyway the good thing was that with me on the front quite a bit of the time , the 12.5km didn’t take too long (19 mins of rather hard work), and I was soon back in the stands having a cup of tea and listening to my Uncle Eddy saying that he had wanted to throw my mother’s crutch at Janet Birkmyer, but Mum’s grip was too strong. Ace-sprinter, Janet Birkmyer, picked up the maximum of 25 points by winning every single sprint lap. I got 2 points.

A few days later was the 2km Pursuit.
You had to get a good time in the first round because this determined where you were in the second round. Well!!!! I got a fantastic time in the first round and a PB – 2min 39.55s This was the fastest time of the day in my age group, the ‘older-than-you-look’ category, and it was good enough for me to be cycling for gold or silver. Inevitably, I was in a death-match with Janet Birkmyer, who had been able to conserve her energy in the first round as she had gone last and had the benefit of knowing the time she had to achieve.
I had a secret weapon – my fan club! Cassie Gledhill, Emily Hogge and Nicci Meadows- my mates from DNA Racing Team , all made the long trek to Manchester with the sole intention of making the biggest racket you’ve ever heard. They had their faces painted with ‘GO JAYNE’ in WILLESDEN COLOURS! I was so proud . It was great!
Simon Wicks ( Bloke) was walking the line for me, helping me stick to schedule, and it seemed to be going well. I was ahead of Janet almost from the start. Unfortunately it’s the last lap that counts, apparently, and she managed to do a phenomenal last lap and nipped over the line half a second ahead of me. Me -2.40.1 Janet- 2.39.6.

I got a SILVER MEDAL! I was so pleased! The medal ceremony was just like the Olympics – dollies with high heels and chrysanthemums and everything! We even had to do a lap of honour . I had a lovely day.

A full album of photo’s is available here

Ian Why, the WCC’s foreign correspondent, files this report back from the Champs Elysees, along with some photos.

Sorry I could not make the club run this week. I was in the capital of French France supporting two plucky Brits showing Johnny Foreigner what they were made of.

You'll be pleased to know that after three weeks of playing an intense stage racer Mr. Wiggins reverted to type on the parade lap and rode up the Champs Elysees saluting the crowd with a bottle of beer. What a star!!!

Cav managed to smile at people waving strange flags with three legs on them!

The only disappointment was a certain American who rode the parade lap 100 metres in front of his team surrounded by press motor bikes. No one saw him until he had passed by, disappointing loads of fans, especially the kids. What an ********! He didn't have the hump or anything, much!!

Alberto Contador was behind his team with a smile so wide he could have swallowed the Eiffel Tower side ways!!

Ian Why (a.k.a. B&Q)

This rider who obviously did not try too hard on the Champs Elysees!

Stuey O'Grady & Saxo Bank

Nicholas Roche son of Steven, who had a really good tour.

Cycling weekly have a compiled a good photo gallery of our brave boys in the tour. See http://bit.ly/iee1Y

Miles Back Jul 09

Miles Back received a call from Mark Brooking and Ray Kelly as they awaited for the last riders to pass through the top Scottish LEL control. It seems a group of five Italian riders were away and had built up a day’s lead over the nearest riders. Mama mia, those boys are shifting.

So far four bikes have been stolen on the event, all of them at or near the London start. Mark Brooking has proved to be a hero and has lent one of the riders his pride-and-joy Condor for the event. Also one Greek rider wrote-off his bike within audax-spitting distance of the start. So the Lee Valley bicycle industry should be comfortably defy the recession with replacements.

The modern Audaxer when not obsessing about lights and GPS downloads now manages to find time to keep a running commentary on Twitter. It seems the weather has been bad and a number of riders have packed it in.

No news on how the Willesden riders are doing as yet, but they are made of strong stuff

Miles Back 29 July 09

The WCC picnic will be held at Langley Park from noon onwards on Sunday next.
Water pistols optional! I think Brian is trying to organise some bicycle polo as well this year.
Cheers Gladys

Hi,
I’m e-mailing you in regards to the Dextro Energy triathlon, to see if any of your club members would be interested in potentially volunteering.
The triathlon will be taking place in Hyde Park on the 15th/16th Auguts. We are keen to get as many volunteers as possible to , participate and potentially be marshalls for the event.
Each volonteer will recieve a full kit which they get to keep at the end of the race and they will also recieve breakfast and lunch for the day.
Also if you can get 25 members or more to volunteer Dextro Energy will donate £250 to your club.

Please see website below for more details to pass on to any of your members who may be interested in taking part:

http://www.triathlon-wcs-london.org/index.php/en/volunteers
As the event is taking place on the 15th it would be great if you could ask your members to contact us this week, so we can get a rough idea of you by.

If you could also provide a telephone number so that i could contact you it would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,

Philippa

Everyone seems to have been watching the Tour de France this weekend. The only results I have are for the London Vets 10 mile time trial on Wednesday afternoon. The strong headwind on the way out made riding difficult but Pete Cookson recorded his fastest time his year with a 23.22 and with Gill Reynold’s ride of 26.22 narrowly missed thr team prize by 8 seconds. Also riding were Brian Moon 27.25 and Ron Purdy 31.27.
Club members Martin Lucas, Mel Kirkland and Paul Stewart were riding the 1400kms London to Edinburgh and Back Audax event .
Gill went down to Wales for a few days so I haven’t got any results from the events she rode there.
All for now, Regards,
Gladys

The weekend sees the start of the London-Edinburgh-London, 1400 kms of Audax fun(?). The WCC is represented by Martin Lucas, Mel Kirkland and Paul Stewart. I imagine UK and WCC Audax champion, Peter Turnbull, will also be riding, but I’ve yet to have this confirmed. Good luck guys.

The WCC are also heavily involved in the running all the logistics for the event. Jim Mears, Wendy Mears, Mark Brooking and Ray Kelly will be swapping sides and becoming White Van drivers for the next week, as they haul all the riders bags up and down the course.

MB
25 July 09