Willesden Cycling Club

Some races have been added to the British Cycling 2009 road racing calandar. Highlights include the Archer GP, which seems to be back on this year after a dispute with police in 2008. The racing team are due to have a team meeting to prepare for the 2009 season so watch this space of you place to race next year.

The last time trial event of the season took place on Sunday. The Brighton Mitre C.C. 25 mile event had to be re-routed due to road works and was run over 2 laps of a hilly circuit. It was a cold, wet and windy morning and Pete Cookson was one of the early starters and finished in 1.17.22. Gill Reynolds, starting over an hour and a half later, managed to record 1.14.12 to gain the second fastest lady award.

On Sunday, in the Hillingdon C.C. 25 mile time trial at Marlow , Pete Cookson was the fastest of our members recording 59.55, followed by Gill Reynolds 1.5.35 (3rd fastest lady), Joe Foley 1.9.25 and Mike Jerome, who improved on his fastest time this season, to finish in 1.11.07.

Well done to all those who took part.

This weekend a splinter group of Willesden riders went on a club run…..8am from Denham. Why so early? The plan was to get back in time for their respective wives and parters to make sure they didn’t get in trouble.

It went so well that they are looking to do this every Saturday. If you would like to join them please email

This weekend saw the Willesden combine with the Westerley RC for the annual 2-up time trial and hill climb.

The fastest time for the 10 miles was recorded by Dave Newman and Malcolm Woolsey (Westerley) in 23.40. Willesden’s pairings of Gill Reynolds and Pete Cookson finished in second place in 24.26, Chris James and Mike Jerome 27.53, Tony Woodford and Richard Woodford 29.35 and Ron Johnson and Rob Ross 29.40.

No-one from the Willesden took part in the hill climb which means we will have no Hill climb champion this year.

The Willesden and the Westerley are combining to organise the annual 2-up and hill climb this weekend. The action starts at Great Missenden at 9am. If you wish to enter please contact Suzz here

The plan……

Race at MOD Chertsey in the morning, finish in the top 10 and go out for a nice pub lunch to celebrate. If not then head to Hillingdon for the afternoon and try again, but our lads don’t like doing things the easy way.

John Williams had a puncture half way in the race and had to pull out to save himself for the afternoon race, whilst Rich Cooper went a bit too early and had to settle for 12th place whilst nearly wrecking his legs in the process.

Things were looking bad, including John’s tube replacing skills but after a brief lunch and some recovery drinks they were back in action at Hillingdon and John managed 5th place and Rich managed 8th place both securing their 3rd cat licences for next year. An excellent result for both of them considering the earlier efforts.

Well done!!

This weekend see’s both Rich Cooper and John Williams attempt to gain their 3rd cat licences.

Richard has 9 points and John has 8 points and both need to make it to 10 to make it to 3rd cat. They both have plans to race at MOD Chertsey on Saturday morning as their final race. However of they don’t make it then they will be racing another event at Hillingdon later on in the day.

Good luck!!!

I have just managed to get some of the results from our Track Championships held at Calshott last weekend. The winner was Simon Wicks and the Ladies Champion Jayne Paine. Our 2nd claim members, who are in the Hillingdon Slipstreamers until they reach the age of 16, rode brillantly. Dan Maslin and Stephanie May showed the adults how speedy they were.

Ed Packard made a return to racing after a 5 week layoff due to health problems and rode the East Anglian 25 on Sunday finishing with a 1.01.12. Gill Reynolds was the 2nd fastest lady with 26.33 in the West London C.A. 10 mile near Oxford in which Pete Cookson recorded 24.19.

Liz Creese ran an Autumn Assortment Audax event from Ruislip in which over 60 riders took part covering distances of 50Kms, 100 kms or 200 kms.

On a sad note. Over 100 people from local cycling clubs attended the funeral of Gwyn Doel on Thursday. She was a long time member of the club and was well known throughout West London for her famous chocolate sponge cakes.

Gladys Purdy

Good news, Ray has provided us with the first date of his Tuesday night Turbo sessions.

The first will start on October the 14th at the club room at 7:00pm. Please bring your own turbo and bike. A towel would also be handy as Ray will not be happy unless you have lost at least a pint of sweat. Ray will also be “entertaining” us with his special taste in music to add to the pain.

See you there.

Correction: The Turbo session will start at 8:00pm each Tuesday from 14 October 2008

Willesden CC members are famed for getting into any photograph going. At the recent Tour of Britain Gladys Joy Purdy and Derek Reynolds claim their 15 nonoseconds of fame…

Gladys, second from Left (red jacket and green hat)
Derek, fifth from left (sporting new WCC club kit)

Weekend of 06/07 September 08

In spite of the dismal weather some club members managed to ride time trials. Richard Jerome took a break from Road Racing to ride in the Wednesday evening 9.2 mile event at Black Park and recorded the fastest time a 22.50. He was joined by Rich Cooper, riding his first time trial, who finished with a creditable time of 25.33.

On Sunday Gill Reynolds took the fastest lady and 3rd fastest vet in the Reading C.C. 10 at Aldermarston before going into London to watch the start of the Tour of Britain.

The Oldtimers section of the club had a picnic at Hindhead with the club’s President, Jimmy Love. Jim was a member of the 1948 Olympic team .

Some of the WCC memebers on the Old Timers Picnic.

Weekend 13/14 September 2008

The Willesden C.C. were out in force at Cheddington yesterday promoting their annual Road Races. The John Walker memorial event was run over 130 Kms and Dan Staite of the Python R.T. was the first over the line.

In the Dulcie Walker memorial race ,which covered 100Kms , club members Jayne Paine, Rich Cooper, Adam Pawlikowski, Simon Wicks and John Williams took part. Adam and Simon made a break in the last mile but were drawn back by the main group and the resulting bunch finish took sometime, even with a photo finish camera, to establish the result. Ben de Wet(BC Private member) was declared the winner. Our second claim member Paul Doel(Team Quest) was 5th.

As Jayne was the only lady riding she was awarded a prize.

The time trialists were in action in the Icknield Road Club 10 at Tempsford. Gill Reynolds took fastest lady award with a 24.22 and Pete Cookson finished in 22.32. Nearer home Brian Moon rode in the West London Combine 25 and recorded a 1.15.52.

Judging by Jayne’s surprise, either jumbo has very cold right hand, or Ray a very cold left hand??

Weekend 20/21 September 2008

Pete Cookson rode in the North Hampshire Road Club 25 mile time trial at Bentley on Saturday and recorded 1.00.14 and and Chris James improved on his fastest time this season with a 1.06.02

Gladys Joy Purdy

Jumbo wanted to pass on his thanks for everyone who helped make the road race a success. Please find attached letter from Jumbo in word format HERE.

Also we have a photo of Jumbo with the Elite Race winner, Dan Staite of Python RT. Well done Dan!

We have subscribed the club to the Wiggle affiliate scheme, as a result of this you will now find a banner pointing to the Wiggle website. This just means that if you go to the Wiggle website via the link on the Willesden website then the club will receive some money from the purchase.

Congratulations to Chris James for organising a great event. Willesden Riders were out in full force in the 3/4 race however didn’t quite have it in the end to contest the sprint.

Both myself and Richard Jerome have taken time out of our busy work (and race) schedule to give the website it’s final push. We hope you are as pleased with the results as we are.

There will be more to come and we intend to grow the site over the coming months, we do however need your help.

We need more photographs, we need stories, we need calendar events and most of all we need we need regular “contributors”. A site is nothing without it’s content and who better to provide this than the members of the club itself.

So if you have anything for us, please send it over to willesden@coopa.net and we promise to get it online as soon as possible.

All the best

Rich Cooper

Miles Back
07 September 2008

Saturday’s Children’s Cycling Taster turned out to be a success despite bad weather conditions.

We set out our stall next to the impressive Willesden Sports Centre in the throbbing heart ofNW10. It was good to see the WCC organise a cycling event actually based in Willesden itself. Plenty of WCC volunteers were on hand to help on the day, namely Jim and Wendy Mears , Jumbo James, Jan and Ray Kelly, Wendy and Mark Brooking, Vyv Baker, Digger the dog and John Davies

Courtesy of British Cycling Ray had brought his stock of mountain bikes, cones and stripy tape. He quickly laid out a course that required riders to negotiate a narrow alleyway of cones, followed by a short slalom course, a quick duck under the limbo pole and then into a designated square where you had to stop and balance the bike for five seconds.

For the first hour or more we huddled under the Willesden gazebo, lashed by rain and high winds. As there was not the slightest hint of any customers, we took a long, thoughtful look at the skies. It did not look good and we decided to call it a day and pack it in. That’s when the rush started! A steady trickle of riders arrived, together with an improvement in the weather and our morale. For the next hour the course was alive with children having a great time riding around the course. At one point we ran out of spare bikes. In total we had around 10 children, many rode continually around the course for over an hour. Numbers were also boosted by a few mums, dads and a grand dad who were just as keen to have a go. This included one gentleman who hadn’t touched a bike in 35 years. Star of the day was a tiny rider who turned up with his own bike complete with stabilizers, he left riding without them!

The session was due to finish at 4pm, but riders were showing no signs of giving in. We started to collect the cones and limbo poles, they simply rode round us instead. At the end of the session riders and parents were very keen to do another session as soon as possible. So were we.

In summary a rewarding day and a great start to the Willesden’s Go-Ride/Club Mark programme.
Miles Back

06 September 08

Richard Cooper and myself both took part in the Bath Road evening TT on a very windy Wednesday night, times were about 30 seconds slower than normal for this course but I somehow managed to do a 22:50 on my road bike to win the event and Rich Cooper managed a very impressive 25:33 for his first ever TT.

Richard Jerome