WELLAND VALLEY CYCLING CLUB NEWSLETTER
MAY 2008
New members
We welcome Iain Hazel, Jeremy Pole, Miles Hillman, Kevin Mills, Chris Hutley, Chris Brown, Rachel de la Rue, Nick Horder and Adrian Stewart.
Get your kit on
Claire Waterfield is now club kit supremo. She’s doing a great job of selling of items of the old style kit at knock-down prices. Visit her stall every Tuesday at club time trials and hurry while stocks last.
Calling all students
It has been the case for some years that full time students over the age of 18 qualify for club membership at £5.00 for the season but this is not indicated on this year’s club card. So if you’re a student, for the price of two pints of beer, or probably three pints in your case as you can easily make Happy Hours, you can become a full member of WVCC. ‘Have leg ache, not headache’ could become the club motto? For the ‘Fox and Goose posse’ it could perhaps be changed to ‘Have leg ache and headache’?
Farndon fiasco
You may remember that on the morning of Sunday March 16th , the date of the first hard ride, it rained and rained and then rained some more. The roads all round the course were awash with a flood in Haselbech large enough to float an ocean going yacht the highlight.
George Barnett and I decided to call off the event which caused a certain amount of consternation among some riders present.
I want to make it clear why we called it off and circumstances under which we would call off other races.
It is easy to take the view that all riders are big enough and old enough (or if young riders, have the permission of someone who is big enough and old enough) to decide whether the conditions are fit for them to ride. From an organiser’s point of view however, this is only part of the issue.
We are all aware from the pages of Cycling Weekly that police forces are clamping down on cycle racing on open roads – we are lucky in Northamptonshire and Leicestershire that the local constabularies are currently very accommodating but this could so easily change.
What might make it change? We can do little about increases in the number of vehicles on the roads or the inexorable growth of built-up areas we can easily ‘mess up’ and lose police and public sympathy by not using the roads responsibly.
Return to March 16th and imagine racing towards a puddle that is covering your side of the road – you instinctive swerve out to avoid it, and will probably have your head down and not see the approaching car – your fault, you die, but how does the car driver feel?
When we’re driving a car don’t we all instinctively swing out to avoid big puddles – we’ve just done this as we approach a bend and a head-down bike racer comes round the bend from the opposite direction – I rest my case.
Gale-force winds, of which we seem to get more and more, also produce conditions that make us a hazard to other road users and might lead to cancellation as might very dull and dark conditions on the evening of a club time trial.
And now the good news -the Farndon hardride has been rescheduled for Sunday September 28th, good weather guaranteed – maybe.
National 25 mile time trial championships
This year’s event is hosted by the South East Midlands Region (our region) on Sunday June 8th on the N1 course at Sawtry, near Huntingdon.
Welland Valley have been asked to marshal one of the many roundabouts on the course.
The event lasts all day and we are required to field a morning and an afternoon team of marshals.
We helped marshal the National 10 last year on the same course and it’s a really interesting day out – a chance to see all the stars and a stellar collection of bikes. If you are able to help marshal the event, please let me know as soon as possible.
NCRA road race on Thursday June 12th
I’m organizing this race, on the Harrington circuit on June 12, starting at 7.15pm.
As I’m entered for the series, I would very much like to ride it. If you could help out with marshalling, course setting or driving a lead car (BC members only for lead car), please let me know asap.
Performance
There’s so much that’s so good to report in this issue.
Let’s start with the impressively pared down Phil Rayner and Colin Griffiths. Phil has already had two victories in LVRC road races and a high position in the Zenith Two Day event. Colin has been focusing on time trialling, in particular on the Rudy Project series and has been fastest veteran in one race and has had high placings in the others. The pair of them, with Matt Plews hanging on gamely to their wheels, have been pounding the byways of South Leicestershire all winter under cover of darkness, their efforts guided by Colin’s ‘Power-tap’, and hasn’t it paid off!
Matt Plews has gained his first BC points from a high placing in the the NCRA Handicap Race at Old and last Saturday posted a personal best for a ‘10’.
David Clarke, already a formidable rider last year, is fulfilling the great potential he showed then. Faced with the choice of buying a new bike or buying a house, he wisely went for the former and it’s really paying off – a 20 minute ‘10’ and wins in every evening club time trial.
Nik Kershaw has made a great start to the season – demonstrating that lots of determination and a build like a tank pay dividends in short distance time trialling.
Alex Fry, after a low key start last season, has really put everything into racing this year. He completed the NCRA road race series, gaining experience and speed week by week and he’s used this fitness to good effect in time trials, getting faster each week.
Sam Brown has likewise come on in leaps and bounds this season.
It was very pleasing last Saturday to see Gavin Hinxman, Peter Watson and Bryan Marshall win the team prize in Saturday’s N&DCA ‘10’.
We don’t win many team prizes in time trials, but we’ve riders good enough to clean up on team prizes in all the local events. Let’s do it!
It goes without saying that Vic Barnett is leading in the Mountain Bike National Series Over 60 section and it was great to see him too flogging round the Melton/Rutland Classic Kermesse course last month – our only finisher in the event.
The prize for most promising newcomer must go to Iain Hazel – you’ve probably not noticed him – he’s quiet and he wears black.
Look out for him – his riding style is near perfect, with upper body completely still. Check out his time when you get back to the headquarters.
Finally, it’s congratulations to Claire Waterfield, who gained her first time trial prize last Saturday – second placed woman in the N&DCA ‘10’.
Free Membership of British Cycling
British Cycling are once again offering free membership for riders who have not been BC members in the past three years. There are three levels of BC membership – bronze, silver and gold. The offer is on bronze membership and you can, if you wish, use that as a discount on silver or gold membership which would give you more benefits of membership.
If you want to try road or circuit racing, you’ll need a licence. A full racing licence will cost you about £30, on top of silver or gold membership. However, if you want to try one of these, you can buy a day licence at the event. If you’re a BC member (even the free bronze membership) a day licence will cost you £5.00 but if you’re not a member it will cost you £10.00.
If you want to take advantage of this free offer please let me know ( cbirch@betula5.freeserve.co.uk or 0116 2792756)
Members Commitment Survey
The committee have been delighted with the response to this survey and it has certainly broadened the organizing and volunteering base this season. It’s been good to see new folk, along with the old hands, marshalling in our three open events so far this year. It’s also great for the club that in Bill Barrie and Adrian Killworth we have gained two excellent race organizers.
Coaching bits
After the second March hard ride I was chatting with one of the riders, asking how he thought he’d done. He was a bit disappointed with his time but felt strong – he’d managed to keep ‘on the big ring’ all the way.
Were he to have asked my view on how he could have done better I’d have suggested that he’d almost certainly have done better had he used the little ring on the hills. My scouts on the course told me that even Colin Griffiths, who won the event, used the little ring going up to Brampton Ash. If you try to go up a hill on the big ring, you’ll have to work very hard, assuming that you’re fit enough to ride it very hard. Let’s say you attempt to climb on 53x19 – at that you may only have one more gear to drop down onto if you’re struggling. 53x19 is the same ratio as 39x14. If you were on 39x14, you’d have at least 5 more gears to drop down onto if you felt the need. A good time triallist would feel the need because she/he would know that he/she will get the best result from maintaining, as near as possible, the same power output throughout the race. If you flog yourself going up a hill, you’ve nothing left for when you over the top. The Griffiths Powertap will have told him how many watts he’s generating up the climb and he will adjust his gearing/speed to match what he knows is the average wattage that will give him the best possible result.
More on wattage – let’s assume that we have the gear for measuring wattage, and the number of riders who have that gear is growing - rider A works out from his winter training that the wattage he should aim for over a time trial is 250.
Q. - where is it easiest for him to generate 250 watts?
A– riding up a hill – the problem is likely to be keeping wattage that low, so he should gear down and take it relatively easy.
Q - where is it hardest to generate 250 watts?
A - riding down a hill.
Q - what are the consequences of this for a training programme?
A – steep hills first, then gentle hills, then the flat, then the downhill – so you’re doing the harder parts later as you are getting fitter.
Getting stale - it’s easy to get stale if all you try through the season is one discipline, and for most of us, that discipline is time trialling.
Why not give road racing, circuit racing or mountain bike racing a try.
There are ample opportunities locally for riders of all abilities to try all of these. Through June and the start of July there are the Tuesday/Thursday evening NCRA handicap road races, there are Tuesday evening circuit races at Mallory Park and at Milton Keynes Bowl and there’s the local Friday night mountain bike series.
All of these will make you stronger, faster and will help keep the enthusiasm tank topped up.
Dave Birch 14.05.08