Winchcombe Cycling Club

Welcome to the Winchcombe Cycling Club website

We are a friendly club based in Winchcombe and are into all forms of cycling, on and off-road. Whether you’re a novice or an expert, the club has something to offer. Members take part in regular social rides, Audax/Sportive riding, MTB enduro events, road racing/time trialling and touring.

If you’d like to get involved, get in touch with Club General Secretary, David Thomas – Email wccgensec@aol.com, or Club Membership Secretary, Gerard McHugh – Email wccmembership@clickinsight.co.uk

Winchcombe
Cycling Club news

What we are planning or have been up to lately.

Chedworth Ride

Image may contain: one or more people and people sitting ‘Chedworth is both a favourite and popular ride – be there on time’ proclaims The Captain in his weekly proclamation to rally the troops. Expecting to battle through crowds to get to the library cider press its more like a Paul Daniels appreciation meet. The Tandem duo are joined by three half bikes adorned by Kevin, Tony and another defector from the dark side – the super fit Mike.
In the age of globalism and free thinking it’s encouraging to see the MTB Community expanding their experience. Abandoning the potholes of the Bridleways in preference for the potholes of Gloucestershire Roads.

By invite we chase the half bikes (chase perhaps being an exaggeration of our velocity) up Hills and they chase us down the Hills. The hare-like pace of lean machine Tony Payne is apparent as he draughts in the wake of The Tandem descending to Bourton where we have the pleasure of being overtook by a Tele handler. The driver was screaming abuse at his side window as he passes ‘Whatever did that window do to piss him off that much’ I enquire?

We discuss the New Cups and awards that will be on offer next year and giggle in primary age fashion at the prospect of ‘The Ben and Jerry’s Audax Award’ ‘ proposed by the lovely Lorraine Parker. It will have to be in the shape of the ice-cream tub’ chortles the Captain as we plod through Bourton.

A few more hills and we are at the Sherborne Post Office. We are surrounded by cravats and The Sunday Times – Gentleman in red trousers with bifocals and Ladies in Cashmere scarfs. I suggest to Mike what a long way he had come – only a fortnight ago he would have been hiding in a hawthorn hedge eating a banana or fingering his way through a can of Bargain Buy sardines. He looked contented with his choice and clearly affected by this new experience. We are joined by Terry as we are leaving – he looked great after his recent crash and we are thrilled to see him out again. it’s a shame he damaged his alarm clock also. Terry is definitely a nomination for Gravitas this year and we are sure the Roadies could be cleaning up.
A wonderful pedal home varying the ride taking the Hawling road home and dropping down Salters instead of the Suicideley Hill. A great downhill to finish a very enjoyable morning 39 miles and 3000 plus feet of climbing. Roll in the sunshine!

Weekend Road Rides (14th/15th April)

Attention Roadies

Following last weeks successful HONC mainly due to the road section members who dusted of there alternate means of two wheeled transport (MTB) and showed them pesky MTBers how to do it! We will resume our normal road routine this weekend (hoorah)

SATURDAY 14th : Lorraine will be resuming the Saturday morning rides for the summer period. As before they will be shorter than Sundays with no Cafe stop. This Saturday will be a flat 25m circuit in the Evesham direction. 09:00 depart from the Library Car Park All welcome.

SUNDAY 15th: will be a 37m hilly route to the Post Office and Village Store at Sherbourne a very popular run. Prompt 08:30 depart from the Library Car Park as normal see you there.

HONC 2018

Winchcombe Cycling Club would like to give a massive thank you to all our Club members that helped and took part in the 34th HONC.

Winchcombe CC fielded over 80 volunteers on the day & we have again had some great feedback from riders on the day & also on social media.
The weather proved very challenging this year & necessitated a very late change in our usual parking arrangements at Winchcombe School to another field adjacent to the school – what a brilliant job Neil Hunt & his team did on that!

Despite the dreadful weather in the weeks before, approaching 1000 riders were rewarded with trails that had dried a lot in the preceding couple of days & lead riders posted some impressive finishing times:

50K Senior & Junior – Fraser Wight – ( Cotswold Cycles TREK) -2hr 15min.

50K Female – Sarah Wight – (Cotswold Cycles TREK) – 2hr 49min.

100K Senior – Marc Chamberlain – (Cotswold Cycles TREK) – 3hr 53min.

100K Female NR

100K Junior – Jointly Jacob & Sam Hardy (Cheltenham and County CC) – 5hr 59min.

We collected nearly £200 for the Air Ambulance & HONC will be making a further donation from event funds in due course.

David Thomas has posted some great images of the day and & Jay Taylor has posted a video of his view of the start from a marshalling position in Winchcombe ( See Links below)

Sadly before the start we announced the loss of one of our longest serving volunteers Alice Haller earlier in the week.Her son Graham a member of Cheltenham and County CC is our route designer. This was followed the tragic news of the the death of Michael Goolaerts in the Paris Roubaix event that inspired HONC 34 years ago. Our condolences go to their families & friends.

That’s HONC nearly done & dusted for another year, thanks again everyone at WCC & also to our friends at Cheltenham & County CC for their huge contibution.

HONC is upon us!

HONC 2018

For information about the 2018 event – please visit the HONC website and Facebook page.

WCC AGM

Winchcombe Cycling Club is offering free drinks and nibbles to all members on Sunday 22 April at 1pm in the Garden Room of the White Hart as a mild inducement to attend the AGM.

The timing allows members to have returned from the morning’s group rides – unless you get lost! The format will be such that we aim to finish all business in less than an hour, with the emphasis being on getting members’ ideas on future plans for club activities.

The minutes of last year’s AGM and the agenda for this year’s meeting have been emailed to all club members.

Please could you email David Thomas to let him know whether you will be attending so we can confirm numbers to the White Hart.

Under our constitution three committee members are due to stand down this year, and are available for re-election should they wish to stand:

John Taylor has decided not to seek re-election as Chair. The directors have approached Gerard McHugh to succeed John, and he has agreed, subject to approval by members at the AGM. If there are any other candidates seeking to fill this post, please David Thomas know.

Jim Davies is willing to serve a further term as the member responsible for External Communications and will seek re-election. Once again, if there are any other candidates seeking to fill this post, please let me know.

Angie Appleton has decided not to seek re-election as the member responsible for the Ladies Section. The role of the Ladies Section will be discussed at a Committee meeting on 12 April, following which a candidate to fill this role may or may not be sought. If you have any views on this prior to the Committee meeting please let David know.

Assuming Gerard is elected Chair the position of Membership Secretary will become vacant. Carole Ward has kindly agreed to take on this role and will be up for election. However, if you have a burning desire to seek election for it, then please also let me know!

We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible on the 22nd.

Strava segment challenge for 2018

With the weather improving (??) the time seems right to re-open the Strava segment challenge for 2018. So use that winter training, or more likely, begin to shed that winter weight by having a go.

As before, members have up until the last day of the month to ride a designated segment, with speed (whilst being vigilant and safe) the order of the day. Each month a new segment will be opened, and results from the previous month published.

There is a slight change to the handicaps this year, giving the younger riders more chance after last year being dominated by dads army. All handicaps are per mile, with segments rounded to the nearest mile.

< 35 – 15 seconds
35-44 – 10 seconds
45-54 – 5 seconds
55+ – 0 seconds

This month is a 1.1 mile drag (2% average gradient) from Beckford village hall up to the Yew tree pub – view it here.

Don’t forget the TT league starts with a 5 mile leg loosener on Thursday 12th April. Full details of events can be found – here.

Good luck!!

Road Runs list – April to June 2018

The Sunday road runs list for April to June 2018 is available now on the Road page.

Some route have also been made available for GPS devices – please see the runs list pdf for more information.

WCC AGM and the HONC

WCC Annual General Meeting – Save the Date !!
We will be holding our AGM this year in the garden room of that well known hostelry The White Hart, at 1.00pm. on Sunday 22nd April. We thought that this would allow keen Sunday riders to come straight to the venue & as a further inducement the club will be providing complimentary drinks & nibbles!
David T will be circulating further details in due course as we will need to get some indication of numbers attending.

HONC Sun 8th April
Not long to go – a big thank you to everyone who has responded to the emails for volunteers – we are now pretty well there with nearly 80 club members helping on the day – that really is great support ! All we need now is some dry warm weather !