Rye and District Wheelers Newsletter, November 2019.

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Rye and District Wheelers

Newsletter November 2019

From the Chair

In the last Newsletter, I was anxious to ensure all members had four important dates in their calendar, including the next Captains ride on 24 November.  Dave Greenwood and Steve Blattman have now circulated all the details. Please respond promptly as we have to order the food in advance.

The same goes for Christmas lunch on 15 December. Please respond to Steve Blattman promptly.

In advance of the call for 2020 subscriptions, the Committee has revised and updated information which is attached to the membership form, and integrated it with another paper found elsewhere on the website. Please see the Club Rules and Etiquette which is attached to this newsletter. We trust you approve.

Finally, a reminder of the date of our AGM – 12 December, 8 pm at the Queens Head, Rye. Sorry to say that we have a clash of dates with the General Election, but hope that won’t affect attendance. Please come to support the club and help to elect the 2020 committee. AGM papers will be circulated shortly.

Paul Wilson

From the Captain

On a personal note, I have had a break from the Sunday Club ride. This time attending Army reunions. The KCA Awards Lunch with Nick and Rebecca Wilson and most recently for Sunday’s Remembrance Parade in Tenterden, where I had the pleasurable company of Barry Goodsell and Paul Simpson, also Barry’s good friend, Dids. Beers were had and lamps swung. This break fell in nicely with a rest for the legs before the long winter slog.

I did though, ride the KCA Reliability Ride. This year we were very fortunate with the weather, but as usual, it was a tough ride and with no cafe stop. There was a definite drop in numbers this year from all clubs. Our small group of 5 Rye and District Wheelers were joined by a few from the Wigmore, however it was down to us Wheelers to keep the pace up on the front. Well done to Mark Wright, Leigh Foxton, Barry Goodsell and Mark Amon for an excellent ride. Rick Box was out on the ride and it was good to catch up with him at one of the checkpoints. Thank you, to Nick Wilson for sorting the entries. 

I can report that the rainy weather has been having an effect on all group rides. Having good communication in the groups particularly weekday rides gives opportunities to ride on more favourable days. Thank you to David Ovenden for his regular updates on the Tuesday afternoon ride. I can also report that the Chain Gang is running smoothly along.

Sunday 24th November will be the winter Captain’s Ride, a change to the normal ride. We are using Hamstreet Victory Hall for a self-catering food stop. Paul Wilson and a group of volunteers will be feeding us, so please chat amongst your group rides and let’s get numbers to Paul or myself in good time. We will be having the usual three groups rides. David Ovenden will be leading the White group, Rick Box the Red group and Paul Osborne the Black group. Thank you for organising the routes and getting them to me so I can recce them, more on the routes and timings in WhatsApp updates nearer the time. There will, of course, be options to ride solo or in smaller groups, please let me know on the day if you wish to do this. 

Thank you to Rick for improvising with this O/S map and route outline.

See you on the 24th, 

Ride safe.

David Greenwood

From the Treasurer

Rye Wheelers: 1 Nov.2018 – 31 October 2019
INCOME 1-month Oct 2019 12 months Oct 2019
Members’s subscriptions   £1,357.50
Kit Sales   £1,205.00
TT Entry Fees   £670.00
Awards Donations charitable    £126.00
British cycling fee   £594.00
 Total   £3,952.50
 
EXPENDITURE
Kit Purchases £978.36 £1,641.30
CTT Levy   £432.00
Website £64.74 £281.52
Awards, Trophies, Medals, plates   £246.50
Affiliations £74.00 £163.00
Up for lunch costs   £98.28
Admin Costs   £40.00
Donations   £0.00
High Vis Jackets   £186.29
Rye Wheeler Awards    £200.00
 Total £1,117.10 £3,288.89
BANK RECONCILIATION    
Opening as @ 1 Nov. 2018 £1,883.45
Less Expenditure   £3,288.89
Plus, Income   £3,952.50
Closing as @ 30 Apr. 2019 £2,547.06

The above table reflects the whole year of Rye & District Wheelers Club accounts.  It shows that the Club has increased cash reserves to a healthy £2,547.06 from the open balance of £1,883.45.  The closing balance is following the payment this month of approximately £1,000 in kit purchase.   

The kit (as a Club asset), should, therefore represent cash income to the Club as it is sold throughout 2020.  We currently hold kit to the value of £3,000.  

The cash balance also represents the hard work of those responsible for the Clubs activities, such as the ‘Up for Lunch’ event and the TT races, albeit we will be donating £450 to the hospital from the ‘Up for Lunch’ income.

Doug Lambert

From the Hon Secretary

Secretarial duties in the last month have been the usual mundane stuff but it all needs doing! 

I’m pleased that we’re getting a good response to the Club’s Christmas Lunch on 15th December at the Oasts. It’ll be good to see a few more members and friends coming along. It’s a fun event and a chance to get together for a drink rather than a bacon roll and tea!

Steve Blattman

From the Racing Secretary

For the last couple of months, I’ve been reporting on the winding down of the 2019 racing season, only to finish with a busy three weekends in a row in October. On the 6th, Lewes Wanderers held their Grand Prix de Gents on the GS838a course in East Sussex. The 17.5-mile course starts just east of Ringmer and heads past the HQ in Laughton, before turning sharply north on the A22 and then picking up the A26 towards Lewes before a hairpin and back towards the chequered flag just west of Ringmer. A Grand Prix de Gents is a slightly different take on a two-up time trial, where the pairs consist of at least one veteran who is led around the entire circuit and is only allowed to overtake the lead rider in the final 200m. Results are determined by age standard of the rider being led, and Lewes run categories for men, women, mixed and family teams. This year would be the third time I would ride with Steve Gooch and the fourth that Rebecca would ride with Dave Greenwood. Overnight forecasts were not great with the tail end of storm Lorenzo due to coincide with the 9 am start. Had it been an individual event we would probably all have stayed in bed, and even as we met in the car park, clouds were ripping past and there were intermittent heavy showers. As our starts drew closer, the skies cleared and apart from the wet road, the conditions were perfect. Dave and Rebecca were off first and they were hoping to improve on their previous best of 49:36 and were on track until Dave slowed down for the first corner and Rebecca didn’t, I understand that quite a lot of shouting was involved and Rebecca rode into Dave and ended up on the floor. A quick dusting off and they were back on their way before reaching the timekeeper in 45:06, knocking 4:30 off their previous time, no doubt a 44 next year if they can ride without incident. Steve and I set off about 20 minutes later and had clear run round to take 1:12 off our previous best finishing in 38:25 and taking the scratch win and earning a cash prize, all in all a good day out. 

A week later saw the Kent VTTA 15, this event doubling as our final club championship event of the year and was held for the fourth time on the Q15/1 course. Based on the A2070 Hamstreet bypass, the course starts on slip road north of Hamstreet and takes riders to the Bridgefield roundabout before retracing and dropping down to Brenzett , another retrace before finishing on the main road as it crosses the military canal. There were seven Rye riders on the start sheet of whom six started and, in a repeat of the previous week, the forecast foul weather didn’t materialise. The conditions were good albeit with a tough headwind while approaching the Brenzett roundabout. Just a couple of days before the event I had a desperate call from the promoter Bob Giles, asking for marshals in order that the event could go ahead. A couple of WhatsApp messages later and, as usual, the Wheelers came good with Mark Wright pushing off, Barry Goodsell, Dave Richardson and Jim Hollands all on the Brenzett roundabout. An offer too from Paul Wilson who unfortunately couldn’t make it on the day. Those of us who ride are always so grateful to those who give up their time to help at events, we don’t have many racers compared to other clubs, but the Wheelers always step up when needed and 2019 has been no exception. Thank you all 

Nick Wilson  32:07 
William Murtagh 33:17 
Steve Gooch 33:19 
Dave Greenwood 36:04 
Rebecca Wilson 36:59 
Mark Amon 40:26 (on his first TT back from injury and on a road bike) 

We finally managed to wrap our 2019 season on the 20th at the CTT National Closed Circuit Championships at Thruxton. It’s a relative newcomer on the CTT calendar and was the first time for us and, as the name

suggests, consists of five laps of the 2.3-mile motor racing circuit near Andover. Because the course is traffic-free, the event is open to younger entrants and it was great to see some of the seasoned veteran TTers out cheering their children on a wide variety of machines from MTBs to full TT setups. In order to make the best of the circuit time, riders were set off at 30-second intervals which allowed for around 300 solo participants and around 100 more in a 4 up TTT. Rebecca and I arrived early as the course had been made available for practice for 45 minutes before the first starters. The temperature dropped significantly overnight, and although dry, it was chilly in the breeze around the circuit. We had a few admin problems to sort out before Rebecca’s start as her Garmin was not reporting speed or distance and we had intended to use the distance as a means of counting the laps. Local rider Nic Fennel kindly came to the rescue with a replacement battery for a power meter which sorted the problem. With an hour and a half between our starts, I was able to get a few pictures as Rebecca went around before I started my warmup. I may have cut things a bit fine as I didn’t really warm up properly and I forgot to attach my timing chip. Ultimately, I ended up a bit disappointed with my ride. It’s a great event though, and we’ll definitely return next year to see if we can make any improvements. 

Nick Wilson 24.49 
Josh Clark    24:59 (In his Royal Navy colours) 
William Murtagh   25:41 
Rebecca Wilson     29:00 

Nick Wilson

Up for Lunch | David Richardson

The final sums have been worked out for the Rye Wheelers ‘Up for Lunch’ Charity Cycle Hill Challenge held on September 1st this year.

We had 42 riders, plus a couple of no-shows on the day which meant our total income for the ride was £594. We had costs of £151.08 which include the levies paid to British Cycling for using their online entry system. This means that we should be able to make a donation to the Rye & District Hospital of around £440. This represents an increase of over 75% on last year’s donation. 

So, a big thank you to all those who took part in this challenging event, because whilst the pain has long since subsided, the pleasure of giving to such a worthwhile cause keeps rolling along.

‘Up for Lunch’ Cheque Donation Presentation David Richardson, Andrew Whittaker, Stephanie Faulkner-Smith & Paul Wilson.”

Rye and District Wheelers | Club Rules and Etiquette.

1. Before you Ride.

The club is affiliated to British Cycling but does not provide insurance for individual members. Members are strongly advised to make their own arrangements for personal and third-party cover which is available from British Cycling at a discounted price.

Riders in organised events (see below) should familiarise themselves with the organiser’s rules and provisions for insurance.

Members should carry emergency contact details on all club rides. In the event of an accident, every effort will be made to advise your contact of the circumstances at the very earliest opportunity.

Members are also strongly advised to wear cycle helmets at all times.

The club welcomes riders of all ages and abilities and will use best endeavours to meet all needs. Those of a very young age must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Riders under the age of 16 years may be permitted to join organised club rides with the consent of a parent or guardian and by prior agreement with the Club Captain.

2. On the Ride.

Club runs (rides) take place each Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday. This is the key activity of the club giving members the opportunity to socialize and share their enthusiasm for cycling. The club will continue to support participation in competitive and semi-competitive events e.g. time trials, road races, reliability runs, sportives and audax. Further, the club will from time to time organise additional activities including training runs, chain gangs and local and foreign tours.

The club run should be sociable, healthy and fun. It is a pleasant way to spend a few hours and escape from daily routine. It is not a race or training session or something to be endured.

Sunday club runs are organised to enable members to ride at their ideal pace. The Black Group is for strong riders who can maintain 18-20 mph pace for 40+ miles. The Red Group is for riders who can maintain 14 – 16 mph for 40+ miles. A slower White Group is demanded rather than routine and meets less frequently.

Weekday groups are not designated Black, Red or White and operate at the pace of participants on the day.

The times and meeting points for club runs are changed from time to time and are updated as required on the club website. Each group has a dedicated WhatsApp group which facilitates communications about attendance, routes and sometimes pleas for help and assistance!

All runs operate on the following group etiquette:

● at the start of the run identify groups and which riders belong to each group

● agree location(s) of stops and routes which should not be changed without agreement and clear communication to all riders

● no riding off the front

● nobody gets dropped

● no rider gets left to ride on his/her own without prior discussion and agreement

● If riders fall behind the group must wait to enable people to re-join, recover and ride at a comfortable pace

● If there are sprints for signs or hills, again the ride must regroup, allow recovery and ride on as a group

● at the stop ensure all riders have arrived safely and agree the approach for the return journey. Riders may legitimately want to leave early or ride faster and if so they should ensure their intentions are known.

● At the end of a run, if at all possible, riders should re-group and account for all members.

3. Annual Subscriptions.

The current subscription is a very modest £15 pa which we encourage members to pay punctually each January. We welcome guest riders and friends on an occasional basis. We think it is always best for potential new members to try a few rides before joining but we do not think it is right or fair to others for anyone to ride on a regular basis without paying the annual subscription.

4. Data Protection.

The personal data provided on the membership form is used only for internal communication and is not shared with third parties. The data is held by a maximum of four committee members: Chair, Hon Treasurer, Hon Secretary and Membership Secretary. Please use the membership form to advise if you do not wish your data to be held on file.

Rye and District Wheelers Committee

14 November 2019

Contact Details

Paul Wilson, Chair stonegarth@gmail.com Dave Greenwood, Club Captain dmgreenwood65@aol.com
Steve Blattman, Hon Secretary ryewheelers@outlook.com Nick Wilson, Racing Secretary mail@dotwilson.com
Doug Lambert, Treasurer lambertdoug@hotmail.com   General Enquiries info@ryewheelers.com

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