Club Notes 13th May 2007

The downturn in weather conditions appears to have been reflected in a matching down turn in club member’s activities. The latest of the Tuesday TLI Road races was supported by two members, Kieran Merharg undertaking marshalling duties as part of the rota agreement, whilst Gavin Pringle was our sole rider however undaunted by being on his tod Gav went off up the road with about 3 miles left. A Macclesfield wheeler rider who came across the gap joined him. The pair then held the bunch off to the finish. However the Macc rider, who had already been in a lone break for the first half of the proved to strong on the day and beat the Leek man in a sprint to the line, however a second this early on in the series is an excellent result. And probably puts Gavin high in the overall series standings. Not only that, his current form must place him favourite for the Club 10 championship next Saturday.

Threatening skies reduced the number of combatants in the latest of the Congleton evening 10’s, with just 9 riders taking part of which Den Engels fielded 2, although if we count in Mark Tilstone resident of this Parish but riding for Congleton we had a 1/3 of the Tally. Kevin Pickford had the best results of the evening, not only knocking half a minute off his time with a 28-36 but also catching his minute man, or in this case woman. The pair then battled it out on the return leg, Kev suffering a bit from my troubles quick out but slower back as the course rises to the finish. Denise recording 29-36.

The second Leek rider was Duncan Poole shaking down a new bike, not entirely successfully dropping back almost 2 minutes to 28-03, but I am sure after a bit of tweaking Dunc will be dipping into the 25 minute terrain. Mark Tilstone recorded a time of 25-57. The event however was once again won by a Tri-athlete this time hailing from Congleton ranks in the form of Adrian Patterson whose 23-06 placed him well up on second placed rider Karl Austin’s 23-27.

Moving onto the weekend and in open competition Yours truly and Phil Gayes took part in the South Pennine R.C. on Saturday afternoon Having not ridden this event for a while, curiously since the Sunday morning start times drifted towards 6am to avoid towers traffic! I was running on memory but once on the A50 the smooth surface and passing traffic helps keep a good speed up despite the blustery winds. That is if you can keep the momentum going unfortunately Phil’s efforts in this department were somewhat thwarted by having to come to a stop at most of the roundabouts, shades of Chelford so I can sympathise. That probably does not help his frustration at missing going under the hour by 6 seconds, i.e. 1-00-06. For a change I had no such problems achieving an unlikely 55-47 and feeling well chuffed, although my overall position may actually be worse than what I have achieved on Cheshire so far. Especially with times like the winners Matt Bottrill of De Rosa road Team who covered the course in 50-14.

Finally congratulations to the intrepid 4 Marc Briand, Ruth Goreham, John Green and Keiran Merharg who took part in the 110 mile Sportive for the Douglas Macmillan. The event run over similar roads to the well-established Potts 100 reliability in February, was a round trip from the home to Llangollen, also similar to the Potts was the weather which started to rain around the 75 miles mark or 4 hours. But as a euphemistic Marc Briand commented that “Once you’re wet your wet aren't you?” Our 4 Tagged on with a group from Swinnertons which was steady, however with a few older members this group slowed down towards the end otherwise they were on for a 6 hour 10 minute finish instead of the final 6 hours 25. However it still a tremendous achievement, and although Marc as ridden the distance many times before for the others Ruth Goreham, John Green and Keiran Merharg it was another well earned milestone. The event being particularly poignant for Keiran who lost his father to cancer 3 years ago, “the Douglas Macmillan aided to all his needs before he passed away, for that I will never forget what they have done” his comments reflecting his gratitude.

Well done all.