20th March Newsletter

It looks like another fine spring weekend and thanks to all our ride leaders who have put plenty of rides on Spond, there is a ride for everyone.

Late Start Saturday Rides

We have several riders in the club who struggle to make 9am rides for a variety of reasons (often childcare related). For this reason, Chris Hewitt will be aiming to lead a regular ride (probably once a fortnight) leaving the hub at 12noon on a Saturday. This will typically be for 2 hours and aimed at T5/6 rides (e.g. 35 miles at 17/18mph), though aiming to keep it together/no drop. Do keep your eyes peeled on Spond and let Chris know if you plan to join.

Ride Group Re-numbering 

Pete Vines is doing a great job with building or new website and we hope to launch it in the next couple of weeks. This has given us the opportunity to review how we number our ride groups. At the moment we have the T1.5 group which is definitely needed to bridge the gap between T1 and T2 but is probably a bit confusing for any new members and not something we advertise on the existing website. Therefore we are going to renumber the T1.5 to T2 and then move all the other groups up by 1. The new wordings will be as follows:

T1: 20/25 miles. 10/12 mph average. Newcomers welcome, very sociable with a cafe stop. 

T2: 30/40 miles. 12/14mph average. A sociable ride which always includes a cafe stop. 

T3: 35/50 miles, 13/15mph average. A steady paced social ride sometimes on slightly more challenging routes. Always includes a cafe stop.

T4: 40/55 miles around 15/16mph average, tea stop if everyone wants one! They usually do.

T5: 40/60 miles at 16/18 mph average, a training ride for stronger, experienced riders.

T6: 40/60 miles. A fast training ride for racers at 18mph + average. 

We will launch the new groups on 1st April. Over the next week I will go through Spond and ensure that everyone will be able to see the higher groups which they will move into. I hope this makes sense to everyone.

Ride Reports 

Pete’s T3 to Danehill - We were treated to a lovely sunny Spring day for the T3 ride out to Danehill. I was joined by Duncan, Miles and Rob. The route headed out through the Ashdown Forest, taking in a few long steady climbs before a lovely fast descent into Danehill on a road we rarely use. We opted for an impromptu coffee stop at the pub in Horsted Keynes. Nice service but terrible coffee, partly mitigated by almond croissants from the village shop. That just left a couple more climbs before home. 52 miles and well over 1000m of climbing.

Inpromptu coffee stop

Have a great weekend,

Richard