The Beacon Message Board

laurence_cooley

I've completed this two years running, but I'm not sure I have the patience this year. The first year, me and Martin resorted to doing seemingly endless hill repeats in the Lickeys in the rain. It was not fun.

laurence_cooley

Some good times in there, especially considering how windy it was yesterday. Good to see a few new names too.

laurence_cooley

If anyone was planning on making use of the car park, you might struggle. I cycled past today and the Moscow State Circus is set up there.

laurence_cooley

Sounds great. I'd be interested if it's in August.

laurence_cooley

It was good to see you back on the bike, Richard. Lots of Beacon jerseys spotted en route today, too. Thanks to Nick for organising a good day out, with a tough ride out and back thrown in.

laurence_cooley

If you wanted to keep it within the club, I'm sure either Nic Vipond or Chris Hudson would be able to help. It's easy enough to replace bar tape yourself, though.

laurence_cooley

petemarshall wrote:Thumbs and forefinger, or have I been doing it wrong all these years:(

You must have the knack for it, because that rarely works for me.

laurence_cooley

I'm going to see this on Wednesday as the SSSCCRRL is on Thursdays. There are three tickets left for the Wednesday screening if anyone wants to join me.

laurence_cooley

How did you guys get on?

laurence_cooley

WorcsPhil wrote:...wicker baskets full of lobster bisque...

I'm no expert on fine dining, but I suspect that your bisque might leak.

laurence_cooley

It was good to see Dave Hughes making his BCC ride debut this morning; you picked a fast week, Dave.

laurence_cooley

Tim wrote:Lawrence where we're you with 2laps to go when I attacked off the front? Was expecting you and then Mark to take over for Stu to have an easy finish!

Well if I'd known there was money in it...

Who's racing it again next week? Me and Stuart have entered all three. Tim? Mark?

laurence_cooley

Not much to add to that, other than that it's quite hard to move up on that circuit without crossing the centre line, which is something to remember for next week (although watching Andy Collis do it was impressive). Half-way through the race, a Beacon lead-out train seemed to form. We should try th...

laurence_cooley

I rode up here this morning to check out the new surface. They've done a really great job, but sadly it remains as steep as ever.

laurence_cooley

Thanks to all the organisers today; not a good evening to be standing around. It was hard to tell at the time, but the wind was coming from the north for a change, so it must have been a cross wind on the two main straights that made it feel so tough going.

laurence_cooley

Another spelling correction for the results archive: Michel Ondred should read Michal Ondrej.

laurence_cooley

martin mc wrote:Fastest road bike was Andy Sweet with 22:35 I think.

It appeared to be held together with electrical tape, too. The bike, that is, not Andrew.

laurence_cooley

I can marhsall the first turn again tonight. Happy to show you the route if there's time, Claire.

laurence_cooley

I think that's what we have already http://www.beaconrcc.org.uk/resources/cafes/index.html but I'm not sure there's any way of also providing a useful listing so at present that's maintained separately. If by listing you mean the details for each café, I thought (it's been a while since I last used...

laurence_cooley

There's a feature on Google Maps that allows the creation of custom maps, which could probably be embedded on the website. It's possible to grant editing rights, so if anyone who wanted to contribute was given these, it might be a good option.

laurence_cooley

George wrote:Oh, sorry -- I thought I'd read elsewhere that someone died. I must be muddling up two separate incidents.

Possibly this, George, that Nick Shenton posted on Facebook about.

laurence_cooley

I'm also racing the next day (and possibly the day before), so I can also help marshall if needed.

laurence_cooley

The first round of this was last night. Really good fun and I can't imagine a better introduction to road racing, if anyone is keen to try. While it's too late to enter the whole series, places are available on the night providing that fewer than 80 riders turn up (I guess there'll always be some ri...

laurence_cooley

Thanks for your honesty, Tim.

laurence_cooley

Cheers all. It's great to get shouts of encouragement from marshalls who know your name, especially towards the end when it's becoming a slog into the wind! Great organisation as always.

laurence_cooley

I don't think Andy (C) meant that club runs always go south, so much as they never go directly north, which is presumably because of the difficulty and annoyance of getting through Birmingham. This is quite a good route to Cannock Chase Visitors Centre: http://www.strava.com/activities/103483030 . T...

laurence_cooley

Incidentally, I saw that the new Shimano chainsets have a single BCD for all chainrings, which is handy if you want to switch between different chainring sizes.

laurence_cooley

Gary Mac and me are both entering the league. Actually, I've been meaning to post something about this since we went to the league's annual meeting in January as the Beacon representatives. For those that don't know, the snappily titled South Staffordshire and Shropshire Cycling Clubs Road Race Leag...

laurence_cooley

I don't know Barry, but if you haven't managed to reattach it by Friday, I'll give you a hand when we arrive!

laurence_cooley

Mine has frozen on the start-up screen two or three times in the past year and on each occasion, when I've held the power button down to turn it off again, it's emitted a long beep, which I presume is an error message. I find that turning it off and on a few times gets it working again, but sometime...

laurence_cooley

Anyone fancy explaining in really simple terms how the handicap system works? I've no idea as this was my first time trial! Thanks! Every course has a base time (kind of like the par for a hole in golf). Each rider then gets a handicap time for that course based on the difference between the base t...

laurence_cooley

James, most of what you need to know is at http://www.prudentialridelondon.co.uk/The_Events/Prudential_RideLondon-Surrey_100/Entries/British_Cycling_Club_Challenge.htm . We can't enter until we have confirmation that the team has been accepted. I don't know what the transport arrangements will be ye...

laurence_cooley

We need to get the team entry in by 21 March (no need for rider names yet, but it seems we have firm interest from Phil, me, Alistair and Tim). Do you want to make the application, Phil? Otherwise, I'm happy to.

laurence_cooley

Yes, 7.12 from 94 Bristol Street.

laurence_cooley

You'll be fine, Barry, although I suggest quickly familiarising yourself with the route just in case you get split off the back by traffic or something. It gets back to town around 9.00. I'll add you to the Facebook group. I might be out tomorrow morning but it'll likely be for the north ride as it'...

laurence_cooley

I'm keen to do it as I grew up around there and would like to ride on familiar roads when they're closed. We don't have to say who's going to be in the team until after the entry has been accepted, but perhaps anyone who is interested could say so here and then we can decide how many teams to try to...

laurence_cooley

The details are here: http://www.prudentialridelondon.co.uk/T ... llenge.htm. It's four in a team. We can request more than one team entry, but the entries have to be made by a single individual on behalf of the club.

laurence_cooley

Philip Whiteman wrote:Damn and blast, or is that hooray?

Lisa is singing at a concert on 12th April, so cannot ride and somebody will need to bounce the ever bouncing baby.

I'm sure you could find a willing babysitter on here, Philip.

laurence_cooley

chalkie wrote:Lawrence Cooley will be signing special edition copies (IN JOKE)..

Uh oh, what have I done now? There's not video footage of my dog crash, is there?

laurence_cooley

Philip Whiteman wrote:£25 seems very expensive for riding around the Clent Hills

Indeed. I would be keen to do this but the price puts me off.

laurence_cooley

I spotted this on Facebook today and thought I'd post it in case anyone is interested: http://club.v-sprint.com/tour-of-the-bl ... -sportive/. It's a 100 km sportive with cobbled sections, Paris-Roubaix style.

laurence_cooley

Thanks for Jane and Tony and everyone else for a good weekend, despite the weather's best efforts. I won't forget riding along the A5 in that pouring rain on Friday for a long while.

laurence_cooley

I was thinking about a shortish tempo-paced ride on the Saturday, George, but I could be persuaded by something a bit longer. The route you've plotted on Strava looks good.

laurence_cooley

slogfester wrote:if you have a smartphone, just use that. If you don't then for less than 200 you can buy a really good one.
it will even call home when you get lost

Not so practical if you also want to use it while racing, though.

laurence_cooley

Can I just upload the above links onto that and huzzah, I know where I'm going? Correct. If you can do without the extra features on the 810, there are probably some good deals to be had on the 800 at the moment. The 500/510 can also be used for navigation, but without an actual map (you just follo...

laurence_cooley

Well, the weather certainly wasn't better today. I've consulted the Beaufort scale and I reckon today's racing took place in near gale force winds, plus the circuit had to be shortened due to a flood at the top hairpin. I didn't see much of the E123 race because I was sheltering, but Stuart seemed t...

laurence_cooley

Cod and chips with mushy peas for me, please. No vinegar.

laurence_cooley

Tim wrote:Unsuccessful in ballot

Ditto. Again.

laurence_cooley

I think the way to get the council to take the reports seriously is to add a sense of jeopardy to them. They repaired this one that I reported within days: http://www.fillthathole.org.uk/hazard/94531. Maybe it was just because it's on a main road though. Scotland Lane needs a complete resurface (the...

laurence_cooley

Does anyone have a recommendation for a decent fan for use while turbo training? Not having a garage, my turbo rides are indoors at 20 degrees. The cheap office fan I'm using at the moment isn't really generating enough airflow, so if anyone knows of a better (not too expensive) option, I'd be keen ...

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