The Beacon Message Board

30 riders out on the four excellent rides at the weekends. Thanks to all the leaders especially, and to Nick for opening his alternative club runs into Staffordshire and Wales to others. That looked a great ride, and pretty speedy at 20mph average!

A good Beacon representation at the Meriden Cyclists memorial service (BIG thanks to Dave Cox) and it was good to see the flash of Beacon tricolore when this service was highlighted on BBC Midlands Today last night.

...and the move to create a new set of B riders worked a treat. Thanks to Si for leading and for others in moving up...and yes, the speeds were perfect! ...but let's not make this a one-off. We can't expect Si to lead this every week, so why not join him by volunteering and make the B-ride the ride to be on!

Strava quiet this weekend on notable rides, as I didn't see many people racing...but a shout out to those at the Beacon RCC track coaching on Saturday and to Gavin Passmore for organising. It was a weekend of longer audaxes, and Kudos to Adam Green and Sarah Dowden for their first 400kms audax on the Northern Ireland and Moors and Wolds Audax respectively on Saturday (and bits of Sunday). Again, apologies if your ride deserves a mention but isn't mentioned as it's not on facebook or strava.

One thing I missed out on last week, but huge congratulations to Simon Dighton for setting yet another Beacon time trial record, this time lowering his own 10 mile Vet's record, where Simon blitzed round the Aylesbury course in 20:55...the rest of us 50 year olds really need to up our game!

This week's rides are:

A: 200kms ride to Towcester - Phil Richards (meet at 07:30, leaving at 07:45)
B: Warwick - Phil Gameson
C: Volunteer required

The route for Sunday's club run WILL BE THIS https://ridewithgps.com/routes/21299224 there will be no deviating from this route as Phil Richards will be bringing his Micrometer to check for any variations!!
We will stop at Towcester(Jack Hill's Cafe) at about 54 miles and then a second shop stop at Lower Quinton about 95 miles.

It looks a bobby-dazzler of a day on Sunday, so a good week for a B and C-ride leader to step forward...

Why not let that be you!!

I am willing to lead the B run on Sunday to Warwick. This will be around 55 miles and although overall it will be one of our flatter routes there may be some short sharp climbs. I haven't decided on the exact route yet but will post that in the next 24 hours. [I won't use the route I did last summer that involved a mile or two "off road".]
Assuming that there is a C ride the pace should conform to the official B run rules, but ultimately will depend on who turns up.

Which café are you thinking of using, Phil?

George,

I was intending to go the usual ("The Tuckery"), but with so many cafes nearby to fall back on I was not intending to book.

The links to the routes I was considering on the Club Runs Database are no longer working, so I will have to see if I can upload one I have already saved or create a new route (which would be only the second time that I have done that!). It will still be around 55 miles.

PhilG wrote: ↑

25 May 2018 17:45

The links to the routes I was considering on the Club Runs Database are no longer working...

I've uploaded club run route gpx files to the new web site so most should be working again now. I spotted some ridewithgps links that no longer work and have deleted some but haven't checked all yet (some still work).

Look the weather forecast for tomorrow looks horrendous so i am going to make an early call and cancel if anyone wants to do it anyway feel free but i wont be leading tomorrow sorry.

My route tomorrow will be https://ridewithgps.com/routes/27614490

This is 55 miles / 90km, with c. 2,600 feet / 800 metres of climbing.

I see Paul has cancelled his A ride tomorrow because of the weather - hopefully this shorter ride will be a bit more bearable!

Hi Paul, thanks for the early warning...a couple of us still intend to ride this 200 down to Towcester (still meeting at BH at 07:45 but may abort if the roads are flooded etc...so option is still there for the hundreds of people who’s heart was set on riding

Despite thunder and lightning and torrential rain first thing this morning it was dry but cool at the Black Horse just before 9:15 this morning.
Only one other person there, but we set off for Warwick as intended.
It remained dry, with a bit of sunshine, but Wayne had a spoke break just beyond Earlswood and we decided that it was best that he head gently home rather than continue to Warwick.
I continued passed Lowsonford, then cut across to rejoin the original route near Fen End, doing a total of 45 miles.
No rain, the roads were in the main dry and I encountered water completely across the road in two places.
So where was everyone else?

Phil Gameson (leader)
Wayne Gibbs

...and there weren’t hundreds on the A-run either...in fact there were three of us, namely:

Phil Richards (leading)
Jon Williams
Andy Wrightson

The Beacon Randonneurs. We had one spell of rain for 15 mins some half hour after the start, but that was all...the rest of the ride was warm and sunny, in fact although we all had lashings of rain gear, we had no sun protection between us, so we had to buy some sun cream to protect the three gingers.

To be fair, Towcester in the rain did sound dangerous. #pronunciationjokes

I was out early and saw John Hitchcock near Earlswood as I was making my way home. I thought at the time that he might be trying to meet up with the Warwick group.