Central London CTC blog

Saturday in the Chilterns was a gorgeous clear autumn day. Copper leaves carpeting the woodland floor, not a breath of wind, warm in the sun and cool in the shade.

The area just north-east of Princes Risborough has some great off-road riding, mostly wooded bridleways which seem very under used – we only encountered a couple of other cyclists and one or two walkers and horses. As suggested on the rides list it was muddy, more so than I had expected as there had only been one day of rain in the previous week, but not so much as to hinder progress much. There were a couple of decent climbs and one bit just after lunch which a mountain goat with crampons would have struggled on and even Marianne had to push for a bit. more »

Llamas and sheep on the road

This was the last of the Saturday rides for 2007 and a lovely autumn day found a reasonable turn out of riders for a day into a part of the world that we do not visit that often. Among the group was Adam Ray who gets a special welcome as it was his first ride and he had assured me that he was very fit and ready to make a step up in his cycling. He did have a very shiny Dawes Galaxy so at least he made a good first impression but it is not the bike as we all know when it comes to cycling. more »

Sunday Oct 21st, a few of us (myself, Camille, Linus,Paul, Inez and George decided to join the Rapha sponsored ride to the Catford Hill Climb – the oldest hill-climb in the world, possibly the oldest cycle race. 8.30 on a decidedly cold morning saw a gathering of riders at the Host Gallery in Clerkenwell. Time for a quick rummage through the sale clothing, then about 50 riders, were marshalled for the off. Plenty of fancy framework, mainly of the classic lightweight school. Camille and I were the only two who had fallen for the ‘suitable for fixed’ tag – there were two singlespeeds, but everyone else had enough sense to ride gears. Clothing predominately black. This was after all a Rapha event – style is the new speed. more »

Nick Bloom’s three-star ride today (here’s a map) – on a perfect autumn day in the Chilterns – took us to West London CTC’s annual Freewheel competition at Penn Street, where the trophy (for the greatest distance travelled without pedalling) was won for the third year running by a Central London CTC member. Paul Foster narrowly beat last year’s champion Geoff Thomas by a few metres.

Paul receiving his trophy from West London CTC president Bob Kynaston and event organiser Rocco Richardson.

Paul & Inez in training for the Freewheel

In Kent With Roy Watson was what had been planned and he did manage to make lunch, but…..

Many of you know that Roy was unable to lead his ride so it fell to me as I was planning to do the ride anyway. Before starting there are plenty of thanks to be made to other people without whom the ride would not have gone ahead.  The principal characters, Roy apart, were David Kurtz and Richard Philpott who worked out what the route was as David had ridden the route the previous time and managed to get a Google Maps plot so I had some idea of where the ride was scheduled to go. more »