Yet Another Ride Report



A

Andrew Templeman

Guest
OK. There was a request for ride reports from poster Clune.

Last Saturday, 18th June 2005, I set of with my club-mates from the
Eureka Cafe, Two Mills, Wirral. I had looked at the OS maps beforehand
with an idea of where I was going to go; Farndon, Overton, Chirk and
back through Wrexham. I had looked at alternative return routes, but
even mentioning them would mean I was setting out alone.

There were six of us left when we got into Overton, some of the riders
needing to be home by lunch. I got the maps out of my pocket. This
brought looks of anxiety from the rest of them. If I've brought the maps
then we are going to places they haven't been before.

I was looking for a road to chirk that I have taken from the other end a
number of times, but unsure of which of many little turnings we should
use. With a few more stops at junctions and crossroads, we dropped into
a valley and climbed out to our intended destination.

A brief lunch stop at a cafe in Chirk while I offered them an
alternative route back to Cheshire. I had set out with the intention of
using a more or less straight ride home skirting past Wrexham. The
alternative I offered was up the Ceiriog Valley towards Glyn Ceiriog and
then over the top of the ridge and into Llangollen. I have been this way
before, but not in recent years. I knew one of the climbs here is known
as Church Hill, but that's not the one we took. We started the ascent
from Pontfadog. After a couple of minutes, I had reached boiling point.
One of the lads had 'sprinted' past me and come to a stop just up the
road. I stopped in the shade of some trees and looked round. The three
who were still behind me were walking. I tried a step or so, but look
plates were sliding back. I managed to get rolling again and carried on
to the top. One of the party was rolling back down the hill to find us
as I got close to the summit. We waited at a junction to regroup.

From the top we set off without rechecking the map, and in the wrong
direction. There were signs telling we were going in the way of
Llangollen, but it wasn't the way I intended to go when I last looked at
the map. We came to a junction where the signs indicated that we were
heading back to Glyn Ceiriog. Looking at the map I was not sure which
junction we were at so we retraced our steps and headed back north. We
came to another junction where the sign had broken off, and I worked out
that I had gone off the edge of the maps I was carrying. We headed of in
the direction that seemed to go north. It soon dropped steeply into
Llangollen and we could buy some drinks in the local shops. And most of
us thought it prudent to ring home now it was 2pm, the usual getting
home time, to let anybody expecting us that we might be a bit later than
usual.

The only route home now was over the Horseshoe Pass. Back through
Wrexham might be less strenuous, but much less pleasant.

So we start climbing. Outside the Britannia Inn, there are two riders
ahead of me and I look over my shoulder. I don't want to spend any more
energy on this hill than required of course. The chap at the back of the
group wasn't coping very well even at this early stage.

I carried on and caught one of the guys in front of me and then rode
with him to the top. The other guy had been at the Ponderosa for a
couple of minutes and we all sat on the verge while waiting for all the
others.

All the others had arrived except the one who was struggling at the
bottom. We waited another 15 minutes, then, with the chap who got to the
top first, I went down to a point on the pass from where you can see
almost to the bottom. He wasn't in sight. I asked a just-stopped
motorcyclist if he has seen a rider in a shirt like ours. He had not. We
calculated that he could have walked to the top in the time he'd had, so
wasn't coming. I wasn't going all the way back down the hill to look, so
we headed back to the top.

We got back to the others, who were enjoying a drink at the ponderosa.
We set off and proceeded over the Llandegla moors and down towards the
Cheshire Plain. We got back to The Eureka at about quarter to five. This
is pretty late and they were closing up. Fortunately were are well known
to the proprietors, and we could stock up on liquid before heading on
home. Ninety miles for me, some had further to go home.

Much later, when enjoying a BBQ at home, I rang the unfortunate chap who
was left behind. He had got to the Britannia Inn and stopped for a
drink. The ascent of the Horseshoe Pass was a bridge too far for him,
having not been out as frequently as the rest of us recently. He had
turned round and rang home for a lift. He said that he hadn't been put
of coming with us again, and I had explained that this was one of the
most demanding rides I had done this year - he shouldn't expect that
every week.

I shall make sure that anyone with us in future at least has my mobile
number, so that I shan't have to worry if they decide to go home another
way.


Andy, Birkenhead North End CC
 
in message <1gyopiw.1iqh23q1l78ofcN%[email protected]>, Andrew
Templeman ('[email protected]') wrote:

> OK. There was a request for ride reports from poster Clune.


[Snip: excellent ride report, thanks]

[not meaning to be critical]

> So we start climbing. Outside the Britannia Inn, there are two riders
> ahead of me and I look over my shoulder. I don't want to spend any
> more energy on this hill than required of course. The chap at the back
> of the group wasn't coping very well even at this early stage.


[snip]

> All the others had arrived except the one who was struggling at the
> bottom. We waited another 15 minutes, then, with the chap who got to
> the top first, I went down to a point on the pass from where you can
> see almost to the bottom. He wasn't in sight. I asked a just-stopped
> motorcyclist if he has seen a rider in a shirt like ours. He had not.


[snip]

> Much later, when enjoying a BBQ at home, I rang the unfortunate chap
> who was left behind. He had got to the Britannia Inn and stopped for a
> drink. The ascent of the Horseshoe Pass was a bridge too far for him,
> having not been out as frequently as the rest of us recently.


[again not meaning to be critical]

About a year ago I got involved in the formation of a cycle club. I'd
never been in a cycle club before, so it was all new to me and I mostly
listened to what other people said as we laid down the principles of
the new club. And one of the things which clearly people who had been
involved with cycle clubs felt strongly about was the attitude of the
club to new, or infrequent, or less strong riders, and about taking
responsibility for supporting them. So we adopted a policy that
'naeb'dy gets drap't' as pretty much the guiding principle of the club.
When we do our club runs we always make sure that some of the stronger
riders are at the back as 'sweepers' to help support people who are
struggling, and we usually have walky-talkies with us so that the
people at the back can request a slow-down.

This clearly is a hot issue for cycling clubs given the amount of
strength of feeling there was about it when we initially discussed the
issue, and for a very mixed ability club like ours our policy clearly
works for us. How do other people cope with this?

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
 
Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote:

> About a year ago I got involved in the formation of a cycle club. I'd
> never been in a cycle club before, so it was all new to me and I mostly
> listened to what other people said as we laid down the principles of
> the new club. And one of the things which clearly people who had been
> involved with cycle clubs felt strongly about was the attitude of the
> club to new, or infrequent, or less strong riders, and about taking
> responsibility for supporting them. So we adopted a policy that
> 'naeb'dy gets drap't' as pretty much the guiding principle of the club.
> When we do our club runs we always make sure that some of the stronger
> riders are at the back as 'sweepers' to help support people who are
> struggling, and we usually have walky-talkies with us so that the
> people at the back can request a slow-down.
>


It tends to be our policy to wait and regroup after a hill, this usually
works Ok. We are (or used to be) a racing club, and the people who come
with us expect a workout. I had a chat with him early on the ride and he
said he had been riding up to 200 miles/week. He had the chance to turn
back earlier in the ride when some of the others did. I really thought
that he would be able to make it, even if a bit on the tired side. We
are quite a large club, and have a number of runs to choose from on a
Saturday.

Anyway before we abandoned him, we had made sure he was not on even at
the last point he was seen, so that going back to find him would have
been fruitless. He wasn't going to come up the climb, so waiting also
wouldn't have been a great help to him. When I spoke on the phone to him
he had no hard feelings toward us and was sorry he had caused us to wait
so long. He said that he's looking forward to coming again.

The good news today is that all who set out, came back together. It was
a much easier ride this week though, only 50 miles in some less severe
hills.
 
in message <1gyq30a.107rrye18qff5sN%[email protected]>, Andrew
Templeman ('[email protected]') wrote:

> Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> About a year ago I got involved in the formation of a cycle club. I'd
>> never been in a cycle club before, so it was all new to me and I
>> mostly listened to what other people said as we laid down the
>> principles of the new club. And one of the things which clearly
>> people who had been involved with cycle clubs felt strongly about was
>> the attitude of the club to new, or infrequent, or less strong
>> riders, and about taking responsibility for supporting them. So we
>> adopted a policy that 'naeb'dy gets drap't' as pretty much the
>> guiding principle of the club. When we do our club runs we always
>> make sure that some of the stronger riders are at the back as
>> 'sweepers' to help support people who are struggling, and we usually
>> have walky-talkies with us so that the people at the back can request
>> a slow-down.

>
> It tends to be our policy to wait and regroup after a hill, this
> usually works Ok. We are (or used to be) a racing club, and the people
> who come with us expect a workout.


Yup, that of course is the other side of the dilemma. If you ride at the
pace of the slowest, the fastest don't get pushed.

> The good news today is that all who set out, came back together. It
> was a much easier ride this week though, only 50 miles in some less
> severe hills.


H'mmmmmmm... We're going over Wanlockhead tomorrow. Only the highest
village in Britain, on the longest continuous road climb in Britain, so
no problem there... :)

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; All in all you're just another nick in the ball
-- Think Droid
 
Andrew Templeman <[email protected]> wrote:
: OK. There was a request for ride reports from poster Clune.

Indeed. Thanks for the ride report. It sounds seriously hot over
your way!

Cheers,

Arthur "Poster" Clune
 
Simon Brooke <[email protected]> wrote:

: This clearly is a hot issue for cycling clubs given the amount of
: strength of feeling there was about it when we initially discussed the
: issue, and for a very mixed ability club like ours our policy clearly
: works for us. How do other people cope with this?

When people ring up first, we try and explain that there are different
rides within the club ranging from the Saturday morning "pace of the
slowest" to Tuesday night chaingang "if you look like you're struggling,
we'll attack to drop you" rides.

This usually works well and people move from one ride to another as
they want.

Sometimes we get someone out on a Sunday who isn't up to the long rides.
Usually this is clear reasonably early on and the ride leader will usually
point them out some shorter options so they can get home without being
too knackered. For the Sunday/Saturday training runs we direct people
towards the cafe stop runs if they turn up without phoning/emailing first.
Then if they find it too slow, they can always do the other ride next
week.

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune PGP/GPG Key: http://www.clune.org/pubkey.txt
The struggle of people against power is the struggle
of memory against forgetting - Milan Kundera
 
Arthur Clune <[email protected]> wrote:

> Andrew Templeman <[email protected]> wrote:
> : OK. There was a request for ride reports from poster Clune.
>
> Indeed. Thanks for the ride report. It sounds seriously hot over
> your way!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Arthur "Poster" Clune



Well, it was one of the warmest days of the year. Is that what you
meant?

If not, then, we aren't that good really. A hard ride is subjective.
Otherwise we would be winning all the races.