Annual Club 2009

Review of the Year

At the beginning of March, with early season rides ridden and the Winter Series over, the Club was able to concentrate on its own contribution to Cyclo Sportives—the running of the Surrey Rumble in aid of the Dave Rayner Fund.  The event was deftly organised by Des Bennett with Des guiding a team of Club member helpers - a team that the Club has to be truly proud of.  The superbly run Sportive saw 215 riders taking part and the event raising £435 for the DRF.

Also at the beginning of March Alexander (Sandy) King, our 2009 Junior Champion started to show how his season was going to progress by coming 7th in the Junior Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne and only a week later coming 17th, but 1st Junior, in the Jock Wadley Memorial RR.  Two weeks later he took victory in the 1st of the National Junior RR Series.  At the same time, our Ladies 2009 Champion, Natalie Creswick, was also showing great early season form by winning the ladies Omega Thruxton Circuits Series Round 2.  This was the platform that saw Natalie start her rise from 4th Cat to finish the season as 4th position 2nd Cat, winning at least 7 events on the way with one of those events being the SE East Regional Ladies Road Race Championships where she rode into the Champion’s position beating Elite rider Charlotte Blackman, into 2nd place.

John Warnock, distance TT rider extraordinaire (and the 2009 RTTC 24hr National Champion), was another 2009 Club Champion (24hr and TT Champion) showing early season form, but in the shorter distances, taking 1st place in the first of the WLC 25ml TT Series then claiming a superb 2nd place, recording a time of 56.37, only bettered by Richard Prebble, in the opening round of the 2009 Rudy Project series.  The event was held on the 24.2 mile QS/12 course.

Youth Champion, Declan Higgins has showed a great deal of promise this year with a number of wins under his belt, not least winning the under 16’s event in the Cycle Kingdom Circuit Series no. 11.  But then all the Club’s RR Champions, including Senior RR Champion, Steve Home, Vet’s RR Champion, Vincent Leon, have had highly successful and consistent seasons and are to be applauded.

The Regional Track Championships at Reading saw Members achieving superb results in the team events.  David Jack (2009 Track Champion), Tom Sutherland and James Viner rode to a Silver medal in the Central Region Team Sprint with David Jack, Gavin Mitchell (2009 Junior Track Champion), Stewart Stow and John Warnock riding to a Bronze medal in the Central Region Team Pursuit.  At the National Masters Track Championships, held at Newport, David Jack continued to show that track suits him very well by collecting a superb Bronze in the 40-44 Sprint.

With the Ladies Team Series being hotly contested by a great many more teams in the 2009 series compared to the 2008 Series, it was going to be hard for the ladies to better the 2nd overall position of 2008.  That did not discourage them from showing great effort and determination—and having a great time doing so.  Such determination put them overall solidly in 4th place.  Many of the ladies were new to racing and the series did not go without its casualties, but applause has to go to them all.  Colette Able, Jody Conibear, Natalie Creswick, Solveig (Sol) Findley, Jo Foster, Corrine Hall, Wiesia (Ve) Kucjak, Ann Marshall, Tina Reid, Holly Seear, Alex Tyrer and Lisa West all contributed to the Series with just 3 guest riders this year, Ella Hopkins, Jill Parker and Susie Scorer.

The Ladies had two teams entered in the Surrey League 4-up Team TT Championships/Clarencourt CC.  The ‘A’ squad of Alex Tyrer, Tina Reid, Ann Marshall and Holly Seear rode to 1st Ladies Team and a sterling effort was made by the ‘B’ squad of  Lisa West, Wiesia (Ve) Kuczaj, Zoe Yendell and Jo Foster.

with!  The discipline is showing favour with a number of TCC’ers, among them Jodie Conibear, George Kirkin, Graham (Mac) MacNamee. Darren Paice, and, Stewart Ward.  With the short Cyclo Cross feature on the BBC Breakfast show, where Stewart and Mac were spotted, we are sure more TCC’ers will want ‘some of that’!

But that is far from the only ‘claim to fame’ that the Club has – not least with John Warnock and Natalie Creswick having featured interviews in the ‘Comic’ (Cycling Weekly).

All this in between the TCC being represented at many Sportives including the Hichclere Sportive (represented by some 8 TCC’ers), Kevin Bird rode the Tour Of Flanders (which features the infamous cobbled Koppenberg climb),  Damon Yates and David Seymour rode the gruelling annual South Wales Dragon Ride.  Jason Harris, Lisa West and Denis Bidenost took part in the Marathona Des Dolomites.  Here 8812 riders finished with Lisa being the 3rd best GB Lady, Denis 6th fastest GB Male (for the 106km ride) and Jason 12/32 GB rider in his category.  Continuing on the epic rides, on the weekend of the 19th July, Members were represented at 2 epic Sportives, the Etape (with riders battling the infamous ‘Giant of Provence’) and the Granfondo Pinarello—Treviso.  For the latter no fewer than 13 TCC’ers were represented.  10 Members rode the 120 mile course and 3 the 77 mile course.  Lisa and Jason had a 2009 Summer Base in Italy and had thoroughly enjoyed doing some extensive training for the event (see the list of attendees and full report in the TCC’s Headline Archives).  Damon Yates, Steve Home, Andy Brown and Ann Marshall rode the La Marmotte - Bourg D'Oisans, France. Damon achieved Gold standard for his category with Ann only missing out by 2 minutes to achieve Gold standard in her category—not bad after 10hrs 32 minutes of riding!  Then Autumn saw TCC’ers riding in the various events at the Blenheim Palace Cycling Festival and, seasonally, the Ride Of The Falling leaves.  Other activities included riding in France and weekends away in Wales.!

A number of Members participated in events for charity.  Martha Grekos took the Macmillan Cancer Support Alps Challenge and raised £1,750 for that charity.  Jo Foster rode sections of the hot gruelling terrain of the Tour d’afrique and Liz Norman decided that the ‘End to End’ was to be her charity ride for 2009, as did Natalie Creswick and Emma Williams with two of their friends— team time trialling the distance and raising some £6,200 between them for the Dave Aitchison Sport’s Aid Fund.  They had a fantastic support crew which included Stewart Ward, Natalie’s boyfriend and TCC Member.   Denise Quinlan participated in the gruelling The Prince’s Trust – Capgemini Wild UK Challenge.  Part of a team of 4, Denise did Hill Walking, Navigation Hiking, Kayak Orienteering, Trek Orienteering, Mountain Bike Orienteering, Mountain Biking, and a short sea swim. Over 100 miles of terrain over 3 days is what Denise achieved to raise over £1,367—and Denise said it was fun, despite some very painful blisters – ouch!  John Larkin raised £1500 for The Who Cares Trust by participating in a 3 day bike ride covering some 220 miles.  The event was organised by Biking for Children in Care, a Twickenham based group.  In July Kevin Bird rode London to Paris to raise money for Action Medical Research.

In 2009 the TCC’ers have participated in a multitude of events and have shown guts and determination.  Some have shown a love for all things sport by participating in non cycling events with success that has to be applauded.  Take for instance multi talented John Warnock and Rory “The Rocket” Atkins who took time off the bike to participate in the London Marathon. John came 277th in a superb time of 2:44:28!  Rory took part in the Mini Marathon, coming in 24th out of a field of 235!  Sol Findley took to the Hillingdon Track for the National Inline Skating Marathon and reclaimed her UK Lady Vets Marathon Champion title!  And of course there where the events that included cycling - Duathlons and Triathlons.  Noting a couple of events; Ann Marshall rode in the European Duathlon and Zoe Yendell took part in the London Triathlon coming 31st place in the 30-34 category.

As the season drew to a close, it was time for two more Club events, the Twickenham Cycling Club’s RR Circuit Championships and the Hill-Climb.  Both events were very well supported.  Doug Collins as ever, championed the running of the RR Circuit Championships and Des Bennett, with his usual enthusiasm, championed the running of the Hill-Climb, which boasting some 42 entries!  On each day, the sun shone!

Team spirit has been high and a special ‘thank you’ has to go to David Peck and Des Bennett who have been out and about continually giving support and a cheer to those racing, and also encouraged many Members, when not racing, to go and cheer or help as well!  Special thanks has to go to Doug Collins for yet again organising the Ottershaw Series under the TCC banner.  Doug’s experience in organising Road Race events is invaluable.  Thanks to Des too for the time he continues to give in ensuring the Web Site is there for all to see and for keeping us updated with all things TCC!  You only have to go to the Web Site and there you will find all the ‘happenings’ for the year and reports too!  Darren Paice has been busy encouraging Members to ride Time Trials and Wiesia (Ve) Kucjak has been the force behind bringing together the ladies for the ladies Road Race events.

There is just time for some analysis.  Calshot Training Days run by coach Mac was supported by as many as 20 Members.  TCC Members attending WLC events numbered 22 and the TCC was represented in 7 out of the 8 events.  Most of those members took part in at least 2 events and Rob Archer entered 6 races.  7 Members represented the TCC at the Evening 10’s.  The Inter-Club 25 TT had a representation of 30 + Members, made sweet by the Club claiming back the Handicap Team prize (winning team of Natalie Creswick, Tom Sutherland and Nigel Atkins), let alone Alexander (Sandy) King being fastest actual and Natalie being the fastest on Handicap!  There had been a steady rise in the number of members racing the Winter Series so it is hoped that trend continues in the 2009/2010 series.  The 3 Series Beyond Sprint Criteriums held at Hillingdon saw at least 9 Members, across the Series, ride.  Members also gave good support to the BC West Thames Circuits series (also held at Hillingdon) with the TCC hosting the 19th May event and having ‘Clubnight’ at the circuit for that evening.  There were plenty of Member showing too at the Surrey League Handicaps Series.  On the Track the Club was represented by Kevin Buchart, Rob Drinkwater, David Jack, Scherrit Knoesen, Gavin Mitchell, Dave Peck, Stuart Stow, Tom Sutherland, James Viner and John Warnock.  At least 17 TCC’ers rode the Surrey League and in the League, the Club’s final Overall Ranking on Points was 17th out of 48 clubs.  At the time of writing this the Club was 58th (out of 496 clubs) in the National rankings with 568 points represented by 9 members.  In the Regional rankings the Club was 5th (out of 45 clubs) with 154 points represented by 12 members.  An average of 22 Members per week attended Tuesday Clubnight.  

We must not forget the ‘New Additions’ either.  There was the birth of a baby boy for Steve (Home) and Sally-Anne, a baby boy for Sacha (Hemans) and Jo, a baby girl for Dorchie and Will Cockerell, and a baby girl for Rob and Nikki Drinkwater.

The success of the TCC’ers in 2009 are too many to mention here (you only have to look at the Club’s website to see why), but from the Club’s Youths through the Juniors, Seniors, Ladies and Vets, whether it is on the Road, Track, Time Trialling, Cyclo Cross, MTB and Sportives, there is one thing in common with all—the love and passion, of Cycling!

With thanks once again to our 2009 Sponsors, Evans Cycles, for their support.  All that remains is to wish Members, their families, and their friends, a happy, healthy, safe and successful 2010.

Reflection

We would just like to take a moment out to reflect on the loss of Michael Fletcher—a year ago today.  Mike championed every day cycling and consistently fought for safe cycling on the roads, including campaigning and liaising with the local authorities to improve cycle lanes.  Campaigning such as Mike’s continues today.