Wednesday, April 17, 2013

All the latest

Grimpy made the long journey down to Malvern worthwhile last Sunday with a 'G' category win in the 52 mile VC Sevale, Percy Stallard National Series Road Race. John was delighted to beat the usually unbeatable Tony Woodcock to the finish line with old adversary Mick Ives in 3rd place.

Brian looks to be getting back into the groove with a short 23 minute ride in the Yorkshire Vets 10 on Saturday and a 2nd place in the Staffordshire Oatcake LVRC road race on a circuit at Swynnerton, south of Stoke on Trent on Sunday, with Pete Smith just behind him.

Big Phil and I also headed south to ride the Macclesfield Monster sportive on Saturday. Good weather, good challenging route, good feed stations, helpful helpers, nearly 300 keen, fit, happy riders on their best bikes, but the day was a marred a little when everyone got lost.  I don't like cycling hard in the wrong direction, not when I've paid 20 quid to enter an event, thats why I like to study routes beforehand and upload them to my GPS and not rely on arrows zip tied to lamp posts at junctions. For some reason the route published on the event website would'nt open so we had to rely on those zip-tied boards several of which had evidently gone missing overnight. At least everyone got lost not just me and Phil.

A big weekend coming up. An unfortunate clash has led to both the Spring into the Dales audax and the Halifax Imps LVRC road race both being held this Sunday. We have a good entry in the Imps race, Damian, Mel, Brian, Grimpy and an exciting young prospect making a comeback to racing after over 40 years, Peeps. With several other Condors having volunteered for marshaling duties our presence at the Spring into the Dales will be well down on our usual numbers and we will be relying Lumby to lead the Condor charge.