WRC weekend away (6th – 8th June)

Weekend away June 2014

Johnny Helms Memorial 2014 2up 25Mttt Grand Prix Des Gentleman - Saturday 4th Oct 2014

The Johnny Helms Memorial 2up Grand Prix des Gentleman, Warrington Road club would like to invite you to enter a team from your club(s) to participate in this year’s event which is to be held on :

Saturday 4^th October 2013 @ 14.00 on J2/9, HQ : Allostock Village Hall

*****this event is in the handbook as the Warrington RC 2up 25mTTT*****

The prize list this year will be as follows and the prizes will be taken home by the winning teams.

1^st - £500.00 9^th - £250.00 16^th - £100.00

2^nd - £450.00 10^th -£225.00 17^th - £80.00

3^rd - £400.00 11^th - £200.00 18^th - £60.00

4^th - £375.00 12^th - £180.00 19^th - £40.00

5^th - £350.00 13^th - £160.00 20^th - £20.00

6^th - £325.00 14^th – £140.00

7^th - £300.00 15^th – £120.00 The prizes will be awarded to the teams based

8^th - £275.00 Lantern Rouge - £50.00 on the Standard Time of the older rider.

Requirements: Spot prizes of a ZIPVIT sports nutrition packs.

The winning team will get £500.00 in prize money but will also get to donate another sizable amount to the charity of their choice, they will be presented with the Johnny Helms Memorial Trophy for 1 year + a bottle of champagne each.

1 rider must be over 40 years old and 1 rider must be under 40 years old, the younger rider must pace the older rider until the last mile, it would be preferable but not essential if both riders ride in matching club kits and are in the same club, fill out a standard TT entry form for both riders and send to the address below (entry fee of £16.00 per team) payable to Warrington Road Club

This event is sponsored by ZIPVITsport.com who have provided the generous sponsorship to fund the event.

Johnny Helms Memorial TT - 25m - 2up Grand prix des Gentleman

Darrell Webster

7 Cross Lane South

Risley

Warrington

WA3 7AF

Please return entries asap – no later than 23^rd September

Darrell Webster

Warrington RC (Event Organiser)

2 days in July

Le Tour de France visits Yorkshire 2014

For 2 days in July ‘Ows thee doin became Bonjour, reet chuffed became Je suis tres exict e’, Yorkshire was painted yellow, green and polka dot red and white and some of the Warrington Road Club lads where there to witness the greatest Grande Departe ever.

The scale of the event was awe inspiring and the sheer size of the crowd was incredible.

Our 9 man team comprised Trevor Horton, Ian Ralphs, Chris Dixon, Simon Rigby, Joe Bennett, Paul Mcgowan, Mike Jones, Dave Fox and Carl Johnston joined by Gareth Hinde and John Payne from Leigh Premier.

We all met up on Friday – the day before the Grande Departe, at York YHA and were blessed with some good weather and brimming with excitement we all headed off for a pre TDF ride up to Helmsley – a typical North Yorkshire market town with a very traditional market square surrounded by café’s, pubs and local shops.

The ride almost turned into disaster for Joe early on when his front hub cracked in half. Luckily Joe’s handling skills shone through and he kept things shiny side up. Unfortunately it was ride over and early taxi back to York for him.

In true Warrington Road Club tradition, the rest of us left him waiting for a cab and carried on over the Hawarden Hills before a café stop in Helmsley.

A spirited ride followed lunch before a second café stop at Castle Howard – one of the finest stately homes in the country and certainly a notch up on our usual haunts.

Simon then stomped on the pedals and set the pace home for York – which was only 8 miles away, but of course we didn’t go that way….. 20 miles later….

Friday night was rounded off with a meal at the YHA followed by a couple of beers in York for some. Others had considerably more!

Saturday!! Grande Departe day and we awoke to rain. But with anticipation un diminished off we set for Ripon to watch the day unfold on the big screen at the Racecourse and thankfully the weather turned to sunshine. We met up with Alan Ottiwell and Free entry for bikes provided grandstand seats and the delights of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen –some even hunted down a beer tent.

Coverage was great as we watched the tour leave Leeds, officially sent off by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, followed by Jens Voigt’s early attack along with Nicola Edet of Cofidis and fellow Frenchman Benoit Jarrier. The 3 worked together until the first Prime when Jens launched his solo attack and managed to stay away over Buttertubs and Grinton Moor before it all came back together.

At this point some of the lads had gone into Ripon itself to watch the race go past, 4 of us rode up to a roundabout a couple of miles away to soak up the atmosphere – even at a bypass junction the crowds were huge!

It was great to see the race fly past – literally at 60 KPH at this point the peloton was more or less all together with Lotto driving hard on the front. Chris Horner was swinging amongst the cars and Cancellara had dropped back.

With 20K to go we headed back to watch the run in on the big screen ending with a win for Kittel and disaster for Mark Cavendish who crashed out with a dislocated shoulder. That’s Cav though, either win or crash out trying – no point in coming second.

The real stars though had to be the estimated 1 million who turned out to watch the stage – 10000 people on Buttertubs alone! Incredible atmosphere.

Alan Ottiwell then joined us for the ride back to York and got straight on the front and towed us home.

Sunday morning saw the race leave from York and the route took the riders past the entrance to our hostel before the start proper a couple of KM’s down the road. It was great to see the riders in procession going past but the staggering thing was how many vehicles are involved – motorbikes, team cars, officials cars, press, sponsors, catering, drinks suppliers etc etc. It seemed endless and amazing how it all goes together day after day.

Anyway today saw the riders tackle the joys of Blubberhouses, Oxenhope and Holme moss before finishing in Sheffield. Vincenzo Nibali escaped with about 2Km to go and claimed his first Tour de France sage win and also took Yellow.

Will this turn out to be the decisive stage???

 Many thanks to Carl Johnson for organising trip !

Warrington Road Club Derek Devonport Memorial Road Race

Wednesday (June 11th) evening saw the return to the calendar for the Warrington Road Club Derek Devonport Memorial under 50’s and over 50’s road races on the Budworth course in Cheshire run under the rules and regulations of TLI Cycling. We were blessed with a balmy evening and some great racing.

70 riders took part supported by motorcycle outriders giving it a touch of pro tour feel. The racing was fast but safe and in the under 50’s event a break of 8 riders established itself which included riders from Dave Hinde Racing Team, Onimpex Bioracer Racing Team and Team Kuota / Spinergy / Gsg amongst others.

Steven Fidler (Dave Hinde RT) went on to take the line with a thoroughly deserved win following a very strong performance. Robert Palmer (Team Kuota/Spinergy/Gsg) took 2nd place and 3rd went to Andrew Prince(Stafford Road Club).

In the over 50’s race a break of 4 eventually established itself with 2 laps to go. Onimpex Bioracer RT’s Steve Jolley took the honours with Nick Giles (Wrexham RC) 2nd and Stephen Wilkinson (Wills Wheels) coming home in 3rd.

  

Steven Fidler taking top spot in the under 50’s

Steve Jolley first over the line in the over 50’s race.

Special thanks to all the Warrington Road Club marshals and helpers on the night along with Manchester Medical Services for providing medic and support car, Ian Shearer & Gordon Campbell for providing motorcycle assistance, Horton Light Engineering, Ron Spencer Cycles and thanks to all the riders for staying safe and racing fast.

Club Road Race

After several years without an organizer, this year Warrington Road Club will return to running a road race. The "Derek Devonport Handicap Road Race" will take place on Wednesday 11th June on the Great Budworth circuit.

The race will be organized under the rules and regulations of the TLI and the organizer is Paul McGowan.

WRC Merry Men weekend to Sherwood Forrest

The first of several Warrington Road Club weekends planned for 2014 took place last weekend on the 8th and 9th of March. The trip, excellently organized by Carl Johnston, began with 21 riders leaving Horton Towers on Saturday morning. Peter Howl graciously drove all of our bags to the hostel.

The route took us to Edwinstowe on the edge of Sherwood Forrest with 93-ish miles on day one and 82-ish on the way back for a total of 175 miles and a little shy of 11,000 feet of climbing:

 

Club president Glen Longland was on the back of a tandem since, it turns out, he and pilot Dominic Irvine (https://twitter.com/DomIrvine) are making an attempt on the End to End record. On the evidence of this weekend they look to have a pretty good chance! Dom told me that tandems don't go up hill too well, but it didn't take long on a very windy Cat and Fiddle for them to disappear from my view. But all things are relative and down hill they were going at around double my speed...

We re-grouped at the top of Cat and Fiddle:

After Cat and Fiddle, the plan was to through Harpur Hill, but someone who shall not be named (Rob) went straight down into Buxton so we all had to follow. Lunch was at Hassop Station near Bakewell:

After lunch it was time to apply the normal cyclists navigational technique of "getting lost". Dave Wright had a bit of paper - it may have been a map. Maybe. Eventually, those of us with Garmins decided to use them before it got dark. Aside from the tandem and one or two others who decided to stick with the "getting lost" technique and went off ahead. And got lost.

Edwinstowe boasted three magnificent pubs one of which had an Elvis impersonator and another something called a "disco". I think they had them in the 80's. It was a little bit "you'll never leave". Everyone appeared to be still functional in the morning.

The way home briefly involved dual carriageways. Testers... The tandem had a puncture so we waited - eventually, several miles down the road. So Carl took some snaps:

Lunch was at Blaze farm which was... entertaining. First sunny day of the year, queue out of the door for ice-cream, kitchen in meltdown. So a leisurely lunch of around an hour and a half. Then home through the lanes being towed by the super-speed tandem.

In summary: great weather, excellent trip. Thanks to Carl. Dom made a video: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGksK4ZS5jM&feature=youtu.be

Next up - David's Tour de France road trip!