Here We Go! Report from first WWCBNIACC!

The first WWCBNIACC meet was last Thursday at Look Mum No Hands. It was a fantastic turnout and thanks go to all who braved the element of not knowing who was going to turn up but doing so yourselves.

May I stress at the outset, and for all of who you ask the question, I put the word Wo(men) in the title to encompass all-comers, not just women.  It means women, predominantly, but men too.  For this reason; men who want to cycle in a club generally already do so.   They don’t seem to be put off by competition and Garmin results like I am.  So I figured it would be mostly women, and a few men, hence the title.  But I stress, again, that anyone is welcome.   If there are those out there, like me, who have children and would like to organise a children’s ride, then feel free to comment and we’ll do one of those too!

The Club will have a regular ride on the 1st Saturday if every month at 11.30 prompt.  The meeting place and route will be determined initially by me and then by suggestion and agreement, always having at least 3 rides posted in advance.  We will aim for medium to long rides of between 10-40 miles and some longer rides if anybody wants them.  The only thing that you have to do to participate is bring a bag of tricks consisting of a puncture repair kit, spare inner tube, pump and money for cake and/lunch.  It would be appreciated if you had experience of fixing a flat.  It’s not nice for others if we all have to hang around in the cold/wet while you dither, because we won’t be dropping anyone, riding on ahead or anything like that.  We ride as a bunch.

In terms of admin, I’m posting up the next three months rides here on London Cyclist and from then on they will be on my blog (bikethoughtsfromabroad) and, in time, and if everybody commits to adding a pound or two to the kitty, we can set up a group on Meetup.com, where we can all add rides and route suggestions and generally make it more of a club.

The first three rides will be taken from London Cyclists’ 30 London Cycle Routes.  Andreas has done the hard work of working out loads of great routes so, frankly, why bother creating any more, just yet.  We will be following routes 2, 14 and 22 for our first three rides.

Saturday 5 March – Tower Bridge to Greenwich Park

We’ll meet at the Girl and a Dolphin statue at St Katherine’s Pier on the north east side of Tower Bridge and be ready to ride at 11.30 to take this circular route, stopping at about 1pm for lunch somewhere along the way.

Saturday 2 April – Thames Path to Richmond

We’ll meet at the south side of Putney Bridge, as close to the bridge as safety will allow and be ready to ride at 11.30 to take this lovely route along the west of the Thames and round Richmond Park, stopping at about 1pm for lunch somewhere along the way.

Saturday 7 May – Grand Tour of the Grand Union

We’ll meet at  Wormwood Park. outside the Linford Christie Stadium (nearest tube East Acton and plenty of railway stations within 2-3 miles) and be ready to ride at 11.30 to take this route along the Grand Union Canal, stopping at about 1pm for lunch somewhere along the way.

Davina’s Diva 100

For those of us who are planning to ride this 100km sportive on 8 May, I’m organising a training ride and a mini sportive to get us up to optimal fitness! The dates for these are 20 March and 10 April. The first ride on 20 March will be a Sussex sportive of 56 km, 86km 0r 116km, organised by SKS events, entry and details here.  I’m going for the shorter distance.  Don’t want to peak too early!  I chose this ride because the terrain will be similar to the  Diva 100 and if you’ve never done a sportive before, this is the ideal introduction.

The second ride route is tbc but will be an 80km route, again in Sussex on 10 April, in preparation for 100km a month later.

Anybody interested in any of these rides, do comment and we’ll all get together on the day.  Happy cycling!

Next week, I’m posting about my night-time bike set-up…