Monthly archive for November 2012

Can’t believe it but I think I’m acquiring the desire to go riding with my local group(s) – it’s only taken twelve years, but having done four rides in the last two weeks, the bug is beginning to get a strong grip. Mind you, it helps to have decent weather – which it has been on two and a half of the rides. The next thing to do is remember to bring my camera; iPhone cameras are useless for action pics. The two below are OK though (because they’re static).

There were only four out on last Wednesday’s ride. OK, it was pretty grim.

The Sunday Intermediates at Grayshott. It only rained a bit – honest! But so lovely and mild!

One of my favourite cycling blogs is Cass Gilbert’s While Out Riding, principally because Cass’ photography is so good < http://whileoutriding.com/author/otbiking/ >  His latest email post had a couple of links which caught my eye – both have been around for a while and I probably discovered them years ago but, with the passage of time, they slipped away. Here they are again, because you’ll probably like them:

Bicycle Traveler magazine – don’t be put off by the American spelling (it’s an American magazine) but it’s an online magazine and it’s free, and it’s all about touring and photography and equipment and… well it’s just a little bit of heaven really. Here’s the link to it
< http://bicycletraveler.bicyclingaroundtheworld.nl/ > and here’s a crafty photo of the contents page to demonstrate what kind of stuff is in it. Very worthwhile reading – there’s even an old interview with our very own Ian Hibell in it.

Note that when you sign up to Bicycle Traveler, you can download a free book about taking better photos. All quite basic stuff, but worth looking at all the same.

You might also like another link < http://www.worldwidecyclingatlas.com/ >

In the unlikely event that you didn’t see it in CycleClips…

The Afternoon Play on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 27 Nov (1415-1500) is “Beryl: A Love Story on Two Wheels”. Maxine Peake writes and stars in this true love story of Beryl Burton, a working-class mum from Morley in Leeds who, with no financial backing or training, combined farm work with global domination in all areas of cycling competition from the 1950s to 1970s.  With contributions from Charlie Burton and Denise Burton-Cole.

Have you read Beryl’s book, “Personal Best”?

One or two members felt that other members might like to add their input to this survey. The details are below. To participate, click here to access the survey. (James Harding is the Editor of The Times, by the way.)

And, yes, about 100 cyclists are killed each year on our roads – I checked with CTC’s Campaigning Department. Mary’s accident happened last November.

Distributed at the recent AGM was the first batch of our newly designed CTC West Surrey cycle tops. We hope you like it – if you do, and would like to buy one, contact Rides Secretary John Murdoch. Your order will be processed as soon as possible, which basically is when we have enough orders to achieve a certain cost level – the bigger the order the cheaper each top. The first batch was a mix of summer weight long and short sleeved tops – 19 in all – which cost a tad under £40 each.

Thanks to our models, Peter and Bob, not to mention Louise who is clearly excited by something – presumably our models! You see the effect a well designed cycling top can have!

Several people have asked about winter weight tops – a copy of their price list may be found below, from which you can see that a winter weight top is an extra EUR10. The drawback is that ten people need to order them.