Blog posts

Louise Gagnon writes ….

Find below a few pics of the wonderful volunteers who assisted in making the TOTH a delectable experience for riders, marshalls and organisers alike. (Sorry to Sue Thorne; we have no pic of you; you must have been buzzing around so quickly after your Tour of the Greensands that we missed you!).

Granted the team’s catering goal is to put a smile on the riders’ faces but why are all caterers, marshalls and organiser also grinning from ear to ear?  Because these smiles simply reflect oh so very well the West Surrey CTC club spirit at the Shere Hall on the day!

The TOTH has proven over the years to be “the” event where the largest number of West Surrey club members conglomerate in a big team effort towards the same goal, that of making the TOTH AUDAX event a success.

Much banter and laughter goes on during the day and no doubt this strengthens the bonds amongst our club members. These bonds of friendships are everlasting and are compelling enough to have some of our CTC longtimers drop in for a visit.  Please read on…

Departing my house with a car load of catering goodies. I know: eggs improperly protected for Surrey roads. Never leave the packing to a Royal Navy engineer I say!

The morning catering team: Hilary Stevenson, Lynette Jeggo, Heidi Vinson, Louise Gagnon, Margaret Nieve (good to see you Margaret!), and Jules Lowe.

John Child of the afternoon catering team; his name tag is a long story!

Laurie Mutch comparing notes with yet another happy rider at the tea counter; Laurie routinely does both, an AM marshalling shift and a PM catering shift.

Two very happy riders being served Heidi’s magic potion: tea!

Jules Lowe enjoying a cuppa and chatting with Keith Stainer who has just dropped in after his shift as a marshall. Keith hasn’t had any food and yet he is already smiling; either he is happy to be off shift or he can’t wait for his tea and TOTH Power Bars!

Don Gray, the TOTH Master of Ceremonies. Still looking fresh after a full day of covertly playing “super” Sudoku on his Mac book. Don, all kidding aside, it’s a joy working for you!

Chris Jeggo demonstrating the high load capacity of the new West Surrey CTC jersey. His wife Lynette and Don Gary look on in disbelief.

Don’t know this guy; he just showed up and was observed trying to deplete our food stock. Has anyone seen him before? Could it be a former member, circa 1980 maybe?

We have received the following letter from The Royal Surrey County Hospital’s Charitable Fund:

The Royal Surrey County Hospital’s Charitable Fund has a team of ten cycling the London to Brighton Cycle Ride on Sunday 6^th September 2015.
We have filled seven of the places, but still have three places remaining. As the event is just three weeks away, we would love to fill all the places, so were wondering if you know of anyone who would like to ride the course for us – we are just asking that they either pay or raise sponsorship of £50.

This will go towards either the General Fund of the Hospital, or St Lukes Cancer Centre – whichever the cyclist would prefer.

This fundraising challenge starts in London and finishes 54 miles away on the Brighton sea front. There is a buffet lunch for all participants and the spirit of the event is ‘taking part’ not ‘winning’ so you go as fast or as slow as you like!

Please do get in contact if you, or anyone you know would like more details. Feel free to share this email

Kind regards,

Eleni Bainbridge

Events Fundraising Manager

The Royal Surrey County Hospital’s Charitable Fund

(Part time hours: Monday 12.30pm-4.30pm, Tuesdays & Thursday 8.30am-4pm)

Royal Surrey County Hospital, Egerton Road, Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XX

Tel; 01483 464146

Email; eleni.bainbridge@nhs.net

Website; www.royalsurrey.nhs.uk/Fundraising

Many thanks, Don, John and Louise, and all their helpers, for yet another very successful event.

A forecast of a glorious summer’s day, a start at Shalford and a ride which should be rolling rather than hilly – what could be better? Just one issue – how do I get out of West Horsley given that all the roads I need to use to get to the start of the ride are closed for The Prudential-Surrey 100 ride (or whatever it is called)? The riders must have started at a ridiculously early time to be in West Horsley just after 8am. Hope I can cross Ripley Lane at the Guileshill Lane – Hungary Hill Lane junction and then head off to the A3 cycle path. Plan formed I set off and get to the junction – and there is a solid wall of riders, a car at the bottom of Hungary Hill Lane has its engine switched off, the driver looking very board and the marshal said it had been like this for some time and was likely to remain like it for, oh, at least another 15 minutes. I wasn’t looking at the riders to see if I could spot Peter, I was looking for a gap. How big a gap do I need to squeeze across? That big, so I went for it.

Over to the A3 cycle path – how overgrown was that going to be? It wasn’t – some kind council official had decided that it was time to be cut back and made cycle-able again. And At the Ladymead traffic lights I spotted Dane. We arrived the start point to find Jo waiting and others soon arrived. I didn’t check the time to see when Clive rolled in – but it must have been 9:10, when else does he turn up up? Seven of set off for Camelia Botnar.

It was a delightful ride – Clive set a good pace but not excessive and the temperature was perfect for riding. He clearly has his mojo back and was happy on the front. But you know what they say, “When the cat’s away the mouse does play.” So he leads us right past Café in the Park in Horsham – practically through the tables – without stopping and against the protestations of many of us who could just use a coffee and cake. And then just outside Horsham a sign says bacon sarnies to the right – we go left! We will have our revenge, don’t you worry. We went the direct route to Camelia Botnar and to see two recognisable bikes already parked up – Don and Paul.

Coffee was a drawn out affair in the sunshine before we finally retraced our way to Copsale and then headed for Southwater Street and on to Rudgwick. As we passed The Milk Churn at Rudgewick bricks works a halt was called by the pack. I wouldn’t call it a mutiny but a show of hands persuaded Clive that we were having lunch here and not at Nottcutts. We knew that Don would not be there waiting for us and it was around 2pm so we ruled out anyone else turning up unexpectedly. The Milk Churn was a great success and I hope we visit it again sometime. I can recommend the harvest apple cake with ice cream. Over lunch one who is not known for a love hills said that we had not done enough and Warwicks Bench would done on the way home. (Alas I am forbidden to name names and give the direct quote – but this will be remembered and might be used in evidence against you.) Someone else, rather foolhardily in my humble opinion, suggested that I ought to do the tour of the hills as I was good at climbing or some such nonsense, whereupon a discussion ensued of how many metres of climb had to be scaled and how fit Peter must be – we are expecting to hear of a record time for Pru 100. Anyway, as I have finger to keyboard let me just say I like riding, not suffering and I think the hot sun must had got to them. Hope you get better soon.

Clive did his usual disappearing trick and the rest of us made our ways to our homes. A decent 88 miles completed and home at a reasonable hour – only to find the wife had disappeared to watch the pro race on Ranmore Common. Just for you Paul – normalised average power output of 179 watt. Quite a bit below what I would do it I was if I was having a burn.

But what a lovely ride in glorious weather down some of the pleasantest lanes – just a perfect summer’s ride.

The Tour of the Hills event, held yearly in August at Shere and brilliantly organised by Don Gray, is the major source of funding for the West Surrey CTC.  Such funding is essential as it allows our club to partially subsidise a wide variety of things which are dear to us, from the purchase of club shirts, an occasional CTC membership for a member in need, first aid training for ride leaders, refreshments at AGM or club events, etc.

I have thoroughly enjoyed assisting Don by organising the catering for the 160 plus riders we typically get but alas this position of “Catering Big Cheese” will likely become vacant in 2016.  Not much to it:

• recruiting the best volunteers for the job (already a fantastic crew of 6 on hand!)
• purchasing the food a few days prior to the event and delivering it to the hall on the day
• overseeing the catering operation on the day
• providing audit paperwork for all expenditures to the club Treasurer on completion

If anyone is willing to learn the ropes on how it is done, now is the time to step forward and watch the action live by dropping in for a few hours at Shere Village Hall on 16 August 2015.  Interested in this truly fun and rewarding job?  Please contact Louise Gagnon at bridgethatgap@hotmail.com.