DLN Aug 2001

GAZZA is away climbing "Cats Hill" at the
Cats Hill Criterium, Los Gatos, CA, USA

A grand bunch of De Laune members landed on the beach at Dunkerque to watch the first stage of the Tour de France. Who were the members you ask? Well we had Ken & Dot Fuller, Roy Chittleborough, with a tailor-made rain cape; Maureen Jackson, to help carry Roys bags; Tich Shambrook, Brian Saxton, my Pat and, yes, that woman again, Mary Dods. We also had our other old friends from the 34th Nomads. If you are a cyclist and you have not seen the Tour, you must make it at least once just to taste the atmosphere. Plenty of colour, noise, and shouting, and that is just Dot Fuller.

The first stage was the time trial around the town, it was packed. We saw a lot of the riders warming up, which was good. We saw a rider who had all the gear on with a super bike, who we thought was signing autographs, but it, was our Roy Savery giving out life insurance quotes.

You see a lot of faces you know but cannot put names to them. It is called getting old. I did not see our Peter Gunnell, who was going out with the CTC. Probably in the bar!

Talking about seeing faces, did you see the start of the second day of the Tour from St Omer, on Eurosport TV? ? Who was on TV? Roy Chit, and yes that woman again, Mary Dods.

I had arranged accommodation for our group at St. Omer and at Bethune. The accommodation at Bethune was at the Campanile hotel, which are like small flats. Well to cut the long story short, as we were going to be late, the reception had agreed to leave the keys for three of the flats in flat No 1, which would be locked, but the window would be left open.

Imagine the situation, it was midnight, pitch black, and a ladies small hand groping through a window looking for keys. A German voice said, " Vot are you doing? " Guess what, it was the wrong hotel!

I will let you know next month how we got on when we went south to see the tour around Grenoble and Alp d'Huez, and a few pictures, if they come out.

The club track champs will be held on Saturday 4th August, 2 - 5pm, at Herne Hill. They will be run in tandem with the Bec CC's champs (& possibly Norwood Paragon's, subject to confirmation). This keeps costs down and should give spectators more entertainment. Racing will include the sprint championship, pursuit and the 5-mile championship, plus the opportunity to go for club records at the end (please notify me in advance if you fancy a go). If time permits, we may be able to have a couple more races, or even an interclub event. If we get enough interest from spectators, we should be able to get the bar opened up for us. How about an OMA social at the same time? If you only do one track race a year, this should be it. There are trophies up for grabs, the 5 mile is a counting event towards the club BAR, and the atmosphere will be much less intimidating than at an open event.

A week last Sunday (17th June) I took part in the Clydesdale British Championship at the Windsor Triathlon. This was the first ever-Olympic distance that I had done and I came 8th overall. I missed a possible G.B. qualification by 3 places, which was a little bit of a shame, but for my first crack at that distance I was pretty pleased.

I entered the Clydesdale I as I weigh over 13st-3lb's (13st-5lb's to be precise). I always new that I had a slightly 'chunky' build compared to most other cyclist/triathletes but as I had not weighed myself for about 5 or 6 years I did not know I weigh as much as I did. So, a couple of weeks before Windsor when I found out my weight, I I out of my age category and into the Clydesdales.

The great thing about this race was that there were only about 70 or so (approx. 200 in the other waves) people in it, which meant the swim was a lot less hectic. This was good news as there was heavy rain the day before and the first 1100m was against the current (In the Thames). This was hard work.

The quality of the racing was also very high. Two people in the top 5 had qualified for G.B. in their age groups at Bournemouth two weeks before. They were 4th and 5th respectively. I was hoping they would all be fat and slow. This was not the case. At the start, before I we got in the water everyone around me seemed to look like a para trooper (Scary). If I am to qualify myself (for GB) I am going to have to take about 10 minutes off my overall time, which is definitely possible. The other motivation for qualifying is that next Years World's are in Cancun Mexico (wow).

Partial race report here - I punctured with 2½ laps to go, so I never saw what happened after that.

Lovely Sunday Morning on July 1st, set my alarm for 6.45 and was quite surprised at waking up, since it was my brother's 40th birthday the night before, and I got to bed a bit late, and a little heavy-headed.

I started in the bunch, as distinct from my last Surrey League at Liphook where they all pulled out of the car park a couple of minutes early, while I was still at my car, so I had to sprint for a mile or more and caught them just after they de-neutralised. That time I got shelled out on the big climb at the end of the 1st lap, and despite a valiant attempt to catch the bunch up - I got to within 20 metres - but it powered away on a downhill dual-carriageway section. I found out afterwards it had been our very own James Lett and James Peckham who'd been doing the powering away.....

Anyway, back to The Weald. The event was promoted by VCL, who'd let their Juniors ride. They've got a pretty strong Junior squad, and Tom House, Phil Glowinski and [whats his name...Junior RR Champ??] were there, sitting in and waiting for something to happen. I was sitting in, too, but I was hoping something wouldn't happen. By the end of the 3rd lap I was thinking I might not sit in for much longer, since a break of 5 or 6, including Matt, had just gone up the road, and the bunch started to put the hammer own. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for Matt, a tractor appeared out of nowhere, top speed about 16 mph, and held everyone up including the lead car, the race had to be neutralised and the break came back. Nothing happened for another lap, so I had a bit of a chance to recover.

Then Matt shot off again in a lone break, frankly the only move of any real quality in what was a bit of a negative race. Everyone was going quite quickly most of the time, and attacking pretty hard out of corners and stuff, but no-one had been off the front for more than about a minute. I guess Matt got about 20 seconds or so on us, because the 2nd lead car dropped back behind him, and someone from Arctic tried to bridge it, but failed. So did Matt, sadly, and he re-joined us about 3/4 of a lap later.

Just as I was congratulating myself on having stayed in the bunch for so long and, magically, just as I got closest to the HQ, I punctured. I walked the 500m or so back to the HQ, thinking how surely no-one would believe I'd punctured so close to it, just when the VCL boys and the Gemini boys and a couple of other useful-looking people were bound to start stirring things up and increasing the pace. Luckily I didn't get any of that back at the HQ, but also didn't get to see Matt finish in 2nd place in a big bunch sprint. Neither did Matt get to see me get first to the sandwiches.

Just read the DLN and found that email from K Holland about the Lynn boxing club. I haven't met him yet, but he's a colleague of Alan Male - (Alan has told me at least twice whether he's Kevin or Keith Holland, - but I still can't remember!) - and he's a community PC in my neigbourhood, while Alan is a community PC in Waterloo.

Alan's using some of his contacts around his neigbourhood to recruit kids for the HHYCC, so I'm hoping to get K Holland involved somehow too.

Cheers
Bill

Just thought I would fire off this photo to you and the club. Yep, that's me climbing "Cats Hill" at the Cats Hill Criterium, Los Gatos, CA. I stayed clear for a short while after but was caught and came in about 9th. Cats Hill is the classic local crit. It has this climb of 26 percent, not long at about 100 yards, but enough to dull the legs after 10 laps or so. I have been racing quite a bit, not as much as last year due to taking sailing lessons. I have upgraded to CAT 3, which translates to bigger fields going 27½ mph all the bloody time. It is very hard to get to the front, let alone go for a win. I have also started racing at the velodrome at the Wednesday and Saturday leagues. Not much to report at the moment but I am hoping to do better there. I will be aiming at the NorCal Madison champs in late August.

Weather has been terrible for riding lately with continual days over 100 degrees f. It's impossible to carry enough water for a long ride. We are all looking forward to a cooling trend so riding is not so arduous. (I suffered heat exhaustion on a 30-mile ride 2 weeks ago!)

Red Bull Moutain Mayhem - 24 Hours Of Mud, Sweat and Sweet Fizzy Drinks (without the vodka)

The Red Bull 24 Hour Race is definitely the countries biggest off-road event of the year and the race this year featured nearly 400 teams including top UK riders such as Barrie Clark and Nick Craig riding for Diamond Back, as well as the new hopes Liam Killeen and Jody Crawforth (more of him later). The Giant World Team also turned up with ex-world champion Rune Hoydahl and extremely fast Frenchman Christophe Dupoey. (Giant would eventually win the huge pot of cash set aside for the pros).

De Laune had two teams this year with James' Lett, Lyon and Peckham and myself (non-James) in team 'A' and Bill Wright, Cliff Steele, Richard Hill and Simon Pamplin in team 'B'. We also had a mechanic, Andrew King, a cook in Cliff's wife Carol and a team timekeeper and general calm head Tig. We had finished 6th Sport team last year but all felt that we had the form to do better this time around.

Thankfully the weekend was dry and warm, perfect for racing. The race starts at 2pm Saturday with a 'Le Mans' start with 400 or so people doing an 800m run to their bikes. James Lett was our designated runner and managed to pick up his bike in about 100th place. He'd managed to fall over three times in the melee and was lucky not to get trampled by the hoards. We had soon settled into churning out 40-43 minute laps of the 10.3 very bumpy, rock hard course as the pros disappeared into the distance with 35-minute laps.

We went into Saturday night in about 9th place which was worse than expected but the race doesn't really start until the eight hour mark when darkness falls and the reality of having another 16 hours of racing left begins to hit home. We had been alternating laps between the four of us but then moved to our nighttime strategy that meant a pair of riders alternated for 4 laps so that the other two could try and get their heads down. James Lett and James Lyon did the first shift whilst James Peckham and myself tried to sleep. I was up and ready for my 12.30am lap but half way around the freehub on my borrowed wheel came undone but after nursing the bike round I handed over to James P. Andrew had 40 minutes to get a new wheel on for lap 2. James P managed to do a lap with a 5w head torch after the batteries on his lights gave up the ghost on the first hill. He still managed a 45, which was pretty amazing. Must be all that rally experience of forest roads at 100mph at night. We had steadily improved over the night and were now up to 6th, having made up 9 minutes on our main rivals Durham University over night.

They then bought out their ringer, Y2K rider Jody Crawforth who just happens to go to Durham in between World Cup races. He then proceeded to churn out the sub-37 minute laps and pull away again. With daylight on Sunday we were all feeling OK (as OK as you can after 16 hours of racing, no sleep and too much energy drink) and started to pick up the pace again for the run-in. Our lap times were still at about 42-44 minutes and that consistency was beginning to pay off as we moved into 5th, a lap ahead of the team in 6th but desperately trying to catch Durham in 4th. James Lyon set off on the final lap at 1.50 pm on Sunday and put in an amazing 40.58 to put us 9 minutes behind Durham and 12 minutes off of 3rd placed Cheltenham Cycles. We had done 34 laps in 24:29:41 with James Lett doing the fastest lap of 39:46 and us all averaging about 43 minutes a lap for our 8 or 9 laps.

We had improved one place over last year and 5th out of 200 Sports teams was a hell of an achievement for the team. We were 16th out of all the teams there, ex-World Champions and National Champions included. If we keep on improving like this we will win the Sports class by 2005!

The 'B' team had a few more technical problems than us with Richard having to retire late on Sunday when his eye, injured the day before, became too much. The 'B' team finished a very creditable 23rd with 31 laps completed in 24:08:47. I don't mean to gloss over their achievements but we were all focussed on our own races. All I know is that they were in as much pain as anyone but still did the laps and achieved a great result.

None of us can thank Andrew, Carol and Tig enough as at 4am it is all you can do to find your shoes and gloves, let alone tweak your gears, cook some pasta and remember how many minutes you have left before you need to be ready for lap number 5.
Ross Fryer

The MTB season finally started after months of cancellations and postponements but at least that meant I had a chance to try my hand at road racing (Ben would probably choose to call it 'road riding around a bit'!). The main aim of the early part of the season was to be the Red Bull 24 Hour team relay race held 23/24 June in mountainous Birmingham. Before that I managed to get some good results at Beastway and Gorrick races and hopefully get my chain-snapping out of my system early in the season. My first major race was the much-delayed National Points Series season opener at Thetford and everyone seemed to be mad keen to do well. Exactly halfway through and feeling good in about 30th I felt/heard that sickening twang of my chain snapping as I was leaving a bomb hole. Ten minutes of trying to remember how to use a chain tool was enough and I started the walk back to the car.

Beastway kicked off at the end of May and I managed to get a very promising 4th in the absurdly competitive Masters category in my first race. Maybe all that road stuff was paying off after all. A 11th and 8th followed and then I managed to get a 9th at a very technical Gorrick course at Bagshot. The following week I was absolutely flying at Beastway but screwed up the sprint for 3rd to get my second 4th of the season (another £4, it is all worth it after all!) and go into the Red Bull on a bit of a high, confident that the form was there. . (See Red Bull daze for the details).

Post Red Bull Salad Days
Straight back to Beastway after Red Bull was not a great idea (mainly because I could only sit on one cheek) but the following week I managed a 3rd, the result of the series so far and have just finished 18th in the Southern Region MTB Champs held at Checkendon near Reading. It's turning into a great season, now all I need is to get rid of my two 11th places at Beastway by doing better in the final two races of the series and keep enough form to beat James Lyon in the Schwinn 100 (100K off-road in deepest mid-Wales)!

Can you answer general knowledge questions and bluff your way to a great prize?

THENDEFECTORS
Is the new t.v. quiz show for you.

If you have what it takes, and would enjoy a good day out:

Call Now 01622 684453

For an audition.

Auditions will take place in an area near you and the show is recorded in Maidstone during Aug. 2001.

Defectors is produced by Challenge TV.

My name is Graham Walsh and I am the Associate Producer for 'Defectors', a quiz show being transmitted on Challenge TV.

We are currently looking for contestants to take part in the second series of this popular game show being filmed at the Maidstone Studios in Kent throughout August.

To take part in Defectors, not only do the players have to have a good general knowledge, they must also have excellent powers of persuasion, because in order to score points they must get members of the studio audience to vote for them. However they had better keep answering correctly or otherwise the audience will 'defect' to another player.

The contestant with the most points wins £1000, as does the audience member who consistently backs the winners during the show.

The host of Defectors is Richard Orford ex Big Breakfast.

I have attached one of our posters with details of the programme and also a number where people can obtain an application form.

Would it be possible for you to display the poster and also show it to your members of the club.

I can be contacted on 01622 684591 or graham-walsh@flextech.co.uk if you require further details.

Thank you for your help and I look forward to hearing from you.
Graham Walsh.

DE LAUNE C.C.
Fred Peachey Memorial Open 25 mile time trial
Held on Sunday 15th July 2001,
under R.T.T.C. Regulations on the G25/45
Event Promotor:
John O'Brien
RESULTS

"UCI technical regulations?….It's the rider not the bike"
d. duffield cliches part: 6

What is it about July? Just because the Tour is on race organisers seem to think that us racers all want to sit around doing nothing but watch telly for hours on end. Which is probably true…. but to me it's like being a kid again, watching the FA Cup final (I came to racing late in life!) and then legging it down to the local park to re-enact all you saw…. And boy! have we seen some racing this year.

Well done to anyone who has managed to find a race over the past few weeks so check out the race diary for their results.

A bit more money has been added to the SERRL entry fund so…..(mantra). It looks like we could be covering Surrey League entries as well so I'll be in touch with the regulars shortly and any one else can give me a ring for information.

Eurosport
I'm sure you have all been following the main action so I'll concentrate on some of the weird and wonderful side shows that keep us glued to the hours and hours of live coverage.

The battle for 'who's got the longest tongue' raged hard over the early stages. Moreau, the young pretender to the crown, showed well in the prologue but King Ludo put him firmly in his place during several of his long breakaways. I bet their partners enjoy their training sessions!

Can anyone understand what Sean Kelly says? You get the first few words but then it all starts meshing into one long word ending in… "In my day we were a lot harder", still, at least he's concentrating on what is going on while David natters on about cheese or his little black control box that's on the blink. Go on David, give it another whack!

The road 'art' has been little bit… erm… cosmopolitan. It would appear that a whole host of anatomy students are following the race this year. You wouldn't think you could get so much detail with a big brush and tin of emulsion! Beats the usual syringes though. Good to see that the art of streaking is alive and well….even if they do pixilate out the offending areas.

The crowds at the side of the road have been phenomenal. Even the remotest back road has been lined with fans. As for the major climbs, heaving is the only word to describe it.

I have to own up and say that my favourite bit so far has been Ullrich's crash. His descending skills have long been admired by this viewer (see past Tour mountain stages!). You could see it coming as he approached the bend. Managing to just avoid the crash barriers he went off road and showed the same mountain bike skills that I possess. Nil. What followed had the judges on their feet waving their perfect sixes in the air. The last glimpse you got was of him appearing to make like a cow and chew the cud while his back wheel made an arc through the air. At least all he got was a muddy back and was soon off down the hill in pursuit of Armstrong… again. Speaking of which.. as Sean Kelly said. He is on another planet.

Race Diary
24/6/01 SERRL Chilham 110kms 1/2/3/4/W by Matt Goodes
13 riders got away on the first lap so as the bunch didn't seem to interested I sat on until the last lap. On Moleash Hill my bottle cage came lose so I stopped and took it off then chased back on. I promptly lost the bottle from my other cage so decided to be the 'ticket collecter' for a while. Last time up Moleash I put my foot down and got a gap, dragging up Jamie. Caught and dropped Malcolm Whitehead so that left one climb to go. Jamie sat on all the way up Whitehill and nicked the sprint (bloody juniors!). 15th from 58 starters.

1/7/01 SERRL Sevenoaks Weald 80km 3/4/W/J by Bill and Ben
Partial race report here - I punctured with 2 1/2 laps to go, so I never saw what happened after that.

The race had been switched from Benenden to Sevenoaks Weald, which was a Good Thing since that cuts a good 35-40 minutes off the journey time. Consequently I was 20mins early. Matt was already there, though - he's better organised than me and doesn't drink. I started in the bunch, as distinct from my last Surrey League at Liphook where they all pulled out of the car park a couple of minutes early, while I was still at my car, so I had to sprint for a mile or more and caught them just after they de-neutralised. That time I got shelled out on the big climb at the end of the 1st lap, and despite a valiant attempt to catch the bunch up - I got to within 20 metres - but it powered away on a downhill dual-carriageway section. I found out afterwards it hadbeen our very own James Lett and James Peckham who'd been doing the powering away.....

You could see them coming from about 500m. As it all started to wind up Matt's white jersey appeared on the right of the bunch and powered to the front but just couldn't get past the Sigma guy. Wheels touched about six back and as the bunch crossed the line someone had an unscheduled interface with the tarmac but everyone else managed to avoid him. Podium Bound!

10/7/01 Brands Hatch E/1/2/3/4 50km by B.Neville
High winds and hard rain. A very wet course made for a nervous peloton. This course is a hard one. Although the surface is immaculate the continual up and down makes it very hard to keep any momentum in a break, unless your a hard as nails elite rider! A group of 8 was soon off the front and hovered there for a few laps before gradually pulling away, Matt included. I tried to get across a couple of times but was beaten back by the wind in the back section of the course. The front group disintegrated to 3 up front, two pursuers, a couple dropping out altogether and Matt coming back to the bunch. There was then the usual ebb and flow until with three laps to go Matt was off again. The lap counter then seemed to stick on 2 laps to go for two laps leaving poor Matt thinking he'd gone far too early. Luckily his trusty legs held out and he took 6th with myself coming in 11th . At least Matt got a BCF point for his endeavours - second cat. status beckons.

15/7/01 Surrey League Cat: 3/4/W/J by James Lett
It was another good showing from both James Lett (JL) and James Peckham (JP) in a Surrey League road race. The race was 50 miles on a testing circuit in Cutmill, with several hilly sections to disturb the rhythm. The pace was frenetic from the start, no doubt influenced by the Tour De France. There was a constant wave of attacks on the first of 7 laps of the circuit with the De Laune boys instrumental in reeling in some of the breakaway efforts.

Just when it looked as though things might calm down, another break went and JP made his move. This looked to be a potential winning break, and it stayed clear for some time with JP forcing the pace. However there was no let up from the bunch and unfortunately they were caught. Almost immediately, another break of four riders then went clear and stayed away.

JL having worked too hard in the opening lap had recovered and moved up to the front of the bunch. Feeling good, he attacked on the main climb and broke away with another rider. They then spent half a lap riding flat out and bridged the gap to the leaders. Now a group of 6, they worked well together, stayed away and shed two riders. 200 metres from the uphill finish, the break was caught by two other riders. Still feeling the effects of bridging the gap, JL finished 4th, a great result nonetheless. In addition JP had somehow recovered from his earlier efforts and brilliantly took a bunch sprint for 7th and must be close to clinching his 2nd Cat racing licence.

Hopefully a report on the 'Fred Peachey 25' appears elsewhere in the mag, if not check the web site. I was out doing my bit helping the timekeepers. After the BBC forecast had been saying rain, rain and more rain everyone was very pleased to see bright sunshine, cloudless skies and an excellent race. I rode out from SE London in the company of Charlie at 5.00am, as the sun rose. You may remember a previous report to do with Charlie and glorious sunshine, so if your having a barbi make sure you invite him because he always brings the sun!

1/2 Price Labour for De Laune Members
Service/Repairs & Wheel Building
Inner Tubes from £2 each - Cables from £1 each - Tyres from £9

Founded 1889