We resumed our Saturday and Sunday Leisure Ride program just before Easter, carefully following the British Cycling guidance on coronavirus. The Leisure Rides are organised by a small sub-committee comprising Sheni Jiwa, Sandra Rouse, Dylan Spencer, Rob Wild, Steve James, Simon Kelly and Jamie Brosch. We meet every couple of months to decide the ride program. August and September rides are now all up on the club website in the calendar. We always welcome feedback on the rides and new route suggestions, particularly new café suggestions! Speak to any of the team or email us on leisureride@chippenhamwheelers.org
The Saturday rides have been really well attended and have made for some memorable social rides. They’re ideal for newer riders to start out club riding with us. It’s been great to see so many new faces coming out and enjoying the rides, welcome to the club!
Sunday rides have typically been a mix of 40-50 mile social rides and longer Challenge Rides around 60-100+ miles. After feedback from a few people we’ve decided that future Challenge Rides will run on Saturdays alongside the traditional Saturday Leisure Ride. This means we will just have one Leisure Ride on a Sunday. It also means the Saturday Challenge Riders will be able to recover from their Saturday exertions on a steady Sunday Leisure Ride if they wish!
Our aim is to have a good number of riders on the Sunday Leisure Rides so we can set off in several groups, each of a different pace so there’s a suitable group for each person. The ideal group size is around 6-8 riders. We’ll always ask anyone wanting a faster ride to set off in the first group. Newer members unsure which group to ride with should please speak to the organiser at the start who will help get them into a suitable group.
We now have a list of Ride Coordinators to lead the groups out. The Ride Coordinator role is just to help the group stay safe on the road and to make sure that no one gets dropped. If anyone would like to volunteer to be a Ride Coordinator then please get in touch. It’s particularly important when we have new members coming out to ride who may need some advice to help them settle into group riding.
We’re talking a break from the Challenge Rides in August but look out for a new route in September that we’ve designed – the Tintern Express 80 mile Challenge Ride over the Severn Bridge, along the new Wye Valley Greenway cyclepath and through the former Tidenham railway tunnel all the way to Tintern Abbey. We’ve not set the date yet but are aiming for a Saturday in September when the weather forecast looks good, so keep an eye on the website and our Facebook page for news.
Fish and Chip 200km Achievements
We weren’t able to run our Audax series this year but we did all go to the seaside at Weston super-Mare on our traditional 200km summer ride. Unfortunately the morning was rather damp but we warmed up in a café with our traditional Fish and Chip lunch and then had a lovely, dry ride home via Cheddar Gorge. Special mention needs to be made of a few members who completed their first ever 200km randonée that day – Linda Hitchcox, Claire Brady and Luke Elkins. They were suitably welcomed at the finish line by David Brady with champagne at the Sports Club! Well done folks!
COVID-19
As a British Cycling affiliated club we’ve felt it important to always follow BC’s guidance on managing our rides safely. We recently updated our COVID-19 Risk Assessment
On-line Ride Entries for Leisure Rides
We’ve continued with the on-line entry system and would like to thank everyone for using it. We had to introduce the system for COVID track and trace purposes, but our ride organisers have found it really helpful knowing how many people to expect at the start and who to contact if we have to cancel a ride. It’s been particularly helpful for knowing when we have new members coming out to ride for the first time. We plan to keep the system going and would request we all continue to use it. We’re also looking into the possibility of making entry lists visible to all members, which some of you have suggested, but we need to consider the confidentiality aspects of this before we can proceed.
Off-road Rides
The Thursday night off-road rides through June and July proved to be great fun. It was great to see many of you bring out your old MTBs or even brand new gravel bikes and trying the local rough stuff trails. On one occasion we had 14 of you out riding for the evening. We’ve ridden a lot of gravel by-ways and navigated our way along bridleways, trying to avoid the stinging nettles and nearly always finishing at a pub! We’re taking a break from the off-road Thursdays in August but may resume them in the Autumn as the nettles die down!
The planned off-road adventure across Wiltshire highest hills along the Wansdyke & Ridgeway had to be postponed due to the risk of thunderstorms, but we plan to re-schedule this sometime in the next few weeks when the weather forecast looks good. Look out for news of this on the website and club Facebook page. We’d also highlight that the club as a separate Facebook group dedicated to off-road riding to share photos of your rides and route ideas – search FB for Chippenham Wheelers MTB.
If you’d like to be included in our separate Off-road e-mail list to be notified of rides then please email leisureride@chippenhamwheelers.org
