SNCC/TITAN Reliability Ride 2023 – a Chairman’s View
So here we go again, the Reliability Ride feels like Spring (well it’s close) you see people who you last saw on the road in October now they’ve got off their turbos and people have a catch-up and promise to ride, further, faster, more often etc....
The early part of the year has seen the Sunday Rides become more popular with a 0930 start but you can never be sure how many will turn up. For those who don’t know in 2020 George promised to match the entries, yep, we had 15c, perfect weather and 250 riders. So, no such promise from George since then!
So back to last Sunday (Feb 26th) George and his team had been involved with the organisation, held meetings, assigned actions and even gave the SNOGs the action to ride all the courses (we did it all). Gary was given the honour of choosing the charities and chose Winter Comfort (based in Cambridge and represented by Eleanor Gow) and Jimmy’s (based in Cambridge as well and represented by Barry Griffiths). As it turned out we had 150 riders and raised £2,000 for the charities, thank you club members for your generous donations and I know other riders will see this on the website from other clubs or those who rode as unattached riders.
We had a thank you from the Chairman of BRCC after the event who enjoyed the event, the food and the facilities. They have 2 reliability rides on Mar 5th and 19th please see our website for more details.
Stats and a message from George (I love Stats as an old-fashioned Statistician):-
Number of riders in total 150
Number of SNCC members 38, (25% of riders and about 30% of current membership)
Number for the long 44 (31%)
Number for the medium 56 (37%)
Number for the short 30 (20%)
Number for the off road 17 (12%)
Total funds raised £2,000 including entries, sales of clothes and books, and donations)
Very happy Winter Comfort and Jimmy’s who receive £1,000 each (there are no costs, as such)
Very happy riders throughout
Very happy sponsors!
NO COMPLAINTS AT ALL! 150 Happy bunnies!
NO ACCIDENTS (obviously the risk assessment worked, thanks Nicky, we are not complacent on this!)
The most popular “other club” was “unattached” or “blank”!!
Notable representations from Velo elite, BRCC, Hitchin Nomads, Ely, St Ives.
The average age was not determined!!
So now a bit of a personal update. Met loads of people that I’ve not seen in a while. Even met Mandy again and saw an old friend of the club John Brysdon.
George looked a bit pensive but I could see he had it all in hand, met Karen who I’d been sending updates to on clubs contacted. Gary was cheerful as ever. It was nice to see a lot in club kit and the other clubs. When we cycled to the start we saw a tandem trike, not seen one on the road since a TT.
I had chosen the off-road and Monty, Bob Tate and I were going to ride the off-road, I’d recently ridden 200K and wanted something off-road. Perfect day for it, slightly cool and a bit of a bite in the wind but it’s a reliability ride. We got to Titan about 8.30. signed in. Then off we went shortly after, we saw quite a few doing the off road, that's a nice development. A long road section till Brampton. My legs felt OK after my Audax and a long walk on Saturday. The West Wood section is great. I stopped in a muddy bit approaching Grafham and Monty fell over (on his good hip). Long stretch mainly off road down towards Duloe. Cycle through St Neots past all the cafes. Then out to Hail Lane, I was starting to tire a bit but only 7 miles to go. The bridleway to Toseland was excellent. Then a tailwind down the Toseland Straight. Lots of food (thanks Gary), chatted to a few more people who I'd not seen for a while. Thanked George, who told me we had 150 entries, great result on a cooler day for 2 deserving charities. Saw Gary and was introduced to the 2 charity representatives. Great event, thanks to Titan and the organisers.
So, a request, our Photo Gallery is out of date. If you’ve got photos from the day or from any other events, adventures you are doing send them into the club and we will refresh the Website.
Chairman
Link to Photo Gallery from here.
