This Sunday sees the annual Hill Climbs of Crays Pond at 09:31 followed by Streatley Hill at 10:31.
Both climbs are Come and Try it events, so as ever, non club members are most welcome.
Signing on to both climbs will be at around 09:00 at the bottom of Crays pond in Goring. The Senior and juvenile (under 16) club hill climb cups are awarded to the club riders who produce the lowest aggregate time in the 2 hill climbs.
The following Sunday (7th September) will see a new hill climb of Wittenham clumps, which wont be quite as steep, but no less competitive.
The final club TT of the summer season saw Phil Brown managing to keep his bike upright to record the fastest time of 21m 18s on a relatively calm night on the Fairmile course. Steve Wright was 2nd in 21m 55s and George Towersey in 22m 8s.
The next TT events are the Annual club hill climbs of Crays Pond and Streatley on Sunday 31st August with a new taster Hill climb of Wittenham clumps on Sunday 7th September, all these hill climbs are Come and Try it events.
Result of Fairmile CC241 on 14th August 2014:
#
Start No
Name
Club
Time
Cat
1
12
Phil Brown
DPCC
21.18
V
2
8
Steve Wright
DPCC
21.55
3
7
George Towersey
DPCC
22.08
4
3
Neil Ashcroft
DPCC
22.16
V
5
11
Ron Smith
DPCC
22.50
V
6
1
Martin Stanley
DPCC
23.01
V
7
2
Oliver Clark
DPCC
23.09
J
8
10
Iain Kent
DPCC
23.49
V
9
9
Robert Briggs
DPCC
24.20
V
10
4
Pete Warwick
DPCC
24.55
V
11
13
Phil Stacey
DPCC
25.10
12
5
Mitch Purvis
Come and Try It
26.47
V
13
6
Chris Virgo
DPCC
27.27
Thanks again to all our volunteers.
Number Seller: Iain Kent
Number taker: Simon Evans
Start Timekeeper: Simon Evans
Finish Timekeeper: Andy Black
Pusher: Gary Lester
The Club is holding a Open 10 mile TT on Saturday 23 August, and Dave Rodger (our organizer for this event) has asked for a few more volunteers to assist with making the event run smoothly.
So if you have a 2-3 of hours free from around 2 pm on the 23rd then Dave and the club would be most appreciative.
The Positions still open are:
A second person to help pushing off and with general safety at the start. (We currently have 64 riders entered).
Two more marshals for the turn roundabout.
You would need to meet at the HQ (Turners Hall, North Leigh) at 2PM on the day, full address and copy of start sheet will be emailed in advance.
Also if anyone wants to donate homemade cakes then these would also be gratefully accepted.
If you can assist Dave then please email him at: timetrials@didcotphoenix.co.uk
Giles Clark placed 3rd in the Central region championships on Saturday 9th August at the event held at the Milton Keynes Bowl.
Giles not yet 15 raced in the Under 16 category. Full results here
A float night on the Fairmile course saw another impressive time by Rob Gray from RAF CA for the win with 21m52s. Neil Ashcroft pipped Steve Mead for 2nd place by a solitary second with 22m17s.
Next week we return to Fairmile for the last TT of the season, followed by a social in the Red Lion in Cholsey
Result of Fairmile CC241 on 7th August 2014:
#
Start No
Name
Club
Time
Cat
1
17
Rob Gray
RAF CA
21.52
-
2
6
Neil Ashcroft
DPCC
22.17
V
3
16
Steve Mead
DPCC
22.18
V
4
4
Martin Stanley
DPCC
22.54
V
5
11
Ron Smith
DPCC
22.55
V
6
2
Max Brown
Zappi's
22.58
-
7
8
Simon McGowan
DPCC
23.02
V
8
3
Andy Kelly
Come and Try it
23.56
V
9
10
Alan Allcock
DPCC
24.01
V
10
18
Adam Gardner
GS Henley
24.07
V
11
13
Ian Hillsdon
DPCC
24.17
-
12
15
Jake Smith
DPCC
24.44
V
13
19
Robert Bill
Come and Try it
25.03
V
14
20
Darren Milligan
OTCC
25.10
-
15
12
Dimitri Kalafatis
DPCC
25.13
V
16
1
Steve Warwick
DPCC
25.28
V
17
7
Adam Morris
DPCC
26.05
-
18
14
Matt Chambers
DPCC
26.46
V
19
9
Mitch Purvis
Come and Try It
27.01
V
NA
5
Mark Winks
DPCC
DNF
V
Thanks once again to all our volunteers.
Number Seller: Jeremy Stambaugh
Number taker: Steve Luck
Start Timekeeper: Jeremy Stambaugh
Finish Timekeeper: Nick Druce
Pusher: Kevin Stopps
Steve Wright wins the 2014 Club Championship. Steve was the fastest rider from DPCC and overall on a warm, but windy H25/17 course.
Thanks to Oxonion CC for allowing DPCC to use their Leiden plaque 25 TT for our Club Championships.
DPCC times below, full result here : Leiden Plaque results
A fine sunny night of racing on the Stadhampton course saw Rob Gray from RAF CA take top spot ahead of the top trio of DPCC riders Neil Ashcroft, Ron Smith and Steve Mead.
As a reminder there isn’t a club run this Sunday as the 25 Mile TT Club Champs, is happening on the H25/17 Course, race HQ is at Appleton village hall with the first rider off at 8am.
Sign on at the HQ around 7:30am
Result of Stadhampton CC118 on 31st July 2014
Number Seller: Giles Clark
Start Timekeeper: Matt Chambers
Finish Timekeeper: Andy Clark
Pusher: Giles Clark
Sunday 27th July saw the Oxonian and last round of the ORRL at the Great Milton road circuit.
Dave Emms narrowly came second in the sprint on a glorious Summer morning. After initially being isolated on the front with 500m to go, Tim Allen had the guile to take over on the front of the peleton to lead out Dave over the final hill on the A40 to leave “The Emms Express” in prime position for the sprint ahead.
As a reward for both their efforts, Dave Emms won the league and now becomes a 2nd Cat rider and Tim Allen picked up the most “combative” rider in the series and winner of the under 23 competition.
A top team effort guys! Congratulations from all at DPCC!
Thanks also to Oxonian CC for hosting the final round of the ORRL.
Congratulations to both Simon McGowan and Paul Solerti on completing the very hilly L’Etape du Tour sportive on Sunday 20th July. Starting in Pau riding over the Tourmalet and then up the Hautacam in the Pyrenees.
Simon has taken time to write up his version of the ride here: Etape 2014
Both couldn’t quite manage the Pro’s speed over the stage when they rode it on the 24th (See Laurens Ten Dam’s stats on his Strava log of the stage) , but they did have the worst of the weather.
Chapeau to both!
As ever, if you have a ride write up to share, then email Secretary, and get it published here.
Hello club members, welcome to the July edition of the club newsletter. There has been lots going on: records being broken, TT’s, road racing, Audaxing (if that is a word), Ladies 100km and the weather has been pretty good! – all this activity does make it tough finding time to watch the Tour!
Oxfordshire Road Race League
There is only 1 race left in the ORRL this season and Dave Emms has had some great results, winning the first race at Weston on the Green, 5th at Dalton Barracks and coming 2nd at Kirtlington. Junior rider Tim Allen is also placing high in the under 23 rankings for the race league. The 2nd round was our clubs road race and it was a huge success, down to the excellent organization from Nick Druce and Simon Evans – a huge thank you to them, and all the volunteers who made it all happen on the night. Photos here: http://www.didcotphoenix.co.uk/?page_id=2187
Beeline bikes will host a League presentation evening and last stage of the TDF at their shop on Cowley Road, Oxford. There will be a bar & nibbles and special discounts on the day.
Timings will be approx:
1630 – Shop closes
1700 – open up to league presentation evening
1730 – presentations of prizes
1800 – watch the finish of the tour.
Time Trials
The TT season is now down to the last few fixtures. There’s a 2-Up on the 24th July on the Sire’s Hill course, the 25 club championship has moved to 3rd August and joins the Oxonian event at Cumnor, and at the end of August the Club Hill Climb championship. Don’t forget there is a new “beginners” Wittenham clump hill climb too on 7th September.
Also, Congratulations go to Steve Wright for breaking the 50 Mile TT club record with a time of 1 hr 46 minutes 40 seconds, on a very hot Shaftesbury CC E2/50 course on the 19th July and Phil Brown for breaking the Veterans 25 mile record in a time of 51mins 28 seconds on the R25/3L course in South Wales on 21st June.
This year also saw the 25th Anniversary of the Ben Owen inter club time trial which took place on the 19th June (Stadhampton 118A course). Numbers were down on previous years – mainly due to the World cup going on! – however DPCC had a great result with both the Men’s and Women’s team winning! Congratulations to all who took part and especially the volunteers & cake bakers – all helping to raise over £300 For the Children’s Leukemia charity.
Friday 20th June saw the BMCC Silverstone 9-Up TT ( 3 laps of the F1 circuit, 10.8 miles). An unpracticed DPCC team finished in a time of 24mins 53 secs placing a very respectable 34th our of 80 clubs.
If you would like to enter the Club Open 10 mile on H10/181 course Saturday 23rd August enter here : https://evententry.ctt.org.uk/Account/Logon/98790
Dave Rodger is also looking for some more help in the way of 3 marshals, if you have a spare hour or two on the 23rd then please contact Dave.
Audax
The Barbury Bash proved to be another successful event with 110km, 160km, and 210km routes. Plenty of club members took part over all distances and had a great day in the saddle. Thank you to Ian Middleton for organizing such a successful Audax.
Rapha Women’s 100
The proved to be great day – 16 ladies set off on a ‘figure of 8’ loop around Didcot. Having a last minute re-routing of the 2nd half as the council decided this would be a good day to ‘resurface’ some of the local roads! I use ‘resurface’ in the loosest sense – chucking stones one the road is what really happens!
We stopped half way for a welcome break and the obligatory tea & cake. A huge thank you for Mountain Mania for supporting the club and opening the shop for us to use on the day as well as providing the tea & cake, yum! Last year Rapha managed to attract 4,000 women worldwide to join the ride – this year they are expecting this to be more than double. So far on Strava 8,130 have signed up to the challenge.
8 DPCC members joined the ride and helped keep the rides together (we split into 2 after a while) – so a huge thank you to all of them. 8 non members join in the ride, with some coming from as far as Chipping Norton. No mechanicals, however, we did pass a number of road kill: 7 pigeons (not a good day for pigeons!), 3 rabbits, 2 butterflies, 1 pheasant, & 1 hedgehog . . . only the 2 butterflies were victims of cyclists! Oh and the 2 big juicy flies that Beth swallowed :o(
All ladies who took part will proudly receive a woven badge from Rapha – this should sit nicely with the DPCC roundels! Well done ladies, a thoroughly enjoyable day!
Le Tour
It is that time of year again when we avidly watch le Tour – and this year the Grand Depart was in Yorkshire! Duncan O’Reilly rode the first stage of the tour to raise money for the Brain Tumor Charity – so far he has raised an amazing £2,700!! If you have not donated it isn’t too late, visit: https://www.justgiving.com/Duncan-O-Reilly
A few club members managed to catch le Tour on its way from Leeds to London – bumping into Dunko in Muker on Stage 1, well he found them! Other club members managed to catch the racing on stages 2 and 3, with Martin Stanley and Simon Evans helping as official marshals on stage 3 within Epping Forest.
Cyclocross
This was a great success last December and we are looking for a team of volunteers to help organize the next event, either this year or next. If you have a passion for Cyclocross & fancy helping to organize such a great event for the club then we’d like to hear from you, please contact: chairman@didcotphoenix.co.uk or secretary@didcotphoenix.co.uk
Well that is quite enough from me – I’m off to watch the highlights of the latest Tour stage!
