Club Rides and a note about Beccles Cycle for Life (May 13)

The warm spring weather on Sunday tempted out many cyclists, including Velo Club Baracchi members on the two club runs and other groups of training companions.

For some it was an opportunity to bring out a summer bike. The 9am ride from Cotmer Road featured an appearance by one of the club’s founder members, Dean Annison on a very nice road bike.

Three of the riders carried on for a 55-mile loop around Halesworth, Cookley, Cratfield, Fressingfield and home via the Bungay café, while three others took shorter routes.

With a Gt Yarmouth CC 25-mile open time trial on the Somerleyton course coming up this Sunday some of the club’s riders are preparing for it.  Chris Womack is one who has entered.

Nicki Hawkes, who retains second-claim membership in VCB, will be riding this season for her new Bury St Edmunds-based team, Velo Velocity and she took the opportunity of a trial ride on the course.

John Thompson rode Saturday’s Comrades CC 204 km (127.5 miles) Audax from Ugley, between Saffron Walden and Bishops Stortford.

The route went via Thaxted to Twinstead, Stisted tea rooms, where the sympathetic proprietor is himself a cyclist, Cressing, Fairstead, and then via Gt Dunmow back to the HQ, before setting off again into Hertfordshire to Stocking Pelham and Arkesden, returning and finally setting off again to Finchingfield and Elsenham, stopping at the usual information controls in many of these places.

Thompson said it started at 8.30am and he finished around 7.00pm – “not bad I think!” The following day he took a further ride of his own on the Essex/Hertfordshire border.

Beccles Cycle for Life 2012

The eleventh annual Beccles Cycle for Life sponsored cycle ride on Sunday May 13, organised by the Rotary Club of Beccles, is starting to attract advance entries.  Velo Club Baracchi supports this event.

Posters will soon be appearing and the campaign to sign up riders has already begun, with the hope that this year’s event will be the best ever.

Those who enter in advance receive a full rider pack which includes the sponsor form and route details and their entry donation will be less than if they leave it until the last minute.

Last year the record sum raised was £7660 divided equally between East Anglian Air Ambulance and the Rotary Club of Beccles Charitable Trust equally as this year’s will also be.

The charity ride draws in participants of all kinds, including many families also who enjoy getting out into the country lanes for an exciting expedition, enthusiastic club riders and also team riders from workplaces and organisations.

It is not a race and all the riders go at their own pace, so is suitable for everyone who can ride. Last year nearly 400 people took part.

Riders choose between 7, 15, 25, 40 or 50 miles and one of the sponsored riders will win a bicycle worth £300 (an increase on last year) provided again by Norfolk & Suffolk Financial Services Limited with help from the Life Cycles shop in Lowestoft.  A draw for this will take place at the Beccles Hospital Fete in June.

The Beccles Cycle for Life team in the Rotary club look forward to welcoming back as many riders as possible and to hearing from those who would like to ride for the first time.

See www.becclescycleforlife.org for details, photos from last year and application forms (individual, family or team).