AGM
The TTG AGM 2023 was held a few days ago on Monday 27th March at the Gala Club, Longford.
We would like to extend our thanks to everyone who attended or sent their apologies ahead of the meeting. We had a good turn-out, with club-founding members through to members who very recently joined TTG present! Having such great representation of the club felt particularly poignant as TTG celebrates its 25th anniversary this year.
You can find the meeting minutes in your email or here, please ping one of the committee for the password.
Swimming
- Monday swimming starts this week at 20:45 at GL1. We’re looking forward to seeing as many of you there as possible.
- As I announced last night at the AGM, we are having to raise swim session prices to £5 to match the increase in pool hire charges. To that end, can I ask people to amend Direct Debits (DD) as follows.
If you swim Wednesdays only, please increase your DD to £20/month from 01 Apr (your DD should currently be £18).
If you will be swimming Mondays and Wednesdays, can you please increase your DD to £35/month from 01 Apr.
If you will be swimming on a Monday only, can you please set up a DD for £15 from 01 Apr.
The club will offer a free introductory session for those swimming on a Monday, so I’ll make a £5 refund to those who set up DDs as described above. Paying the refund is going to be a lot easier for me than the alternative of asking people to adjust DDs twice to take account of the discount for Apr.
Happy swimming everyone 🏊♂️
Weekend Rides
We had two weekend rides this week, Ryan’s super social unfortunately being cancelled due to adverse weather conditions causing potential accidents.
We have two ride reports, kindly written by Ryan Green and Jon Murgatroyd so I won’t steal their thunder!
Sunday saw Adey organise ‘The Bridge Loop’. A ride that has been described as a rite of passage for many a TTG member. With Gordon being the only one having ridden the route before, Eu, Lee, Adey and myself were in good company.
The forecast suggested it was to be a nice dry day which was immediately up for question when drizzle appeared at the start point of Estcourt Road. After a slight delay waiting for Eugenio to get to the right place, we set off full of enthusiasm.
The route itself is incredibly simple. A40, A48, over the old Severn Bridge and up the A38 to home.
Once settled in, the way out was pretty swift (a bit of assistance from the wind I think!), ticking along nicely at a fairly decent rate. The start was a bit quick… I had to ask Adey if he left his hair straightenets on or something 😂. A few little digs to get up but nothing to be too worried about.
(‘Pretty swift’ & ‘decent rate’ are relative terms. It was as fast as the group were comfortable traveling along together. ‘A bit quick’ means I politely asked to back things off a bit before my legs fell off – still carrying some fatigue after leg day at the gym on Friday 😬)
Crossing over into Wales at Chepstow and we met a bit of traffic before turning off and finding a shop to refill bottles, we headed towards the main event; the Old Severn Bridge.
After Clifton suspension bridge last week I was really looking forward to another decent bridge this time out… And it did not disappoint. Very windy and seemingly popular with many cyclists, we stopped at the halfway point for a quick photo and we were on our way again.
With the bridge behind us, the wind died down a little but we were aware of what was to come. A headwind up the A38. What a joy! There’s not much to say about the return leg other than it’s handy there is a cycle lane for the most part, giving a bit of space from Sunday drivers.
Arriving in Gloucester we set off on our own merry ways with a decent long ride in our legs.
Longer continuous rides like this can be tough. But they are also very rewarding. The sense of accomplishment is great. It’s a great opportunity to practice your nutrition plan and see how you hold up as you get deeper into the ride. I know I learnt something valuable.
A big thank you to Gordon for his route knowledge and keeping everyone organised. And Adey for organising the ride and taking a good stint on the front helping me hide from the wind!
All in all, a decent day in the saddle 🚴🚴♂️🚴🚴♀️
With Sunday’s weather looking the best of the weekend, four of us embarked on a gentle 50k taking in a climb up Hollybush with some well-deserved Coffee & Cake. Things didn’t get off to a great start, Jon was late arriving in Apperley which in turn lead to Pete wondering where we were whilst Derek was still trying to find his way out of the car park. No sooner had we set off than Derek’s saddle bag started to deposit it’s belongings along the road (and there was to be a repeat performance later!) but with items safely stowed away we met up with Pete and headed out on pretty flat pootle towards Hollybush.
Once we’d pickup up Derek’s belongings again, we turned up onto the Hollybush road and began the steady climb up with Jon zipping off like he had something to prove (turns out he just wanted to set a new PR) and then braking etiquette by not waiting at the top! Maybe it was the keenness to get to the Woodshed but in his defence, he did shout everyone to coffee and cake which was very yummy indeed. Just as we were setting off, we finally figured out what was up with Derek’s saddle bag, a quick guide on how to use the “drybag” style closing mechanism and the remainder of his kit was safe for the rest of the journey… or so we thought!!
With that figured out we headed off to what we knew would be a fast-flowing ford following the recent weather and we weren’t disappointed. A brief stop for photos, a little chat on whether any of us would brave the raging torrent followed by the most epic bridge crossing undertaken by TTG’ers this weekend (joking, check out the Bridge Loop ride from Adey this weekend for epic!). With that conquered it was just a simple matter of making it back along some of the more major roads, so it was head down and push on, until Derek hollered at Jon to pull over as Pete and Chris had dropped way back and looked like they had stopped. Turns out Derek’s glasses had managed to escape from his jacket pocket, clearly wanting to go back up and over Hollybush. Retrieved and stowed away we finally made it back in one piece having had a great morning.
All in all it was a decent route, great company, good laughs with tasty coffee and cake… what more could you ask 🙂
Next Week
| Monday | Coached Swim at GL1 (See above for details!) |
| Tuesday | Coached Run at Oxstalls Campus Gccc Roadmans TT around Elmore (Ping Gordon for details) |
| Wednesday | Coached Swim at GL1 |
| Thursday | Zwift (Check Whatsapp for Details) |
| Friday | Bank Holiday Ride (TBC) |
| Saturday | Ride TBC |
| Sunday | Ride TBC |
| Monday | Bank Holiday Trail Run TBC |
