Annual Report 2019

Terry Wesley

An era ended when Terry Wesley passed away on 18 November, aged 84. Terry's outstanding contributions to the club over the years included often multiple terms as President, General Secretary, Road Race Secretary, Press Co-ordinator, Social Secretary, Time Trial Secretary, Sunday Runs Captain, Cycle Rights Officer and Road Race Organiser.

In addition, he provided mechanical assistance at many major road races over the years.

The club extends its condolences to Jill and other family members.

Membership 

The last few years have seen considerable change in the club. We have a new website, a growing presence on social media (over 800 followers on Facebook and over 700 on Twitter), a big increase in the range of rides we offer, and a smaller committee focused on the challenge and opportunities facing a cycling club in the 21st century.  We also regularly ask you, our members, what you want the club to do (and, as importantly, not do). All that is in addition to having club kit that is distinctive, widely recognised, and admired for its design and quality.

We must be getting things broadly right because we have had more than 50 new members join us this year, taking our membership to an all time high of 277. Sixty eight of our members are women and we’re also attracting members who enjoy other sports such as running and swimming. 

The power and reach of social media was shown in January when Sara from Dulwich Paragon posted a picture showing Naing, one of the local guides in Myanmar, wearing a Wheelers top. Intrigued by how one of our jerseys was being worn some 5000 miles away, a bit of investigation revealed that the jersey (along with other bits of kit) had been given to Naing by Paul on his trip there in 2017.

We have many more people both volunteering to lead rides and posting reports on the website which give a real feel for what it’s like to ride with us. This is important because one challenge which comes with a large membership is keeping a sense of shared identity and belonging. Making club kit easily available is another large part of this, as are the regular post-ride meet-ups in Sutton Hall, the Harrington Arms and the Ship Inn, and the cafe stops that have long been a central part of all our non-training rides.

Above all, it all comes down to communications. That’s why we’ve made our website the centre of all our communications and the first place to check for information on rides and other activities. We are always conscious of the security implications of posting too much information online and we therefore complement our website and social media feeds with a private FB Group, our FB Messenger Group for racing, and direct emails.  We also now restrict our Strava Club to current members.  If you think that there are other or better ways of keeping in touch (such as the WhatsApp groups used by other clubs), then please let us know.

Our rides

In a typical week we have over ten rides, covering everything from easy social riding to race training. In the last two years we have introduced occasional gravel rides and added the Circuit of the Cloud to our popular Barry Hyde Circuit of the Edge and Three Loops rides.

We’ve added a regular summer (generally hilly) Sunday training ride and this year Phil, as well as reviving the Thursday evening Just A Ride, has added longer ‘pop-up’ rides. One in April was to Carsington Water, near Ashbourne  and later in the year he added two 100-mile rides to Cleopatra’s at Holt (just over the border in Wales) and then to Hathersage, the latter with 10,000 feet of climbing including the treat of Mam Nick at 80 miles.

The Sunday Easy Ride has continued its tradition of throwing in a longer ride from time to time, including an outing to Chester this year. Members continue to organise an annual trip in April to Mallorca (where over the years they’ve bumped into stars like Bradley Wiggins, Stephen Roche and, this year, Rochelle Gilmour) and groups have also gone to the Italian Lakes, Croatia, and Denia on the Costa del Sol to tackle climbs made famous in La Vuelta,. 

Sportives and Audaxes

Once again we’ve had members tackling major European Sportives, including the Maratona dles Dolomites as well as UK Sportives such as Ride London and the West Coast Classic in Lancashire.

A long standing Wheelers tradition is the Wild Wales Challenge in North Wales on August Bank Holiday Sunday. This year, in unusually warm and dry weather, we had 23 riders on the start line and narrowly failed to regain the Harold Kewish Trophy for the greatest number of finishers, losing out by only two to Liverpool Braveheart.  So that’s a target for 2020! 

As part of training for Wild Wales, Mark and Jill organised a well-attended 75-mile (7,500 feet of climbing) ride around Lancashire, starting and finishing in Barley.

Audaxes continue to be popular with members. These are long distance events (traditionally 200/300/400/600 km) to be completed in a set time, with completion rather than speed as the objective.  We have seven members who are members of Audax UK (although you don’t have to be a member to take part in an event) and, between them, they took part in 69 events this year. Many Audaxes are local and a good introduction is the mid-week Peak Audax series in August. The most famous Audax event is 1200 km Paris-Brest-Paris which takes place every four years and traces its origins back to 1891. John has completed PBP before, but this year was forced to abandon because of injury.

Community involvement

As the largest, longest established club in SE Cheshire we try and play a role as advocates for cycling in the wider community. We met with Cheshire East’s new Cycling and Walking Champion - Suzie Akers Smith (a member, together with her husband, of Congleton Cycling Club) - to talk about the needs of cyclists in Macclesfield (which possesses the grand total of one cycle lane in the town centre). 

We also organised a closed road hill climb on Beeston Brow (aka The Beast of Bollington) on Whitsun  Bank Holiday Monday as part of the Bollington Festival, which is held every 5-7 years. Many members will know The Beast from the Barry Hyde Circuit of the Edge: just under a mile long, it starts with a cobbled section and has a gradient peaking at 25%. Despite Bank Holiday Monday being wet, the weather held off for duration of the race and the cobbled section was reasonably dry. We had a really good turn out of 27 riders, including the winner Matt Holmes (who will be joining Lotto Soudal next year), former British hill climb champion Adam Kenway (Vitus Pro Cycling) and hero of the day, 10-year-old Joe who completed the climb.  To complete the star studded day, Giro stage winner Alex Dowsett was spotted going through Bollington on his time trial bike (which is probably why he didn’t fancy a crack at the Beast).

Supporting cycle racing

We  promoted five open events this year. Unfortunately both road races had to be cancelled at the last minute: the evening road race in May because a lorry had struck the bridge near Clonter Opera  and what would have been the 60th edition of the John Parkinson Memorial in September because torrential rain had led to large pools of standing water on the circuit and made it too dangerous. 

Our 25 mile time trial at Chelford attracted a good field of 90 riders despite a clash with another event on a much faster course. Our Supacross continues to go from strength to strength on the back of a boom in people riding cycle cross and attracted 430 riders, of whom 155 were under 16 years old. Our first Open hill climb for many years, organised by Bhima on a new course to Teggs Nose, attracted a very good field of 41 riders.

Putting on these events requires a large number of volunteers from the club for everything from marking out the course, to signing riders in and out, helping to marshal, driving lead cars, pushing riders off, making refreshments and baking cakes. We need around 30 volunteers to run our road races safely and even the Beeston Brow hill climb on a closed road had 14 helpers.  Thank you to everyone who gives up their time to help.

This year we shared the organisational effort for our series of Club 10-mile time trials for the Philip Whitmore Trophy with Paul Green and his team from Westmead Team 88. This gave members 17 events to ride (two more than in previous years)  and meant that we only needed to provide volunteers for eight events. It also gave members the chance to race on two very different courses: the sporting circuit around Lower Withington and a more traditional out and back course starting and finishing at Monks Heath. 

To help younger members start racing, we’ve provided free club kit to riders aged under 23, and this year have also provided help them with race expenses. Pete organised a well-attended introduction to track racing at the Manchester Velodrome and Dave and Matt have organised a session in South Park for those interested in trying their hand at cyclocross, using the bikes we purchased with money donated by the family of the former member Ben Rathbone.

Racing results

It’s been an exceptionally good year for racing results. Pride of place goes to Monica with three wins, including the prestigious Colne GP, and several second places. Ben, Chris and Joe won races at Thameside and Tom achieved his second category licence. We had three teams in the National Team Time Trial Championships held this year on a course based around Cranage and Middlewich, with Louis, Jamie and Matt claiming bragging rights. Matt was the fastest of the eight Wheelers in our Open 25, his 57:22 being good enough for ninth place overall. Lynne was the fastest of the three Wheelers women.  Matt also rode the fastest 50-mile time trial by a Wheeler this year with 2:01:53.

Both of this year’s counting events for the Kark Austin Memorial inter club championship had to be reduced from their planned 25 miles to 10 miles. In addition, the first event was held in atrocious conditions and attracted only 14 riders. The second event was much better attended with 44 entries but, once again, we lost out to Congleton CC. Is this another target for next year?

We have quite a few members competing in triathlon and similar disciplines. Daisy finished 10th in the European Triathlon Championship and 24th in the World Championships. Kevin completed his first Ironman in Bolton in July.  Adele and Brian both had age-category wins in the Oulton Park Duathlon and Rachel won the Wilmslow Ladies Aquabike.

As always some of our best results have come in cyclocross, an area where the club has always been strong. Again, pride of place goes to Matt for his second top ten finish in the Three Peaks Cyclocross, by far the toughest event in the domestic calendar. Matt was ninth (although 10 minutes faster than when he finished sixth in 2013) after battling with World Tour pro Lachlan Morton. 

Probably the most notable ride in the Three Peaks was by our very own Ruth (twice a previous winner) who competed and finished for the 21st time despite having a very nasty accident (aka “Bunnygate”) training during the summer. Brian finished his 20th event and Mark and Robert completed the entrants from the club. 

Matt also won all four of the five Midland Series cross country MTB races in the Sport category and won Round 3 of the MTB XC National Championship at Cannock Chase. Joe  won a Midlands League cyclocross race at Cannock Chase and several summer cyclocross races.