WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING IN THE MONKEY HOUSE?
THE GREAT GORILLA EASTER EGG HUNT
Thanks to Rob Garratt for organising such a novel and fun event. Creme eggs were eaten, red phone boxes were climbed into, segments were ridden, Greggs were purchased, places were visited and cans were donated to the Foodbank , but in the end there was a clear winner - "The Easter bunnies and their Hutch" ( Páraic Scanlon, Steven Nelson, Sarah Damm and Neil Hutchins ) stormed to victory with an impressive 460 points. Behind them it was a lot tighter with only 1 point separating "On the 3rd day he rode again" ( Bruno, Phil, John Pears and Rachel Brown ) from "Who designed this thing?" ( Rob Garratt, Kris Rogers, Lee Holton and Damien Kimber) - 354 to 353. With "The Rolling Trackstands" - Eugene Vichare, Lee Tandy and James Barber getting a creditable 332 points in 4th. Thank you to everyone who played along, and thanks to Emma Lambert for the lovely Easter cake she cooked for us to have at the finish.
GORILLA ENDURANCE
Some of the troop ( Maj, Iain Davie, Rob Anderson, Alex Cull, Ed Carver and Oliver Agar) headed over to the Netherlands to ride the Amstel Gold Sportive on the Saturday , and then watch the pro races the following day - a spikey day out - 240km for most ( including getting a little lost) in a brutal wind. With Rob managing the 100k route after a bout of gastro issues. Fair play to the lot of you .
Neil Cocklin and I did a recon of the Grand Day Out route on Tuesday - a relatively flat 215km to the South West of Birmingham. A great route, which needed a coupe of tweaks to make it even finer. Thanks to Neil for organising this. He then went out with John Pears on Saturday and rode a much lumpier 200km to the Cotswolds!
If you want to get into riding a long way a Bristolian audax event organiser that Neil Cocklin knows is putting on a 100km charity audax in Bristol on Sunday 1st June - check out www.pedalution.co.uk/events/ride4red . I think Neil is getting a number of the troop together to show support for this one.
GORILLA RACING
Kelly Murphy tied with World Tour Pro Elinor Barker to win the Buxton Cycling Club Mountain time trial on Friday in a time of 1-04-16 for the lumpy 22 mile course. Jack Morrie Evans came in 27/59 in the mens road bike category in the same event.
Kelly then raced the first BMC 10 mile TT of the season on Sunday - clocking a time of 23;39. Matt Wright was just in front with 23;14, and Carl Pearson 1 place behind with 25;28. Amazing times from everyone - well done.
BMC's next event is an 8 mile TT is on Tuesday 29th April, sign on at 6.15-6.45 at Kings Arm Car park.
QOMs and KOMs
The Strava crowns i spotted this week were:
QOMs
Nicola Greenwood
Kelly Murphy
Sarah Damm
KOMs
Thomas Ellmer
Chris Mapp
Paul Astin
Chapeau
THURSDAY RIDES
As you might have seen on the community whats app group , the rides for Thursday went up onto the website yesterday. There are still a coupe of spaces on
Oliver Agar flat 16-17mph ride and James Brown hilly 18-19 ride, apart from that all rides are fully booked at the moment. We have tweaked the website ( thanks Sean Miller ) to enable you now to book onto Thursday rides an hour before they leave ( if there's space) - Sunday rides still have a 12 hour cut off.
Also if you're new to the club and fancy trying us out it is a lot easier. Just use the coupon code FREERIDE25 and that will give you a week's free access to the website and rides - after that you will have to pay the annual £25 subscription. All details on the website .
See you Thursday.
Ride safe
Bruno