mossy

Drumlanrig challenge 2020 will be Saturday May 2nd . Entry open at www.tearfund.org/drumlanrig

if you read this you sre in on the secret. you can enter the 2016 event now, ahead of the general publicity. the date is april 30th and you can enter at www.sientries.co.uk

All JWCC members can now enter for the 2015 event in advance of entry going open on the 21st Jan. Form attached to this post You can either post it or send a scan of a completed form to [email protected] Entry Form 2015.pdf

Saturday October 4th, 43 miles or 72 miles sportives from Moffat. Organised by me and our team who put on the Drumlanrig Challenge. JW members who enter this month get a £10 discount ( so does anybody else ) website and enter online here. Both routes include the 20% climb of Talla Lynne, but you can still have the cakes if you get off and walk.

The entry list is now on the website. Johnstone wheelers has 22 entries, but just pipped for the biggest club award by Honister 92 who have 24. I am planing an October event from Moffat. Just under 50 miles and including the Beeftub and Talla climbs, details available soon. I still have a few places on the Tour of the isles should anyone fancy a tour on a lightweight bike with luggage transported and meals provided. Dave Moss

I'm the TLI Scottish secretary again; seems your'e not allowed to give it up unless you find someone else to take it on! TLI membership is reduced for 2013, now just £10 for full membership, so you only need to do 3 events to save money against 3 day memberships. If riders are all members, TLI give £10 million third party insurance completely free to the promoter. Strange but true. all the forms and info are on www.tlicycling.org.uk . The one thing Paul did not mention, you need to join TLI as an organiser, fill in the form on line and print and send to me. The cost for an organiser is free, I don't know how we do it. Re finish line mayhem, I have heard that these new fangled tablet ipad thingies are the best, just video the finish with it and the screen is big enough to identify the riders. Moniaive Wild Hills TLI APR will be last Sat in March.

Don't miss out on the Bethany Edinburgh Sportive. It's a cracking route and easy for you to get to starting just off the Edinburgh City By Pass at Bonnyrigg. It's all on quiet roads and the surface on them is fairly good. 110 miles for the big one (70 short route) 8000ft of climb (5 000ft on the short one). You can enter now, or next pay day. Showers, cakes and even cheese and jam sandwiches.

Glad you enjoyed the day. It was good to see a good group of J. Wheelers out. We raise close on £10 000 for Tearfund. In future. If your unable to make the ride, be sure do get a big wash load on, the sun always shines on the Drumlanrig challenge. Results are now on the web site. Gold standard is 18 mph and silver 15 mph. Because of the mystery sign mover taking 5 miles off the route, the times required will be less than last year. Also, because of the wind direction, I think the missing miles would have improved the average speed, so apologies to those who missed out by a whisker. I have included a lunch break column. This years longest lunch stop was the tandem pairing at 1hr 20 mins !!! I believe Drumlanrig is the only Sportive that excludes the mid distance feed break from the times, but it does seem popular with the riders. Is it cheating? should some others follow suit? I appreciate that for longer events this would risk protracting the event too much.

Decided this forum was the best bet for this. It would be good to see the JWs out in numbers. The Drumlanrig Challenge was the very first event to call itself a "sportive" in Scotland and is now in it's third year. An entry that amounted to a decent club run for the first event became 180 last year and we are aiming for 300 on May 3rd 2008. And the entries already received have us well on the way to that target. This year we share the weekend at Drumlanrig with the single speed mountain bikers. This means we have the uase of a big marquee, some extra showers, and on site camp site and for Saturday night a barbecue and ceilidh. Don't expect a T shirt for finishing as we aim to send as much as possible to Tearfund for them to help some of the world's poorest communities out of poverty and to give them a brighter future. You can count on being well fed on the way round. Don't end up dissapointed, enter now. www.drumlanrigchallenge.btik.com

Entries are coming in from all over for this yeas event www.drumlanrigchallenge.btik.com . There is a team option for teams of up to six who start and finish together, since it's not a race any awards will be for best looking or ugliest team or something. Which one will you go for? (Heaviest team might be an idea) This could be an ideal training event for those in the following weeks Fred Whitton. And all of your "donation" will be going to a very good cause.

I see that Darryl Gunson and Mark Whitehead have succeeded in winning a place with the other 798 in this event. I posted my entry at have past midnight but failed to get a spot. Ah well, on the bright side it must be good that there are so many cyclist prepared to put themselves through such torture. Do Darryl and Mark really know what they are in for. If you think the big passes look hhard, wait till you get onto the constant unamed ups and downs in between Whinlatter and Hardnot! Let me know if anyone fancies trip to thelakes for a sample in April and maybe a few Doonhamers will join you. I am involved with an easier event the weekend before, The Drumlanrig Tearfund challange. 82 Dumfrieshire miles. ideal as training for the fred Whitton or for those who have retained some sanity and didn't enter. www.drumlanrig.btik.com a web site in the making.

I generate my own electricity as winter training ( replace the resistance mechanism on the turbo with a small generator). The power from my training sessions is stored in a bank of lead acid batteries. Instead of Gas I use hot air passed through the heat exchanger on a conventional boiler. The hot air I collect by getting the family to read out all the postings on cycling inteernet forums.

Looks like I'm in the Bealach again. No christmas pud then. I will be climbing one of them big mountains on the Sunday if anyone wants to join me. I did the Fred Whitton last year ( well most of it, my freewheel seized at the start so I had to keep pedalling downhill as well , so reckon I could be excused taking a short cut ) I think entries open 7th January ( you cannot download a form till then) and to get in you will have to get the form 1 min after midnight and post it immediatly. its an awsome ride with some scary decending

I have flown Liverpool- Trevisio. You have to choose your day for a midday flight out unless you don't mind fly6ing at 6 am. ( the times alternatye on different days.) If you can live without sleep, or work night shift, the early flights have the advantage of giving you a full day in italy when you arrive. trevisio is a very small airport, easy to get out of and back to. When you walk out the door you are on an ordinary looking suberban street, not some frighting dual carriageway or acres of car park/ industrial sites. The train station is probably an easy bike ride away.

Does the 70 mile route have to be "quick" or will there be a "moderate" group doing the 70 miles. I have finaly realised I'm not twenty one any longer and this year am aiming for a few of the longer distance sportives, so I don't want to travel up just to do 50 miles, but I don't want to be with the the young raceheads.