GrahamF

I rode this on sunday, chilly, breezy but dry day.
I made up a fourth member of the ivy team as they were short, we were all pretty well matched and rode a good steady round. We managed 14 place which is not to bad in the company. I was just glad that my time counted and I didn't let the colours down.
We should have organized a team of our own as we have some decent guys now.
 
iain

Quite a hard run today but thanks to Charlie for helping me get back on the bunch and then Big Alan, Alex B and Ian McT for the drafting to Largs in a strong
headwind. Plus Boyd for company up the Healie .
 
Hope Graham you are ok after your fall looked sore.
 
 
Carol

Thanks for the wheels folks. Great day for some miles and good company. Thanks for welcoming the wee cousin Connor. He has been inspired and will be joining you every Sunday for more punishment.
 
Thanks to Billy for the company on the west Kilbride route from Largs today.
 
Finally thank you to everyone for the education and tutorials along the way. I've thoroughly enjoyed my time at the club and will miss the rides. All the best to everyone and hope to see you in NZ in the future.
 
Slainte
Marty

It is a mudguard run, but if it's dry, I intend to run without. Forecast isn't looking promising though.......

To mark the end of the season and the start of winter time, here's a whole club run to Largs and the Bagel Basket.
 
Starting from the Club Rooms at 09:00 (winter time, the clocks go back the night before).
 
As in previous years for this run, the intention is to set of in groups of 15 to 20 with members mixed from the regular Sunday bunches, proceeding anticlockwise to the Bagel Basket, via Kilmacolm and Gourock.  After the stop we can reassemble into different groups to depending on who want to take which route back.
 
The outbound leg is 32 miles from Miller St., the return can be anything you want it to be, including the train if required!  The minimum return cycling is 20 miles via the Haylie Brae and Kilbirnie.
Nearer starts are possible for anyone who may not feel up to cycling all the way.
 
Remember the clocks go back, so you get an extra hour in bed, and mudguards on please! (but lets hope it's not wet)
 
Please post if you will be riding, then I can warn the BB how big an invasion to expect.

Great day at the drum up. Here are some photos:

Thank you to all for good company with perfect weather in October.  120km door to door stops me looking completely lazy on Strava for this week

hi, for those of you interested here's a link to a Vernier caliper which should help prevent you ordering a 34.4mm seatpost instead of a 34.2mm.
 
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Stainless-Steel-150mm-Vernier-Caliper-Gauge-Micrometer-Measuring-Tool-UK-Stock-/261879026336?hash=item3cf934d2a0:g:c10AAOSwqu9VSr-W
 
Also after my double take at possible missing parts I checked my headset and that particular model does not need a split washer. The bike nerds amongst you will like to know that there is a tapered washer built into the top bearing cover which tightens against the steerer obviating the need for the tapered split washer. Any normal reader should be asleep by now

To mark the end of the season and the start of winter time, here's a whole club run to Largs and the Bagel Basket.
 
Starting from the Club Rooms at 09:00 (winter time, the clocks go back the night before).
 
As in previous years for this run, the intention is to set of in groups of 15 to 20 with members mixed from the regular Sunday bunches, proceeding anticlockwise to the Bagel Basket, via Kilmacolm and Gourock.  After the stop we can reassemble into different groups to depending on who want to take which route back.
 
The outbound leg is 32 miles from Miller St., the return can be anything you want it to be, including the train if required!  The minimum return cycling is 20 miles via the Haylie Brae and Kilbirnie.
Nearer starts are possible for anyone who may not feel up to cycling all the way.
 
Remember the clocks go back, so you get an extra hour in bed, and mudguards on please! (but lets hope it's not wet)
 
Please post if you will be riding, then I can warn the BB how big an invasion to expect.

To mark the end of the season and the start of winter time, here's a whole club run to Largs and the Bagel Basket.
 
Starting from the Club Rooms at 09:00 (winter time, the clocks go back the night before).
 
As in previous years for this run, the intention is to set of in groups of 15 to 20 with members mixed from the regular Sunday bunches, proceeding anticlockwise to the Bagel Basket, via Kilmacolm and Gourock.  After the stop we can reassemble into different groups to depending on who want to take which route back.
 
The outbound leg is 32 miles from Miller St., the return can be anything you want it to be, including the train if required!  The minimum return cycling is 20 miles via the Haylie Brae and Kilbirnie.
Nearer starts are possible for anyone who may not feel up to cycling all the way.
 
Remember the clocks go back, so you get an extra hour in bed, and mudguards on please! (but lets hope it's not wet)
 
Please post if you will be riding, then I can warn the BB how big an invasion to expect.

One of the Jet parents, Graham Peters, captured some brilliant pics on Sunday. Here are two: the club champion, plus the podium party. 've put them all on the JWCC facebook page, but will ask someone how knows how to also put them on the club website,
 
 
 

Alans post on the club run section about the Drum up over to Loch Eck on Sunday reminded me of this article from a few years ago, worth a read if you have a spare 5 minutes.
 
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12607829.Old_boy_racers_get_on_their_bikes/
Old boy racers get on their bikes

In a clearing in a small wood, just off a narrow lane a few miles outside Glasgow, a group of men sit talking around a wood fire. They’re wearing shorts and the brightly coloured tops of cyclists everywhere. Expensive road bikes rest against trees, and laughter and banter rise up with the smoke from the fire.

The men have craggy, worn, lean faces, but every one has a sparkle in his eye. Some are in their late seventies, some older. One man, Bobby Brodie, is 89. All have ridden here, some covering more than 20 miles. Later, they’ll ride home – and next week they’ll do it all again. Sometimes someone is unwell, or the weather is so foul not everyone can get out, but there are always some of the group pedalling along the lanes on their swift, slim machines. They descend on this spot, a few miles south of the city, light a fire and then talk bikes, tell old stories and rib each other endlessly.

I first come across them after a chance encounter with Bob Mair, a retired tax officer. Bob, from East Kilbride, is on his bike climbing a long hill across a moor; I’m out for a walk in a brief bit of autumn sunshine. We stop to talk, and he mentions there’s a fire lit at a spot down the road. A little later, I make my way over a stile and into the trees to find the group. The welcome is instant, the men are relaxed, and there is the feeling that laughter could break out at any time. I think of my own parents, around the same age, cooped up in a nursing home with locked doors and constant care, coping with the awful decrepitude of stroke and dementia, and I hope to heaven my old age is like this.

From somewhere or other, blackened tin cans, wires threaded through their rims for handles, are produced and propped up among the embers. The water boils and I’m given tea. Then someone takes pity on me for having no food, produces a couple of sausages and cooks them for me. Listening to the stories the men tell, I ­realise I have stumbled on a piece of a world that is almost gone.

There was a time, starting after the First World War, when men and women poured out of cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen every weekend, to escape the factories and foundries, offices, shipyards and docks, and the smells and smogs of town. They didn’t come in cars, ready to drive back as soon as they got wet or hungry or needed to sleep, but on bikes, in buses, by thumb and on foot, with rough camping gear, old cans for kettles, and battered penknives.

To begin with, many were walkers and climbers. By the 1950s, hundreds of others would cycle out from Glasgow and the surrounding towns, part of clubs such as the Nightingale, St Christopher’s and the ­Glasgow or Glenmarnock Wheelers. They would race, time-trial or just enjoy the long, looping rides around the Campsies, Loch Lomond and Strathaven – and often further afield. The men I meet were among them.

They talk of lighting campfires on the shores of Loch Lomond, where smoke could once be seen rising from a dozen such “drum-ups†of a weekend. Sunday night meant a return home for work the next day – and if you were slow packing up, the rival clubs would ring their bells as they passed, challenging you to send out your best men for the weekend’s finale. The groups would start to cluster on the road, and with the first lights coming on at the edge of the city, the unofficial race, or habble, began.

Eighty-year-old Charlie Donnelly joined the Gilbertfield Wheelers as a young man in the 1940s. “After a run, we’d be coming down the Loch Lomond road and we’d meet the Douglas Cycling Club,†he says. “We’d be talking nice to these guys as we rode along: ‘How did you do in your 25-miler?’ ‘Oh, very good, and how was your 50?’

“Then one of them jumped [raced ahead] – and that was the habble. Two racing clubs, the whole road, and it was a race into town, heads down and arses up, to Anniesland to see which club was top.â€

Donnelly is a former shipyard worker, and the sheer physicality of his life when he was in his twenties is startling. Every day, after doing a manual job, he was cycling on track or road, weightlifting or indulging in his other great passions, ice hockey and skating, before Sunday’s racing finale. He and his friends would think nothing of pedalling down to Blackpool for a holiday, sleeping in barns on the way. “It was the freedom of it we loved: the bikes could take us anywhere.â€

Now this weekly gathering is probably the last of the drum-ups. Landowners have become stricter and cafes more popular. The hordes of riders have shrunk away and there are not so many who remember those hard, happy days.

Tales of war and industry

Over the next few weeks I pass by the drum-up a couple of times, and call in to chat. There’s a steady core of eight or 10 men there, but there are also younger cyclists they’ve met on the road, and acquaintances from years back. Tales of wartime Glasgow spin out, the bombing and fire-watch duties; then later of working in the foundries, and the old days when Springburn was a centre of the rail industry. Then there were the races and the time trials, from Port Glasgow to the Cloch at Gourock and back, and the long runs to the Highlands or the Borders and into England, and the trips cycling in America and Europe.

Camping by Loch Lomond on the way to Inverness in the late 1940s, one man put all the soaked leather cycling shoes to dry by a fire. The heat shrank them to the size of ­children’s shoes, so they cycled barefoot to Fort William before they could buy more.

I’m sitting next to Jimmy Docherty, and he’s telling me about a new Cannondale bike he’s acquired, and how he still has the cycling shoes he bought in 1948. He’s 78, and says he often cycles about 20 miles to meet up with the gang, coming up the long way round on a good day. His wife wants him to carry a mobile phone, but he’ll hear none of it. Her concern would be understandable given his age alone – but the fact he was half-paralysed by a stroke 22 years ago, and still has limited use of his right hand, makes it rather more so. “You won’t stop me cycling,†he says with a smile.

Eddie Brown, a former steel worker aged 77, has been riding since he was a teenager. He shows me a photograph of himself – a shy-looking, dark-haired boy – out on the road in the early 1950s. He still gets out cycling twice a week. “It doesn’t make you live longer,†he says. “But it does make you happier. When I got to my fifties, lots of fellows I knew went down with heart disease and strokes, and I could have been one of them. But I was able to keep going. Doing things like this makes you enjoy life more, makes it worthwhile.†A few weeks ago, Eddie tells me, he caught a salmon on a stretch of his local river. “Getting out, doing stuff … that’s the secret.â€

The others feel the same. Bob Cunningham is 80 and works two days a week at Tunnock’s confectioners in Uddingston. Bob Grieve is the same age and still plays ice hockey. Jack Maguire, another 80-year-old, is an old friend of the gang from New Jersey and has turned up on his bike. He’s on holiday, but that doesn’t mean sitting around doing nothing.

Bob Mair, the man who introduced me to the group, is 70. In the summer, he completed a 550-mile trip to the Highlands, setting off from Glasgow to Ardrossan, taking the ferry to Arran and crossing to Kintyre before ­reaching Oban and taking the ferry to Barra. He cycled half the length of the Outer Hebrides, caught a boat to Skye, cycled to Glen Shiel, climbed half a dozen Munros, then pedalled back home.

He’s done Land’s End to John O’Groats twice, the last time seven years ago, and marked the start of his retirement by riding around the coast of Ireland. The only difference from his younger days is a little caution: “When you get older you don’t want to fall off because it takes time to heal. I cracked some ribs in a fall and it took forever to sort out. You don’t want a broken hip now.â€

The ‘baby’ at 65

A few weeks later I borrow a good road bike and, on a bright autumn morning, join a little peloton climbing up out of Glasgow, behind the seemingly tireless legs of Terry McGee. The baby of the bunch at 65, he is a former council worker and merchant seaman who began his retirement with a ride across Australia’s Nullarbor Plain. He smokes roll-ups and I think this might mean I have a chance to keep up with him.

After tea brewed on the fire at the usual spot, we head out again for another 10 miles, across the hills, with one glorious descent of about three miles. The target, a cafe, is a mile or so off – so McGee, who now captains the Glenmarnock Wheelers, announces a sprint finish and I take the lead. Fifty metres from the line, I’m panting – and my 65-year-old rival sails past, arm aloft in mock triumph, not even pedalling.

On the way back it’s mainly downhill and I begin to revel in the speed of the bike, cornering fast and feeling its responsiveness. Then I hit a pothole at about 25mph and come crashing off, skidding along the road and into the verge. A bit bruised, I lag at the back on the rest of the ride home. We’ve covered 40 miles, a fairly easy day by the standards of men 30 years older than me, and that evening I’m bone-weary. But the thrill of taking the light, fast machine out across the hills stays with me. I think I begin to understand what this cycling game is all about.

As winter approaches and rain and frost gain the upper hand, I expect the ranks at the drum-up to be thinned, but these men are made of sterner stuff. Out come the fleeces and the waterproofs, on go the warm hats and gloves, and the wet, the wind and the cold are just another small problem to be overcome.

Eddie Brown is a vision in a pair of ripped overtrousers, waterproof top, woolly hat, helmet and wraparound sunglasses to keep the low-lying winter sun out of his eyes. Apart from that, there are few concessions to the season. Perhaps they’ll put a few more logs on the fire and build it a little higher, and maybe they’ll fit winter tyres with a slightly sounder grip.

On my last visit to the spot, I speak to Bob Mair and tell him I want to write about the days I’ve spent with the group. He is happy to have it recorded: like the rest, he treasures these days on the open road and by the smoky fire. But he makes me swear not to reveal the locations of their meetings, for fear someone, somewhere will object.

I say it seems like a little piece of history, from a time when the idea of escape from the city burned bright in the minds of people whose everyday existence was a struggle.

“Aye, they’re the dying embers, though,†he says.

That may be, but it seems they’ll be a long time dying. And as I head home I wonder what will finish these men, what could ever stop them climbing on their bikes and ­cranking up the hills, into the wide blue, wherever the hell it takes them.

With the closed road, the start house, the film crew, 30-odd riders, dozens of spectators, and sunshine(!) that was surely the ultimate club confined. Thanks again to Jann, Kenny, Martin and Graham for a great morning, and well done to Alan and Danny for showing the rest of us how it's done! (Though I think it bears repeating: that climb is a horrible, short, sharp effort into the red. It takes a fair bit of nerve just to get onto the line at the bottom of the hill and we all deserve a pat on the back for taking it on.)
 
Comparing times from different years can't tell the whole story without a record of weather conditions, too…however, it has to be worth noting that Danny's time of 1:35 and Hamish's time of 1:37 would both have been good enough to win the senior championship three times out of four between 2011-2014! Stellar rides, lads.
 
Given a half-decent day and another big turnout, hopefully someone can record the magical 1:20-something next year.

[ ]Well done all for great effort and especially to Morna and Robbo for their first hill climb championship with the Wheelers
 
Here is some images not that great quality just my phone camera.
 
Carol
 
Ps sorry if I missed anyone

Ken,
 
Have you been head hunted by Vinorkourov's Astana team? :-)
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astana_Pro_Team
 
Best wishes in your new venture and hope to catch you when ever you're back in sunny Glasgow.
 
Regards
 
Chung

I will timekeep, thought I was allocated to timekeep at Tour de Trossachs but I'm not.

I'll be there to assist. Either at top or bottom

Thanks for a great run. Sorry I had to bail out just before the end, but I did get home to a riot of family and whole roasted masala chicken.

Thanks to Gerard and Andrew for a good ride today.
 
Up Loch Lomond side, coffee at Arrochar, old road over the Rest, Hells Glen, ferry back from Hunters Quay. I recorded 100.4 miles, a good intermediate run!

On my way to Majorca tomorrow with bike (and wife!)
She said she would clean it when I get back from a ride :-)

Graham, will join you at club rooms tomorrow

This is the one for me, I will be there.

A few photos of Wheelers in the Novice Race, it was great to see so many Wheelers out for both the Novice and APR races, but I didn't stay to record the APR!
 

managed to get a couple of the APR      

A few photos of Wheelers in the Novice Race, it was great to see so many Wheelers out for both the Novice and APR races, but I didn't stay to record the APR!