Read all about it!

All the latest about the doings and darings of the Old Ports' month by month through the year.

"Power to all our friends......"

March 2008

New! Racing Calendar launched

Ever wondered which events Old Ports riders are doing on any given date. Well Now you can! just look up our new Racing Calendar .

Eastbourne Weekend 7-9 March

The Spring Eastbourne ride was, as usual, a merry affair. We all gathered, bright eyed and bushy tailed, on the Friday and wended our way towards Eastbourne via Hever, The Ashdown Forest, Maresfield, Blackboys, Horam etc. The sun shone and a very pleasant ride was had by all. On the Saturday El Presidente and How'ard accompanied us on a tour of beachy head and Birling Gap, lunching at the Eight bells in Jevington. We feasted at our normal watering hole on the Friday and Saturday nights and after much bon homie at the Bay Lodge Hotel wended our Way home on the Saturday. A nice tailwind ushered us along although a brief hailstorm assailed us as we climbed the Col de Trevereaux which Oz introduced us to, laughingly, as a substitute for Crockham Hill. 10 Old Ports attended. Pictures here

Phil and 'Liability spurned the Eastbourne jollities for some jolly racing. Phil taking in a couple of road races and 'Liabilty Tested in the East Surrey Hardriders 30 mile TT See Results

February 2008

Old Ports Calendar Trial

Try out our new Calendar where we present all our events and happenings in a more friendly format. here

Oz hits the Comeback trail

After his unfortunate accident in January where he broke his femur (again!!) Ozzie has returned to the bike after a few painful weeks of turbo work. With, amazingly, 50 miles over the weekend Ozzie has signalled he is well and truly up for it!!

Great to see you back Oz

Phil Wins! and Willie and 'Liability in first action of the season

17 February

The season has been officially launched!

Phil Watkins in action in the Surrey league 1/2/3/E race, at MOD Chertsy circuit, excelled with a WIN! in a sprint finish which saw a riders come a cropper and the first rider disqualified for switching leaving Phil as the just winner. See the crash here

Andy 'Liability Green and Stuart 'Willie' Hourigan tasted their debut road race action in the 3/4 cat race and finishing well up the bunch after doing most of the work.

 

Phil drives the break

photo courstesy of londoncyclesport.com

Surrey League early season dates

The Surrey League website is having problems and is not currently displaying the early season dates. So for your information you will find them here

Old Ports Reliability ride, The Gods smiled!!

The sun came out and the heavens smiled on the Old Ports Reliablity ride this year. Around 120 riders tackled our tough route "The other hell of the Ashdown" as some of the riders, who had ridden the Catford event, remarked.

Andy Green who took over the promoton of the event from Bashers led a slick team of Old Ports and put on an event to remember. Well signposted and marshalled the riders were treated to a truly challenging route through Kent and over the Ashdown Forest. On finisheing the hospitality team or 'Luckies babes' as they are fondly known put on a feast of Bacon sarnies, sandwiches, cakes with gallons of hot tea and coffee to refuel the hungry horde.

Well done one and all!!! a fantastic day out on a bike.

Pictures here

RACING 2008

The months have started to tick by, your training schedules are well advanced and thoughts are turning to racing. All you need to know about how to enter the events is here

....and don't forget the Old Ports Reliability Ride to hone your endurance, Details here . Open to all comers, entry the ride on the line, 10th February. Be there!

January 2008

'Willie' joins the website team

A warm welcome to Stuart Hourigan(Willie) winner of many of the club tropies has joined Fatherjac in the Website team. Together they will develop the site to be even better. Willie will be contributing a lot of content to the site over the coming months and in fact has already started with club historical matters with the publication of Eddie Cooks "The Early Days" here

New year starts with a Bang!

2008 has started with a few Old Ports in bit of distress. Sadly Ozzie our 'Bard of Coney Hall' came a cropper on ice, in Pigrims Way, along with several others on a club run. Oz came off the worse, however, breaking his femur again as he did 10 years ago. Our commiserations to Oz. Have another Guiness Oz, you know you want to!!

A week later 'Lucky' Little found his front wheel go into a tram line while descending Gravel Hill in Croydon. Apparently the bike and Lucky decided to go straight on, the result being that Lucky was dumped ignominiously in a crumpled heap nursing cuts and bruises. It didn't stop him taking over the reins from Dave Hickman as Secretary of the club though! Seig Heil! Herr Lucky.

Be careful out there folks!!

November 2007

Old Ports Dinner and awards 2007

Some Snaps

End of Year Report

By Club Secretary, Dave Hickman

As my old headmaster used to say (usually on the other kid's reports) 'most commendable'.....
2007 has been a good year for the Old Ports. This also marks the end of my 11th year as Club Sec as I hand over the baton next year to Simon 'Lucky' Little.

While still a relatively small club we still manage to 'punch above our weight' and always manage a good turnout for key events including support for our own promotions.

Our newer members who joined in the last year or so have made a big impact and are getting involved in all aspects of the club - social, sportives and racing.

Speaking personally, I enjoyed mixing the sportives with the racing and the highlights this year were doing La Marmotte where this year all four of us finished (Oz, Iain Hawthorn and Andy Green) and just last weekend the Exmoor Beast 100m in good company which was a brilliant event - luckily in perfect weather it has to be said! In between I enjoyed a bit of a comeback on the time trial front including my first 100 since 1996!

While Bashers had his season cut short due to a back operation he is promising to make a strong return in 2008. Meanwhile, Stuart Hourigan, in his first full season since joining last year had a great season winning most of the silverware for time trials, including the Best All Rounder and continued to improve all year , as did Andy Green and Iain Hawthorn. I have no doubt all will show further improvements in 2008.

It was also great to see Phil Watkins and Pete Cominetti return to the fold. Phil had a great start to the season with some excellent road race placings and a fast 25 TT as well but illness mid season held him back - I have no doubt both he and Pete who had a couple of late season road races will also show strongly in 2008. Gary Bryant has continued to be our main representative in cyclo cross and is a regular top 10 finisher in the London League, joined occasionally by Marc Lloyd and more recently Phil as well.

The club runs are always good value with maybe 12 on a good day - I don't think we will ever quite reach the '100 plus in 4 groups' a la Addiscombe but not sure that's us.

That said it is always good to welcome newcomers so hope this will continue in the years ahead.

The social side of the club has always been one of our hallmarks with our training /detraining weekends and Tour /sportive trips. Always good fun and my thanks to Lucky for all his organisation on this side of club life and also to 'Fr Jack' for keeping the club website up to such a good standard.

Anyway, my thanks to all of you for keeping the club going and look forward to seeing further success in 2008 and beyond.

All the best,

Dave Hickman

Presidents 2up - 11 November

Bashers and Oz steal it!!

This well loved event was reinstated into our programme this year. It is an eccentrically handicapped event where a 'fast' man is paired with a 'slow' man who then attempt a short time trial course, finishing at a pub where pies and ale are consumed. Tnen the handicapper caclulates the final result. The handicap system is a mysterious equation based on some runic scroll where the age of the eldest rider is used in conjunction with the scattered tea leaves signal from a freshly brewed cuppa. There was some dispute over the result this year due to the slow man being not very well, I mean slow. But, because he has had a hard life, all objections were withdrawn.

And so to the result. Well, as our headline has already betrayed, Bashers and OZ were this years winners. Their time was kinda fast for a handicapped duo and, as the photo shows, they were quietly 'jubilant'.

Bashers and OZ the Victors

PS Lucky has suggested an amendment to the handicapping rules as follows:

New handicap system for 2008 President's 2-up
Le Lanterne Rouge and his chums shall identify those people who are
even remotely useful on a bike and accordingly those nominated shall
remove one pedal of their choice, deflate their tyres to 10p.s.i.
and adjust their brakes until it is only possible to turn the rear
wheel while standing on the remaining pedal and pushing a gear that
is on a one-to-one ratio and then the time shall be taken when
the 'fast boy or girl'passes the finishing post replaces the missing
pedal, inflates their tyres back to 200 p.s.i. and changes into
evening dress complete with cumerband......now that's a fair
handicap system!

Lucks

 

Bashers eats all the pies!! in celebration