Archives: fun.

There appeared to be a few things against tonight’s gathering, mainly it being properly Autumn and being wet and dark. Thankfully, Shane Townsend came up with a brilliant idea that got round both of these issues. Shane runs the bike shop at Hassop Station and suggested to his boss Duncan that we could have a ride on the hire bikes up and down the Monsal Trail. What a brilliant idea! All the bikes are the same so there is no advantage to having a better bike, they all have dynamos and lights so night riding is no issue and they had enough for all of us. Perfect.

We ran it as a time trial with 30 seconds gaps. Shane rode off up the trail on an electric bike to the end of the first tunnel and stamped everyones arms as they went past. It was about a 4 mile loop with a slightly rolling course and a fast turnaround at the far end. Duncan and Rob were kind enough to take care of timing, counting everyone off at the start and timing their sweaty broken bodies over the line at the end. For a flat and short course, everyone was completely broken. Balls out for quarter of an hour tends to have that effect.

With a pint at the end to quench our thirsts while we gave out prizes it really was a near perfect night. Sun and warmth were the only things missing.

So many thanks again to Hassop Station; Duncan, Rod and especially Shane. We’ll be back to food at the amazing Cafe too!

Great photos all courtesy of Dom Worrall, great work again lad, cheers!

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We’ve all been enjoying getting together so much that it’s now become a regular part of our social calendar. Last night was no exception. Despite the weather we all met up and went for a bit of a ride, got rained on and even a bit lost. The route for the night seems to have been a bit confusing and I probably should have explained it a bit better or left a better trail of bread crumbs. However, I think the weather and the light were somewhat against us making it a bit difficult to stay together. We did a nice little loop of the parks with some up and down hills included but we did suffer a few technical difficulties. I can only apologise to those that suffered the issues and thank you for your patience. I think the concept was sound but the execution needs a bit of work. Every 20 minutes at the moment, something starts bleeping, it’s a bit like captain hook and ticking clocks.

So thank you to everyone for coming out and braving the weather. Particular thanks to Jody, Dunc, Bilsey and Chay for waving and cheering at us. Many thanks to Dom Worrall for taking the time to take these great photos of all the confused faces. Also special thanks to Rich Baybutt who’s hours of toil made last night possible.

Same again next week??

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Nick

Position	Name	Time
1	Cheggars	05:21
2	Dave Griffiths	05:36
3	Timmy	05:45
4	Ruari Hallam	05:48
5	John Alexander	06:02
6	John Jones	06:08
7	Martin Baker	06:41
8	Paddy	06:56
9	Rich Baybutt	07:09
10	John Horscroft	07:13
11	Dean Dobson	07:15
12	Emma Peasland	07:36
13	Luke Meridith	07:36
14	Lee Smith	07:45
15	Danger Green	08:11
16	Dave Camus	08:25
17	Will Swinden	08:32
18	Shane	10:21
Tech	Jolley
Tech	Paul Turner
Tech	Steve Dribbs
Tech	James Irwin
Tech	Paul Idden
Tech	Sim Hartley
Tech	Hanna Jonnson
Tech	Joe Bowman
Tech	Alec Hartley

We all enjoyed getting together so much last week that we thought we’d do it again on Wednesday. This time we decided to ride around the beautiful peak district for a change so all met up at a particular bridge just before we set off on our ride together. There was no beer consumption this week, just a punishing climb to start us off nicely; I think I would have preferred the pint. This steep hill climb kind of defeated the point of the ride together as the faster riders dug deep and pulled away from the rest, stringing us all out. Once at the top there was a very scenic ride looking back down the valley and, with it being such a warm night, it was really nice to be out. The descent down the other side was fast and loose with a couple of sharp corners to catch out the unaware. Thankfully we all got down safely and pedalled as fast as we could to get back to where we started from. Because it was such a nice night and it was still just about light, we all decided we needed a bit more exercise. So we carefully popped our bikes down and trotted off on a bit of a jog down the river bank. Being the competitive types we are some took it a bit too seriously and started to run, not waiting for anyone else. There’s always a few isn’t there. Anyway, by the time we got back to the bridge we started from and seeing as it was really warm, we all just jumped in to the river to cool off. This was much to the delight of our mates who were watching, Henry, Emma, Helen and John.  A lovely end to a great evening.

One of the lads, Shane, works over at Hassop station. They were kind enough to send a few treats over for a few of the lads who’d sweated the most on the night. Their gifts were very gratefully received and are much appreciated.

Richard Baybutt was kind enough to bring his camera with him on his ride over from Sheffield so all the amazing photos in this post are courtesy of him.

This was our mate Will Ockelton’s last (and second) gathering as he’s leaving Freecaster and going to the Dark side to work for the UCI. Best of luck Lad!

We’re enjoying all these Autumn get togethers so much we think we might do another one. But that will be another story.

Nick

Finish Position	#	Name	Bike Rank	Bike Time	Run Rank	Run time	Post Run	Swim Rank	Swim Time	Finish	Diff
1	24	Simon Choppin	1	0:24:22	1	06:09	0:30:31	26	01:19	0:31:50
2	5	Martin Baker	1	0:24:22	2	07:18	0:32:17	25	00:37	0:32:54	01:04
3	14	Dave James	3	0:24:59	11	08:33	0:32:55	18	00:25	0:33:20	01:30
4	8	Sim Hartley	4	0:25:01	9	08:19	0:33:20	20	00:28	0:33:48	01:58
5	3	Andy Waterman	5	0:25:22	12	08:33	0:33:55	17	00:23	0:34:18	02:28
6	7	Farmer Jack	6	0:26:10	5	07:58	0:34:08	16	00:21	0:34:29	02:39
7	6	Will Ockelton	7	0:26:24	3	07:41	0:34:05	23	00:31	0:34:36	02:46
8	25	Tim Pearson	9	0:26:26	4	07:44	0:34:10	21	00:28	0:34:38	02:48
9	1	Nick Hamilton	10	0:26:30	6	08:00	0:34:30	7	00:15	0:34:45	02:55
10	15	John Alexander	12	0:26:44	7	08:11	0:34:55	9	00:17	0:35:12	03:22
11	29	Ruari Hallam	10	0:26:30	16	08:48	0:35:18	11	00:19	0:35:37	03:47
12	17	Rob Jolley	13	0:27:21	8	08:19	0:35:40	22	00:30	0:36:10	04:20
13	10	Joe Bowman	7	0:26:24	19	09:14	0:35:38	24	00:37	0:36:15	04:25
14	28	Lee Hawden	15	0:27:58	18	08:50	0:36:48	3	00:07	0:36:55	05:05
15	20	Ol Cooper	16	0:28:20	10	08:25	0:36:45	15	00:21	0:37:06	05:16
16	9	Matt Beighton	14	0:27:24	24	10:04	0:37:28	8	00:16	0:37:44	05:54
17	21	Will Swinden	17	0:29:40	20	09:16	0:38:56	2	00:06	0:39:02	07:12
18	22	Matt Hockenhull	18	0:30:10	13	08:34	0:38:44	19	00:27	0:39:11	07:21
19	16	James Fuller	20	0:30:14	20	09:16	0:39:30	5	00:12	0:39:42	07:52
20	19	Luke Meridith	22	0:30:40	17	08:50	0:39:30	13	00:20	0:39:50	08:00
21	27	Alex Owen	23	0:32:12	14	08:36	0:40:48	1	00:04	0:40:52	09:02
22	12	Paul Turner	18	0:30:10	15	08:40	0:38:50	28	02:32	0:40:82	09:32
23	18	James Irwin	24	0:32:34	23	09:53	0:42:27	14	00:21	0:42:48	10:58
24	11	Duncan Philpott	21	0:30:20	26	12:53	0:43:13	6	00:13	0:43:26	11:36
25	4	Jody Vallance	25	0:33:58	22	09:21	0:43:19	12	00:20	0:43:39	11:49
26	13	Lee Smith					0:43:40	4	00:10	0:43:50	12:00
27	2	Shane Townsend	26	0:34:10	25	10:30	0:44:40	10	00:18	0:44:58	13:08
28	26	Chris Pearson					0:45:45	27	02:23	0:48:08	16:18
29	23	Dan Lomas								DNF

Ruari and I tested the water the night before to make sure the jump was ok, cheers to John for the video

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Last night a few of our mates got together for a bit of a ride and, as it was the first time we’d got together for a while, naturally we had a couple of pints along the way. We met up at the Norfolk arms first for a quick Ale with which we toasted the start of the Autumn season. Our good friend Rich Baybutt came up with his camera and took these lovely photos to record this momentous gathering. His Dad also came along and seemed to really enjoy the fun. Being thirsty we all drank it down pretty quick before heading off to our bikes for a bit a gentle ride. I say gentle, but being the competitive types we are it inevitably got a bit out of hand. Even before we’d sat on our saddles we were trying to elbow each other out of the way. Once we’d got on our bikes we peddled off down the valley on our pre-agreed route smiling and joking with each other and anyone we passed. Unfortunately it wasn’t really a very nice evening and it rained a bit and was bloody cold. As we made our way futher down the valley, we bumped in to a few of our other mates, Bilsey, Helen Taylor and Ginge’ who we were very grateful to see. Our final destination for this little ride was the Lescar, my local. Our really good friend, Simon Choppin had been kind enough to get the drinks in and there was a pint waiting for each of us. He and Tom Allen had done a wonderful job of laying them all out and, as we’d all ridden so hard, we were all really really thirsty so supped back our pints amazingly quickly. So fast that some of us were actually a bit sick afterwards. For a bit of fun, cos you know we like stupid little contests, we figured out who’d actually managed to finish their drinks first. Stupid but fun.

Anyway, we all had a lovely evening out and it was great to get together, because we just don’d do it often enough. But hopefully we’ll be doing it a bit more often. Thanks to everyone for making the effort to get together and all our other mates who we didn’t have time to stop and chat to.

All photos courtesy of Richard Baybutt.

Nick

1	Ruari Hallam
2	Nick Hamilton
3	Tim Pearson
4	Will Ockleton
5	Steve Peat
6	Martin Baker
7	Farmer Jack
8	Joe Bowman
9	Luke Meridith
10	Oliver Cooper
11	John Alexander
12	Dave Camus
13	Simon Hartley
14	Dave Griffith
15	Rich Norgate
16	Chris Pearson
17	Robert Jolley
18	Cheggers
19	Ryan Ballantyne
20	James Fuller
21	Joe Howard
22	Paul Wain
23	Matt Beighton
24	Paul Turner
25	James Irwin
26	Lee Hawden
27	Oliver Green
28	Chris Palmer
29	Shane Townsend
30	Lee Smith
31	Danny Whitehead
32	Dean Dobson
33	Simon Bowns
34	Alex Owen
35	Joe Mallinson
36	John Horscroft
37	Duncan Philpott
38	Will Swinden
DNF	Rob Campbell
DNF	Chris Davey