Mercia CC Lloyds Cycles Bulitin 15/09/21

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Good afternoon everybody,

The 2021 club time trial season is almost complete.

The final event is the hillclimb on Sunday October 3rd at 11am.

The numbers of riders has been low this year but there are various reasons for this and significantly this is not just our events. All time trials are much less supported than in previous years including the national championships. I have noticed that several Midlands club have been advertising their club events on social media and I had not seen this in previous seasons.

We have been affected by several road works which hopefully will not happen next year. It would be nice to have an an alternative course but I cannot think of one that would be acceptable following the risk assessment and traffic counts that are required to obtain course approval. The other problem is that we do need to give 28 days notice to the police of a time trial and cannot therefore switch courses at short notice.

I will schedule an AGM for December but in the meantime I will be dealing with the affiliation to the Cycling Time Trials and British Cycling for 2022 and submit a similar programme of evening club events to the Midlands DC date fixing for 2022.

Club rides from the Town Hall have restarted on Sundays and several groups have regular rides during the week. Personally I am still very wary of the Covid situation and will continue riding alone and in a very small group only with very limited café stops . It seems that I will be offered a third top up vaccine shortly and I will continue to monitor the situation. I have a cataract procedure scheduled for early October which may put me out of action through October. However I am looking forward to a full season of racing next year hopefully assisted by a CT handbook showing events which was not available this year.

I am not sure if we can run the indoor turbo sessions but I am looking into this and will report any progress.

I have heard some helpful suggestions about what the club could do and also heard some concerns about low club event numbers but what is really needed is an offer to do something, hopefully to improve the situation.

Although club event rider numbers are down there has been no shortage of volunteer marshals and time keepers this year and I must give a big thank you and well done to everyone who has helped. Please maintain your enthusiasm for next year !!

The club does not have a social secretary and no Winter club evening programme but the Henhurst Club is open and now serving Bass !!, although with delivery problems it does rather depend on what they can get. A pint on Tuesday evenings might be a good time to meet and arrange ride meet times.

Look forward to seeing you at the Hillclimb

Regards

Tony