In light of a few recent misunderstandings we’ve made sure that the club rules and constitution are both clearly displayed on our website. So, if you haven’t already, please have a little read… it’s mostly common sense but as with any sports club both documents are important and must be adhered to. Thanks
https://www.blackcanoncollective.co.uk/about/rules-and-constitution/
Communicating with our members is really important and enabling our members to communicate with each other is very important too. Over the next few weeks there’ll be a few changes made to how we achieve each.
Along with our existing projects, we’re working on a new club forum that’ll be part of this site, a frequent newsletter that’ll be produced in-house, and a Facebook fan page that will update automatically when the site is updated. Once in place these three changes will make it far easier for us all to keep up to date with what’s going on, and stay in touch with one and other.
We’re thrilled to confirm that the BCC is training up 11 of its members as Ride Leaders.
After 40 hrs of training, held over 4 1/2 days, the candidates will be CTC qualified MTB Trail Leaders carrying the ITC Outdoor Activity First Aid certificate also.
Being able to provide professional quality guided rides will help stimulate the local MTB community, and will also enable new riders to come along and try the sport out in a safe and enjoyable way.
The training will be completed by the 28th Feb, and the newly qualified Ride Leaders will start immediately in march.
It’s taken some time to get to this point, but we’re really excited, and of course very grateful to Marion Liquorice (Elizabethan Evening) and Marjory Hatvany (awesome fancy dress evening!) for their charitable donations and fund raising efforts that have made this possible.
Spring isn’t far away
The buds will be sprouting and trees will begin to leaf
The nettles and brambles will be just as excited though, and soon start closing in on our local trails
Why not take some time to do a bit of seasonal maintenance so that the trails are running sweet for the summer?
Ian and I did this morning, clearing a single track route through Vallis all the way to Tedbury
(It was a glorious morning as you can see)
The job was made much easier thanks to the work that Simon had already done a few weeks back
Afterwork rides to the Talbott Inn will be far less prickly now
Fancy racing riding around the allotment, and surrounding area, on a mini BCC enduro pre Set 2 Rise ?
Ian Crook came up with the idea as a kind of XC enduro TickerTape equivalent; basically it’s a low-fi, members only, mini enduro race event with apple strudel Mule Bars to give away. At this stage that’s all we’ve got, but it sounds good to me…
Check out the suggestion box thread on the forum here: http://www.southerndownhill.com/forum/index.php/topic,164215.120.html to get involved, or make your own suggestions.
The guys at Cycle World in Salisbury wrote to us recently to offer our members 10% discount on parts and labour and 5% discount on new bikes! These very generous discounts are available to current members with a valid BCC membership card. Please click here for a link to the Cycle World website.
Check out their twitter feed too for great offers (like 20% off of everything before the end of the day tomorrow!) and shop updates: http://twitter.com/Cycle_World
With three
Last night a group of 8 of us huddled around a table at the Horse and Groom to thrash out some ideas of how we can all get to Alpe d’Huez to race “The Mega”.
For those of you who didn’t manage to get there, or are still waiting to be convinced that it’s a good idea, this is a summary of our estimated costs and arrangements thanks largely to the past experience of 4 time Mega veteran, Simon ‘Big Burd’ Truelove:
£75-100 per person
We’re planning to take a number of cars and vans over the channel and drive the 787 miles from Somerset to Alpe d’Huez. This will cost approximately £300-400 per car (including fuel, tolls and ferry/tunnel),vans may cost a bit more, but the total travel costs will to be shared between everyone. Flying was considered but this is typically far more expensive (~£200 per person) and would also include the faff of organising transfers, hire cars and a sedative laced burger to get Ben Irons onto a plane.
We have 2 vans lined up for sure (taking up to 5 people and ~10/12 bikes), but we’ll obviously need some cars too. Driving will be shared so that no one person is left having to do a non stop death-grip challenge the whole way.
£15-20 per night
Based upon 4 sharing a small self catering apartment. Some may prefer to stay in slightly more swanky surroundings, and this will certainly be possible, but the std accommodation need not be very expensive. Once we’ve got a firm idea of numbers, and lengths of stay, we’ll be able to book this up (April ish).
During “Mega week” there are actually 3 events:
The program for the week is as follows:
Monday July 5
Avalanche Enduro Vaujany (Seeding run)
Tuesday July 6
Avalanche Enduro Vaujany (Race)
Avalanche Cup Oz en Oisans (Practice)
Wednesday July 7
Avalanche Cup Oz en Oisans (Race)
Thursday July 8
‘Bike Speed’ (we don’t know what that is either, but it sounds very french!)
Megavalanche (Free practice)
Friday July 9
Megavalanche (Qualifying races)
Saturday July 10
Megavalanche (Mega Ladies – Mega Challengers – Mega Amateurs – Mega Affinity)
Sunday July 11
Megavalanche (Mega Affinity)
Some people are keen to take part in the full weeks program of events while others are more focused on the Mega but are keen to go and have a taste of the Les Gets and Morzine trails too. So, we may go out in two groups, some going from Saturday 3rd July to Monday 12th July and others going from Wednesday 7th July to Wednesday 14th July (including travel).
£64-119
This is obviously dependant on how many of the events you choose to enter (prices converted from Euro’s and are subject to currency fluctuation).
We’ll add to this as and when we get any more information, but the Mega discussion will be on the club forum here: http://www.southerndownhill.com/forum/index.php/topic,201995.0.html so do check it out if you want to get involved.
This morning Geraint, Mark, Chris, Rob and I went on a muddy slog around Stourhead.
Geraint led the way with Rob keen to keep up the pace, Mark, Chris and I were more than happy pootling along behind, pretending to be nonchalant, while actually struggling like hell.
The weather was glorious and the route very scenic. It’s always great to be shown somewhere new.
After some 2:1 ratio mud (for every 2 wheel rotations, you only move 1 forwards) and puddle splashing antics (in your FACE mark!) we attempted to ride back to the cars with Geraint only able to use his drive side crank as the other one had fallen off! In sympathy I rode the last decent one footed too, but gave up pretty quick on the final climb. Embarrassingly though, Geraint was quicker on the final stretch with just one leg than I was with two.
To join us on the next ride, or to organise your own, check out the forum (where Mark organised this one): http://www.southerndownhill.com/forum/index.php/topic,205047.45.html
This year we’re planing to go over to France and do the Megavalanche, there’s already 14 of us who’ve signed up (that’s a lie, we haven’t actually entered yet, but will be doing so really soon) and hopefully some others who’ll join in along the way.
Those who’ve done it before will know it as being epic; a race that puts you through almost every emotion and spits you out felling like you’ve been chased by (french) vikings down a mountain (starting somewhere nr the sun) over the course of some sort of weird 1hr period where the world has gone through all 4 seasons. Oddly, when you do get to the bottom you want to hug/high 5 everyone in sight (even those french people) because you’ve shared the same traumatising ordeal. That said, it’s amazing and will leave you smiling and talking about it for ages afterwards.
We’ll be traveling and staying together so its bound to be a good crack , if you fancy getting involved check out the forum thread here: http://www.southerndownhill.com/forum/index.php/topic,201995.45.html
For any further information see the official website: http://www.avalanchecup.com/mega-avalanche.html
Here’s a pic from the 2008 (or is it 2007?) race, you can see Neil in the red circle (riding his old red V10 with white Boxxers), you’ll notice that just like at this years SPAM Winter Challenge, he’s about to take a wrong right turn.
