The last of the summer wine.

Another good turn out

I can’t quite believe that we’ve just completed the last MVSC ride for 2024. It seems such a short time ago that we all met for the first one, also at Glooston village hall with another fantastic curry afterwards on April 10th! The last event saw 18 riders across three groups led by May Naylor, Nick Fenwick and Laura Hopewell (Laura’s first leading duty which was very much appreciated).

In the hour before the ride most of us had experienced quite a bit of rain but by 6:30 the skies cleared and it was a dry grand depart. A few braved it with shorts but it was noticeably colder than recent weeks and all the rides were a bit shorter to ensure we got back before it was totally dark. George (our rider from Slovakia) told me that Wednesday rides have meant lot to him and every week he’ll go on a Pre-ride out to the venue which means by the time he gets home he’s done 100 KM!

A few more arrived at the hall post rid  to enjoy one of Carolines’ fantastic curries, salad and garlic and naan bread.

We’ve had lots of new faces join us this year and that’s so nice to see (and essential to the ongoing success of this very special group of people).

Looking at what I wrote this time last year in the closing report I see that I mentioned that our great friend and cycling star Bill Barrie had been for a major operation. As we all now know Bill very sadly lost his fight but has left us with very many happy memories of the great man that he was.

Bill absolutely loved riding in the French Pyrenees and having been there with him on a trip a few years ago he certainly knew how to find some climbs that were off the beaten track (the steepest from memory was 24%). Some of us were in the Pyrenees again last week and had a great time despite the rain and ‘bagged’ a few more iconic mountains on Strava. Some great photo opportunities which Pete is adding to the website gallery – I encourage you all to send in photos to Pete when you’ve been on your cycling travels and have a MVSC jersey on.

Looking forward to next year – Pete and myself are working on a new idea about the way the club communicates rather than email. We’re looking at creating a MVSC Whats App Community (similar to the one that the RATAE road club use very successfully) so watch this space.

The brotherhood of cycling

Our Chef extraordinaire Caroline

That just leaves it for me to say thanks to everyone, the riders, the ride leaders, the pubs and their staff, to Caroline, Lisa, Tair, Phil and Paul at Glooston village hall. I again want to thank Pete Condon for all of his work with the website and the day to day running of the Mike Vybiral Summer Cycling community. Pete was a very close friend of Mike and has carried on Mike’s legacy. You should be really proud of what you’ve achieved Pete and what you continue to do. The ‘club’ is ‘all inclusive’ and even saw the introduction of the E-Bike group kindly lead by James Peake.

I’ve attached some photo’s as usual from the last ride at Glooston.

And that’s it -enjoy any autumn sunshine where you can, be safe, be lucky and have a wonderful Christmas. It won’t be long before we’ll all be meeting again or, as they say in France ‘au revoir’.

Nick Timms.

Great bunch of people

Great bunch of people

Johnny and Charlotta

Kevin, Chris & Peter. “The three wise men”