Blog
9
May
2024
Big Rides.
Well we have finally managed to ride in short sleeve jersey's and bib shorts. Say it quietly, but could Summer be on its way? It all feels promising so far. We have now restarted our Wednesday evening Pretzel rides in Richmond Park. Our virtual Zwift rides have now moved to Tuesday nights and we will continue to host these rides for anyone that can't make it to the park on a Wednesday evening. However, with the price increase revealed by Zwift this week, it will be interesting to see how many members continue to use this indoor virtual platform. Last month we rode a new route to Mytchett and visited a new café on the River Wey and we will definitely be trying this route again in the Summer.
Last weekend a few of us cycled in the London-Wales-London 400Km Audax and proudly flew the HWCC colours once again. Many congratulations to Stephen, for whom this was his longest ever ride. Well done Stephen!
So what is coming up in the next few weeks?
We have another new destination to visit this weekend as we again head west to California, alas not in the U.S.A. but California Country Park near Wokingham. This is a Green Intermediate ride and at 63 miles, will be our longest remaining ride before RideLondon in 2 weeks time. Before we head into the closed roads of Essex though, we will be heading down to the historic Goodwood Motor Racing Circuit to ride on the track as part of their cycling open day. In early June we have a shorter ride to Sutton Green and a visit to another favourite Café at Elm Farm, before once again heading to the south coast for our first visit of the year to Brighton. This is followed with the challenge of Chase the Sun looming large at the end of June and our 4 day ride to Paris just a few weeks later at the start of July. For any of you taking part in these events, it really is time to ramp up our training miles in preparation for these big rides.
Despite all these events taking place we will continue to vary the lengths of our club rides so that shorter rides will be available, in addition to the Social Laps of Richmond Park and our Beginner Sessions on alternate Saturdays.
If any of these events interest you or you would like more information about our upcoming rides, visit our Meetup and request to join us.
We look forward to meeting you soon. In the meantime you can use some of the links at the top of the page to view our social media channels.
17
Apr
2024
Lighter Days.
Let's be honest, the weather in March was wet, very wet, but we persevered and managed to ride every Sunday, even in the rain. We were able to visit some new café's such as The Old Clunker in Dorking and The Yangaz Bistro in Cranleigh, as well as some old favourites like Tanhouse Farm.
A few of us even managed to ride our first 200Km Audax as a club and proudly flew the HWCC colours when we cycled the Kingston Wheeler's Gently Bentley Audax. Many congratulations to Tim, for whom this was his longest ever ride. Well done Tim!
We also managed to hold a few meetings to discuss our London to Paris ride in July and we have most of the details agreed now. We just need to cycle more often to get ourselves ready for this epic adventure. Now that the clocks have finally shifted and we can enjoy more riding hours of daylight, it shouldn't be too hard to ride longer and further. Every year it seems the five months of darker nights takes a lot longer to pass and we can finally return to lighter evenings, but here we are at last.
We have some epic rides planned before we embark to Paris though, so our training really needs to start now. As with anything we do, the more we practise, the better we perform. We have some long distance rides coming up and we need to separate these by some shorter, recovery rides at a more relaxed pace to give our members a good variety of ride distances.
As mentioned last month we have now moved our virtual Zwift rides to Tuesday evenings. The lighter nights mean we have resumed our Wednesday night pretzel rides around Richmond Park, with the plan to host these events every week, weather permitting. Keep an eye on our Meetup for all our events and request to join us to come along on these rides.
We look forward to meeting you soon. In the meantime you can use some of the links at the top of the page to view our social media channels.
01
Mar
2024
Springing into action.
The first day of March and Spring is here, hopefully. Days have been getting noticeably longer and the dark evenings will recede even more over the coming few weeks as we look forward to the changing of the clocks on 31st March, which also happens to be Easter Sunday.
As we are now into March, we are also into a new subscription year for HWCC, which runs from 1st March until the end of February. Now the bad news is that all members, Full, Beginner & Overseas, need to renew their membership and please pay their subscriptions. The good news is that we are holding the membership fees at the same level as last year, £30 Full Membership, £10 Beginner Membership & £10 Overseas Membership for the period up until the end of February 2025. Once again, Full Membership works out to less than the price of a coffee per month!
Our club rides during the colder seasons have been well supported and it is amazing to see so many members now wearing club kit. We have been limiting the distances of our club rides in the last few months, no-one wants to be out in the cold for hours on end. As the days get longer we will look at re-introducing longer rides and the greater distances will be useful as training for some of our upcoming events and Audax rides. As previously mentioned, we will rotate these with shorter distance rides, so that there will be something for everyone each month. We will continue to host New Member Induction Rides in Richmond Park for those wishing to join as Full Members and on alternate Saturday's we will host our Beginners Sessions. We have been fortunate to welcome some new members to the club over the Winter months, but we hope to meet many more of you as the weather improves and the temperatures increase.
Over the course of the Winter, our Wednesday evening Zwift rides have proved popular with our club members that use the online training platform and we recently had our first Guest Rider join us for a Zwift session. We were fortunate to be joined by Dan Richards, otherwise known as The One Armed Wonder on Instagram. We will be looking to invite more guest riders to join us, so keep an eye on our Meetup events. We intend to continue these virtual rides but will probably move the events to Tuesday or Thursday evenings once the clocks change and lighter nights mean we can resume our Wednesday night pretzel rides around Richmond Park.
Interested in joining us? Visit our Meetup we look forward to meeting you soon. In the meantime you can use some of the links at the top of the page to view our social media channels.
06
Jan
2024
Happy New Year!
Traditionally cycling in November and December tends to go a bit quiet. Darker nights and colder days, usually means the number of members out riding regularly is reduced from those in the Summer. At HWCC we have been fortunate to maintain attendance levels on our rides for the past couple of months, and our intention is to continue cycling outdoors as much as we can during the remaining Winter months, weather permitting.
In November the weather was quite kind to us, we were able to host all of our planned club rides with no disruption to our schedule. We visited some of our favourite places such as Basil & Blue in Chobham and Pinnock's in Ripley. We also discovered some new places such as Polesden Lacey National Trust Café and H'Artisan in Wargrave, places we are sure to visit again.
December saw us complete only two club rides, both occasions visiting Windsor. Bad weather and a few of us catching Covid meant that some of our meetups were abandoned or postponed. One such event was our End of Year Party, which we have now rechristened as a Start of Year Party, to be held later in January. One event that did go ahead in December, and thankfully on one of the mildest December weekends ever, was a long distance ride by a very determined cyclist, Andrew Jones. Andrew recently joined us from another club that some of us rode with previously, so we are well aware of his long distance cycling credentials. Raising money for the Shooting Star Children's Hospice in order to provide care and help for terminally ill children and their families, Andrew rode 500Km around Richmond Park. This amazing effort equated to 47 laps of the park, from Friday night on the 15th December to the early morning on Sunday 17th December, while dressed as an elf and towing Santa in his trailer, ELF1. Our thanks go to our members who cycled with Andrew for at least part of his ride, when we were able to do so and also for the messages of encouragement and support he received. Andrew's Just Giving page is still open, so please support his efforts by making a donation, if you are able to.
The HWCC diary is already looking pretty busy for 2024, more club rides and adventures to be had. A few of us have entered some long distance Audax rides and well known events such as Ride London-Essex and Chase the Sun. We must not forget our own London to Paris, four day ride planned for July. We also need to squeeze in our club ride around the Isle of Wight, which we all agree should become a HWCC traditional summer ride. Alongside these events we will continue to schedule our Sunday club rides for members who aren't completely crazy!
We have now populated our Meetup page with events up to the end of April, so if you wish to join us for any of these rides, visit our page and request to join. We look forward to welcoming many more of you to Hampton Wick Cycling Club, so sign up for a Full Members Induction Ride, or a Beginners Session, and we look forward to meeting you soon.
24
Oct
2023
HWCC 1st Anniversary
Hampton Wick Cycling Club was launched a year ago today. The idea was to create a cycling club that encouraged people to take up cycling as a sport, to provide an environment for those new to cycling, to come along and gain confidence about riding in a group and to also build a community of people who just love spending time on their bikes. No ego's, no politics, just get on your bike and come ride with us!
The only goal we had in mind on the 24th October 2022, was to try and get ten full members by the end of year one and encourage as many beginner members as possible by running our Beginners Sessions.
We currently have three beginner members and nineteen full members. Included in this, is a beginner member who upgraded to a full membership during the summer and her progress has been great to witness.
Massive thank you to everyone involved in HWCC, you have made the club a welcoming place for new members, both experienced and inexperienced cyclists alike. The sharing of information and encouragement is brilliant to see, as is the celebration of personal milestones and the congratulations shared between everyone. This really is your club and it has been an exciting year.
We look forward to building our calendar of events for 2024, which is already looking busy and we look forward to welcoming many more of you join us at Hampton Wick Cycling Club.
You can visit our Meetup page and request to join to come along for an induction ride or to join our Beginners Group. We look forward to meeting you soon.
Happy 1st Anniversay HWCC!
05
Aug
2023
What happened to Summer?
It's probably fair to say that July was a bit of a wash out. While we havn't had to cancel any Sunday club rides, unfortunately some of our Saturday events and mid-week Pretzel laps of Richmond Park have fallen victim to the weather. Last weekend's ride to Henley-on-Thames was completed in pouring rain for the last thirty or so miles. We arrived back at The Swan in Hampton Wick, drenched, but still smiling.
Our recent rides have seen us visit The Surrey Hills, Guldford and as stated above, Henley-on-Thames, just inside the Oxfordshire border. Later in August we will be cycling to Oxford on what will be our longest club ride. You can see the full list of our future rides on the Events Calendar page. As always, we welcome more people to come along and join us on our forthcoming rides.
We have welcomed another three new members to HWCC in the last month and our club continues to grow. Once again, many thanks for the warm welcome everyone has given to these new joiners.
We are delighted to announce that we have partnered with Gear Club as our new supplier for our custom club kit. Salman and his team are a pleasure to work with and respond to enquiries quickly and efficiently. Members have already received items, inside the quoted 4 week delivery lead time. We are confident that Gear Club can provide our members with a level of service they deserve.
You can visit our Meetup page and request to join to come along for an induction ride or to join our Beginners Group. We look forward to meeting you soon.
08
July
2023
New members and new rides.
During recent weeks we have welcomed another three new members who have joined Hampton Wick Cycling Club. We have also seen our first membership upgrade, with our Beginner Member, Eunice, upgrading to a Full Membership. The club is growing and we thank the existing members for making the newcomers welcome and feel at ease.
Last week saw the annual Dunwich Dynamo night ride from London the the Suffolk coast. Well done to Sebastian and Ify for completing this ride.
Our midweek pretzel rides in Richmond Park are proving to be popular and we will continue these for the rest of the summer and for as long as the weather permits.
We have visited familar destinations on our recent Sunday rides, such as Box Hill and Effingham, where we also had our biggest turn out for a Club Ride. We have also visited new destinations such as the Isle of Wight. A spectacular route designed by Stephen which took mostly the coastal roads of the island, this enabled us to see some picturesque views and some hilly roads. With a fair bit of climbing involved, the island is certainly not flat! We are now looking to make this an annual ride for the club. It certainly feels special having to cross the Solent by ferry and we cannot wait to return.
Upcoming rides will see us visit Guildford and Henley-on-Thames. As always, we welcome more people to come along and join us on our forthcoming rides.
You can visit our Meetup page and request to join to come along for an induction ride or to join our Beginners Group. We look forward to meeting you soon.
02
June
2023
Short sleeves and some epic rides.
It feels so good to cycle in short sleeve jerseys and bib shorts. Tell me I'm wrong. A real change in the weather during May as we moved from cold and wet days to chilly starts, but with temperatures climbing into the high teens.
To accompany these changing conditions we have been hitting the roads and witnessed some epic cycling achievements. Mixed into the calendar along with some of our shorter, social and steady rides, we ventured a bit further afield and held our first HWCC Brighton event. Some notable and kudos worthy achievements from the day including Tim & Alex cycling up Ditchling Beacon for the first time, Stephen completing his first Brighton return and Tim for completing his longest ever ride and surpassing the 100 mile mark in the process. Well done to all of you. It was great to have some company on the retun journey rather than riding solo.
Stephen has very kindly launched some midweek rides in Richmond Park for club members on Wednesday evenings and Eunice has now completed her first ever pretzel of Richmond Park. Well done to you Eunice.
Sunday 28th May saw the Ride London events return and a chance for cyclists to ride around the capital and into Essex on closed roads. Our friend Alex completed the Ride London-Essex, his first ever attempt at 100 miles and we offer him our congratulations on his epic achievement.
As you can see from some of these images, more members have now received their club jersey's. This starts to give us an identity when out cycling and we hope it will be recognisable for good reasons. If you see us out on the roads, don't be shy, give us a wave or come and speak to us if you are interested in knowing more about the club. We welcome more people to come along and join us on more of our adventures that are planned for the coming months.
You can visit our Meetup page and request to join to come along for an induction ride or to join our Beginners Group. We look forward to meeting you soon.
02
May
2023
Join us for these coming events.
We appear to be experiencing warmer temperatures and rare sightings of a large yellow circular thing in the sky, could it be that summer is finally on its way?
We have in place a ride to Brighton for later in May, keep a look out for rides to Oxford and Cambridge to be posted soon on our Meetup page. Later in the summer we are looking at visiting the Isle of Wight and intend for another trip to Brighton to be scheduled, possibly late September. There are also rumours of a cycling trip to France in 2024, so watch this space. I have watched in awe some Strava posts over the weekend, from friends who took part in the Mallorca 312 - This is a closed road sportive held once a year on the island and it is definitely a 'bucket list' ride that we may have to investigate further.
On Sunday 4th June, Kingston Cycling Campaign have organised a community fun bike ride around a 7 mile loop in Kingston. We will have a few members along on this event, we are a friendly bunch and would welcome you to come and chat to us to find out more about the club. You can sign up for this free event at tiny.cc/KingstonFunRide.
If there are any rides, or events you wish us to look at, then please do not hesitate to let us know.
31
Mar
2023
How much more winter?
So we finally moved into British Summer Time last weekend, adjusting our clocks forward by 1 hour. It is possibly self explanatory as to why we now refer to this time change as Daylight Saving Time instead of British Summer Time, it still doesn't feel very 'summery' or even springlike, does it?
March has been a mixed bag of all weather types and although we have recently experienced a few warmer days, on the whole March weather has generally been awful. It feels like we haven't been out side cycling for such a long time. We have been able to welcome a few new members in the past few weeks, so we look forward to those recently joined members coming along on club rides soon.
We are making plans for rides and events for the months ahead. We are looking at visits to historic towns, fish & chips at the seaside, a multi-day tour and possibly even a ferry ride. We may even have a special guest rider join us on one these rides.
We are a friendly bunch and we welcome new members to come along and find out more about the club, so please visit our Meetup page and request to join our group.
28
Feb
2023
Countdown.
A little over three weeks until the clocks go forward and the start of British Summertime. Not sure about you, but I am definitely ready for longer, warmer days. We have been luckier with the weather during February than we were in January, so we shouldn't complain too much, however early indications for March do not look great with very cold spells and even more snow fall predicted. We will keep posting events on Meetup and we will try to give as much warning as possible if we do need to cancel any rides. I will be adding to the schedule on Meetup in the next few days.
Our club is growing and we now have nine full members and one beginner member, so thank you to all who have joined us so far. I fully expect the membership to continue to grow as we start to move out of colder months. As we get to the end of February we also come to the end of our Introductory Offer period and club memberships will be due for renewal from the 1st March 2023. Full Membership is just £30 per year and this will give you access to all our club events.
While we have been able to enjoy a few days of milder weather, we have been able to get out more, with last Sunday's event to Box Hill being our fourth full members club ride and our biggest turn out yet with five members coming along. We hope to meet many more of you in the coming months.
29
Jan
2023
Winter Weather.
The weather has not been very to kind us since the start of the year. We have had to cancel some events due to some of the icy mornings we have recently encountered.
We are now just eight weeks from the clocks going forward at the end of March, we can hopefully look forward to longer, warmer days.
Thanks to Tim for braving the cold last week and coming along to a New Members Induction ride, we look forward to welcoming Tim as a Full Member of the club.
Recently, we have also visited The Swan in Hampton Wick and held our first social night. It was a chance to talk about the aims and the direction we want the club to go. There were some great ideas and suggestions made. An enjoyable night all round.
We would like to thank Rupert & Jack at The Swan for making us welcome and we are looking forward to enjoying post ride drinks at The Swan.
12
Jan
2023
New Kit Day.
We are delighted to announce that we have partnered with SaddleDrunk to provide all of our club cycling kit.
It also happens to be #NewKitDay.
We would like to say a huge thank you, to Stefano and his team at SaddleDrunk for their patience and also their great advice and help, through the process of having an idea for our kit, to seeing an actual product.
I am sure we will stand out from the crowds with our new apparel, so if you see us out and about, be sure to give us a wave.
31
Dec
2022
Happy New Year.
With Christmas celebrations complete and New Year's Eve now upon us, our thoughts turn to 2023.
What plans do you have for the coming year? Cycle further? Cycle more regularly? Have you made a New Year's resolution to get out on your bicycle?
Have you set any goals for 2023, or do you have any events planned that you wish to train for?
We are aiming to continue cycling through the winter months, weather permitting. Visit our Meetup page and request to join to get the full list of our upcoming events. We look forward to seeing you during 2023.
Don't forget that from now until the end of February, Full Membership is only £2.00.
Membership will be due for renewal at the beginning of March and is just £30 per year.
07
Dec
2022
Growing.
After launching the club nearly 7 weeks ago, it is good to see so many requests to join our Meetup group. We have now held some events such as our Beginner Sessions and New Members Induction Rides. We now have a growing list of Full Members and Beginner Members.
A huge thank you to those that have attended some events and to the people that have subsequently become members of HWCC. Don't forget that from now until the end of February, Full Membership is only £2.00.
Membership will be due for renewal at the beginning of March and is just £30 per year.
We have 2 events remaining this year, with the next New Members Induction ride taking place on Saturday 17th December and I look forward to meeting some more of you.
We are starting to build a diary of events for next year and the intention will be to continue riding throughout the remainder of the winter months, providing it is safe to do so. I look forward to meeting many more of you in 2023.
If we do not meet before, then I wish you and your families a great Christmas and an even better New Year.
14
Nov
2022
If you build it they will come...
This often misquoted line is spoken by Ray Kinsella played by Kevin Costner in the 1989 film Field of Dreams. The actual line in the movie is "If you build it, he will come". As the movie ends, you see a long line of cars coming down the lane to watch the baseball game. Since then people use the saying “If you build it, they will come” as a catchall phrase that any new business or venture you start will succeed.
You may well ask what the connection is to Hampton Wick Cycling Club. Well, during many months of planning, organising and lots of time spent setting up club accounts, there are times when you ask yourself why am I doing this? There was a period leading up to last weekend, when a heavy feeling of self-doubt hit me. What makes me think I can set up a new club? Will anyone think the club is any good? Do people actually enjoy cycling with me?
So it was with huge excitement we were able to hold our first club event on Saturday 12th November, a Beginners Session in Richmond Park. Many thanks to Eunice and Chris for coming along to the informal ride, at a very relaxed pace. These sessions are provided to let you experience group riding, where we talk through some of the manoeuvres, signals and calls used when riding with others.
We have had an amazing response with over twenty people expressing an interest in the club by requesting to join our Meetup group. We now hope to host weekly events for our members (weather permitting) and our first Full Members Induction Ride is scheduled for Saturday 19th November. This is a chance for those signed up on Meetup to come along and see what the club is all about and ask us any questions they may have. Obviously, we hope that those who attend on Saturday, will join the club and then be able to come along on our first Full Members club ride to Effingham on Sunday 20th November.
We have a list of our upcoming events on Meetup so sign up to come along to one of our rides.
29
OCT
2022
Full Membership £2
Attend a New Members Induction Ride as listed on our Meetup page and become a full member of the club for only £2 until the end of February 2023.
21
Oct
2022
Greetings.
Having cycled fairly regularly since childhood, I only really took up road cycling in 2017. I entered the Prudential Ride London and the Birmingham Velo sportives. In 2021 I completed one of my bucket list rides, Chase The Sun. This year I have been taking part in a few longer distance audax rides and completed my furthest distance ride to date, managing 265 miles on a round trip from home incorporating the Dunwich Dynamo.
I joined my first cycling club in 2017 and have acted as Membership Secretary and Committee member. I have cycled with a few different clubs recently and wanted to have a more social aspect to my cycling.
Hampton Wick Cycling Club started as an idea, an idea that not all club members need to be able to ride a hundred miles at 25mph or have aspirations of completing the Tour de France. The ethos of the club is to provide a welcoming place to anyone, of any ability, who is interested in taking part in group cycling. A ride into the countryside, with a stop for coffee and cake. Then perhaps a pint or two at the end of a ride, sounds like the perfect Sunday doesn't it? We hope to provide people with the opportunity to improve their cycling while out each weekend, so do you feel like coming along for the ride?
If so, we'd love to hear from you and any ideas you have for the club. We welcome anyone to get in touch about becoming a member, especially if you are interested in volunteering to be part of the Committee or to become a Ride Captain.
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