Dates for your social calendars

Girls Social Tue 5th April
As a prelude to the start of the London Women's League (9th April), we are going to have a bit of a social gathering in the week before. The plan is to do a bit of training beforehand (a modified Chertsey loop cutting it short at the Walton roundabout, leaving Sheen Memorial at 7.15), then go to THE PLOUGH pub in Sheen. For those who just want to come for beer (also encouraged), we should be there by about 8.30. Even if you don't plan on racing this year, feel free to come along.

Pearson CC Spring Social Sun 10th April
Now that's the sun's out, what better way to spend a Sunday than to come out on a ride followed by a pub lunch. The plan is for a ride (probably out Windsor way) followed by lunch at the Boater's Inn pub in Kingston at noon. Usual meeting point of 8:30am Cheam Village Crossroads with a second pick up point in Kingston (time TBC - please check back to this post nearer the time). Both members and non-members welcome or if you fancy a lazier Sunday, just come to the pub for noon!!

Pearson CC Hillingdon skills session

Pearson CC had a fantastic afternoon at the west London cycling facility at Hillingdon on 6 March.

Attended by 20 riders including 3 non-members the session started with warm up laps followed by a rigourous drilling of close proximity riding, dished out by Coach Bradshaw, which lasted for a whole hour. Riders had to even lean on each other while negotiating a slalom course. This was followed by a one lap time trial - we are still waiting for the times - and then into the clubhouse for a very civilised afternoon tea. The day ended by a most excellent handicapped race where each rider worked in one of three groups until the race came together towards the end, finished by an exciting sprint for the line.
The session was regarded by everyone as valuable and fun, Pearson CC will most certainly be running another one later this year.

Weekend racing round-up 19/20 March 2011

Pearson CC racer Chris Rees' bagged some more points this season, coming 5th in the 4th cat Beyond Spring crits at Hillingdon. Chris then topped it off with a victory at Thruxton on Sunday in the 4th cat race to earn his 3rd cat licence in style (photo and race reports to follow).

Meanwhile out on the dual carriageway, Warren Higgins raced the SCCU 25 mile TT, taking the prize for the fastest non-aero time (standard road bike and helmet) coming home in 1hr 4mins 2 secs, taking home a bottle of wine in the process!

Well done both!

Pearson CC host London Women's Cycle Racing Meet & Greet

Pearson CC hosted this week's London Women's Cycle Racing Meet & Greet ride in Richmond Park on Sunday. Thank you to our Committee members and veteran racers Andrew Middleton and Graham Berridge who took the session. The girls had a enjoyable morning practicing group riding, thru and off, climbing, descending and cornering, all washed down with a coffee at the cafe afterwards.

Pearson riders take on the Surrey Rumble sportive

Club Riders Graham Berridge and Peter Coleman completed the Surrey Rumble on March 6th in a steady time of 4hrs 27m (excluding stops). This was Peter’s first real sportive and the target was for him to get inside 5hrs actual riding time so he was pretty pleased with the outcome. All in all it was a good day, no real wind and a bit of warmth creeping out at lunch time which made the last feed zone at Manor Farm a little hot spot to sit in the sun and have a cuppa. Peter was also riding as a research subject for Graham’s PhD and so although officially they both clocked 5h 07m, the two feed zone stops added to the overall time as they were used to interview Peter for the research.

Don't forget - Pearson 150 Sportive - 22 May!

Pearson CC out in force at Goodwood - 13 March 2011

Women's rep, Nicole Oh reports:

The Pearson girls kicked off their racing season at Goodwood on Sunday, with 4 pink starters (Vikki, Nikki, Charmaine and me!) in a field of 21. Initial pace was pretty slow, with no one wanting to ride up the front, until a couple of attacks split the group. Vikki, Charmaine and I made the front split of 12, with Nikki just behind in the second group. Vikki and I had discussed tactics on the car journey down - 1) to chase down any attack and 2) to attack ourselves with 5 or so laps to go. Plan 1 worked well, with one brave girl from AW cycles making a couple of attempts to get off the front, but was caught quite quickly each time. Plan 2 kind of worked - I managed to make a break with 4 laps to go (with said AW cycles girl in tow) only to run out of legs pretty much as soon as we were clear. More chain-gang training for me. Needless to say, the group of 12 was back together with 2 laps to go for a bunch sprint, where we failed miserably with team tactics and/or organisation, and all made our own sprints to the finish line. We look forward to some guidance and training sessions from our expert boy racers!

The results... Nicole 7th, Vikki 9th, Charmaine 10th and Nikki 13th, in her first ever race! Most importantly, she also had a great time, and will definitely be back for more. And thank you to Char for the excellent builders tea cake to re-fuel after the race!

Chris Rees and Dave Keaton also competed in the 4th Cat race finishing 11th and 23rd respectively. I know nothing of the internal unfoldings of the race, except the part where they lapped us, then were promptly hunted down by the lead girls group for riding too slow!