Tagged: Bristol

Everyone To The Lake!

This week the Bristol South Classic League heads to Chew Valley Lake. If Bird Watching and Time Trialling are your two favourite things then its not to be missed.

After a successful few weeks at Aust on the 5.2 mile course, where pb’s were flying around, there will hopefully be some more fast times around the lake.

Tim and myself both set new pb’s at Aust, with Tim not being slowed by using his road bike, maybe that helped with his recent circuit racing exploits!

I finally went under 12 minutes with an 11.46 on the final evening!

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Bristol South 25 TT

This weekend was the first Bristol South CC open event of the year. A 25 mile time trial held on the U17.

With sunshine and warm temperatures, this was a huge contrast from just over a month ago for the Severn RC 25, where it was snowing.

I was aiming for as close to an hour as I could get. I rode a 1.03.43 in Febuary, so had some work to do, but was aiming to at least better that time. With temperatures above zero I was in with a chance.

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After a painful ride with some adjustment needed to my saddle angle, I’d managed a 1.01.06 I was really pleased with this. With PJs super fast time and Dan Kempe a few seconds behind me, we had got the team prize for Bristol South! I was 11th of 54, nearly a top ten in an open! Dan B was riding his first ever TT and put in strong time on a spinny 90 gear inch.

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A #chipshopride video

Every Thursday at 7pm in Bristol is a little something called the Chip Shop Ride. People meet up, ride a few miles in the city, ending up at a chip shop where greasy food is consumed. I try & get along to these as often as possible, and last time the GoPro was out, so I put together a super short video.

Fixed Wheel Time Trial Build

With Time Trial season fast approaching, I’ve been busy building a bike ready for this year. I’ve not quite finished collecting all the bits together, but it’s finally looking like a bike.

As with last year I’ll be riding fixed wheel. Part of the delay in sorting a bike was down to the decision of if I should move to a geared bike. I decided to stick with one gear as I really enjoy riding fixed and think I need to get used to utilising the gears on my road bike, before trying gears for time trialling.

My first TT this year is in Frome, with the Frome and District Wheelers holding a 10 mile event, I’ve ridden this course before so have a time to try and beat.

Here is progress so far, I have an adjustable stem on order to try and find the optimum aero position.

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Snow day

So today myself & Ed were supposed to be in London for the Nocturne Crit as part of the London Bike Show, but due to being right in the middle of a whole load of snow we decided not to risk the drive up, instead I got the cyclocross bike out & had a whole lot of fun in the snow whilst everyone else was building snowmen & sliding down hills. I made a little video to mark the occasion:

The first Steady Sunday of 2013

This weekend we got ourselves a brand new GoPro Hero 3, so yesterday’s Steady Sunday ride was the perfect time to give it it’s first outing. We’ve put together a few clips using the awesome bit of technology. Vimeo has compressed the footage loads so watch it in HD for a better look. And don’t worry, we’ve stuck to the theme of pop soundtracks in the new year too. Below are a few stills taken with the camera too.

Have a wheelie good Christmas!

2012 has been an amazing year for us Hamilton Wheelers, the bristol riding scene & cycling in general. We can’t thank you enough for all the support you’ve given us, and have no fear, we’ve loads more exciting plans for 2013. But for now, give yourself a break, eat a lot of food, have a lot of fun & we’ll see you out on the road soon!

Dizzee Sprintz

Last night saw the first Dizzee Sprintz take place and what a night it was!

The format was simple, a head to head sprint up a multi story car park, luckily not the whole way.

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There was a great turnout with 16 racers and plenty more watching and marshalling the corners. The only rule was keep to the left on the tight corners, with one rider getting disqualified for taking a shortcut!

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Tim and me both made it through to the semi finals, where I was caught napping on the second to last corner and got overtaken and beaten by Alfie the youngest rider in the race, but don’t tell anyone that ok.

Tim had a close fought battle, crossing the line half a wheel behind Alfie’s older brother.

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Alfie went on to take the overall win, a great result! With Nancy taking first for the girls by beating Neil and getting through to the second round.

After the race had finished it was time for the skid comp. This was the most fun I’ve had on a bike in ages and the first time I’ve done a fixed gear skid longer than a few feet in about 2 years.

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We had a nice slope to skid down and some long skids were taking place, with me, Tim, Gabriel and Django trading places for the longest, with Django taking the honours with his high speed efforts, nice work!

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A massive thanks goes out to Lucy for organising Dizzee Sprintz and her team of helpers, it was no ordinary Sunday evening!

The trophies and stickers were so good!

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