Wednesday evening chain gang and social rides begin on 2nd April

In this edition

Dates for Your Diary: Calendar for Away days and other events including: A trip to Belgium; The Challenge Ride; Green Plus Weekend;
Chain Gang and Social rides
Ride Safety and Ride Etiquette
Corsham Town Council Family Cycle Ride

Dates for Your Diary

Provisional Calendar for 2025 (updated March 2025)

Set out below are the events, in addition to the usual route schedule, that we are planning for 2025.

May: Long weekend to Belgium 16-18 May
May: Split ride 1 WSM/Cheddar Gorge (Sun 11 May)
May: Active travel group family ride 18 May
June: Challenge weekend (14/15 June); overnight in Taunton
July: Green+ weekend (5/6 July); two rides from Hereford
July: Century Challenge (Sun 20 July)
Aug: Flat 200k/120k (green+ oriented) (Sun 17 Aug)
Sept: Split ride 2 (Sun 21 Sept)
Dec: Christmas do (date tbc)
Dec: AGM (date tbc)

Many thanks to those of you who signed up for one of the three events which involve stays away from Corsham. These are the Long Weekend to Belgium (16-18 May); Challenge Weekend (14/15 June) Corsham - Taunton - Corsham and the Green Plus Away Weekend (5/6 July). If you are interested in any of these but have not yet contacted the club, please get in touch via corshamcc@gmail.com asap. N.B. the Green Plus weekend is almost full.

Wednesday Chain Gang and Social Rides

The Wednesday evening ‘chain gang’ and social rides begin again on Wednesday 2nd April. Rides start at Springfield at 6.15pm. All groups ride the same route (CGV2) which can be found here .

In the meantime, please do not ride chain gang rides in the dark as it is too dangerous given the ride speeds, the state of the roads and the traffic in the dark. Chain gang rides are the only club rides where it is permissible to drop one or more riders. However, if the group agrees, it is possible to have a ‘no-drop’ chain gang ride. If you are new to the chain gang rides, this might be a good way to start before joining the faster groups!
Experienced chain gangers must make sure that everyone in the group knows how the chain gang operates and to check that anyone who was dropped made it safely back to Corsham. Further details on how the chain gang works can be found here

Ride Safety

Avid readers of the AGM minutes will know that over the last two years we had 17 falls on club rides. Most were at slow speed; often only one rider involved; occasionally a touch of wheels; some related to road conditions e.g. either hitting potholes or trying to avoid them. Many of these types of incidents can be avoided as follows: please do not overlap wheels with the rider in front, do be aware of riders around you. If you do not feel safe taking your hand off the handlebar to point at a pot-hole, shouting is fine!!

Ride Etiquette

The sun is out, roads are dry and you’re feeling strong!!. Great, but please remember club cycling is about riding in a group. If you are feeling strong, please don’t ride off the front of the group but make yourself useful and ride at the front of the group. It is fine to unleash your inner Pogacar or Vollering on the bigger hills but we all wait at the top and give the last person enough time to catch their breath.

If gaps between riders appear then shout so those haring off can slow down. If your group keeps dropping one or more riders, 99% of the time it is the group riding too fast and you should slow down. We pride ourselves on being an inclusive and friendly club - the test of that inclusivity and friendliness is how we treat each other on the road.

Off the soapbox now and a plea for some help.

Corsham Town Council Family Cycle Ride: Sunday 18th May

Corsham’s Active Travel group (of which your club chairman is a member) is organising a Family Cycle Ride using cycle paths and quiet lanes in and around Corsham. It is a 10km ride and is mostly flat. Entry will be limited to 50 participants who would ride in smaller groups.

We are looking for volunteers who could give up an hour or so on that Sunday to operate either as guides i.e. ride with small groups of families or help with road crossings where the route crosses main roads. If you think you could help out, please let us know at corshamcc@gmail.com

The poster below provides further information and how to book if you want to take part.

Club news - March 2025