SportsShoes Blog

Well I’ve got a big challenge already in the bag for 2009. Me and a group of my cycling pals are going out to France in July to ride La Marmotte - it’s a 173km road cycle route around the Alps which finishes with the famous Tour de France climb up Alpe d’Huez. It attracts around 5000 riders each year so it should be quite a day out.

We are also planning to ride the Fred Whitton in the Lakes in May which is 100 mile tour of the Lakes taking in all the big road passes. Although there are around 200 riders it is estimated that only around 15% actually manage to ride the whole course without resorting to pushing!!! Should be fun….

Before all that though is the very serious business of the Santa Cycle - this year it’s on the 20th December and if you’ve got a bike and a santa suit you’re welcome to come along. It all started about 13 years ago when a small group of Mountain Bikers from Eldwick had an idea to do a Christmas ride dressed in santa suits - it was a great laugh and so a tradition was born and now each year around 20 santas make the journey from Eldwick to Bolton Abbey tea rooms via Ilkley. I think this will be my 6th santa cycle (I’m a relative newbie) and I can tell you it is such a great day out. People always ask if we do it for charity and the answer is no - we don’t want anyone to feel obliged to give money we just want to spread some festive cheer - the looks on the kids faces as we cycle round Ilkley singing carols is just amazing and the number of honks, cheers and waves we get from passing motorists of all ages is ace. A few years ago we even managed to get on the front page  of the Ilkley Gazzette as a reporter spotted us and got us to pose for a photo down near the river. Apparently we also feature in Bolton Abbey’s brochure - they love us in the tea room and we’re usually given a free brew in return for a couple of verses of Rudolph in front of the fire (mind you that’s after we’ve spent about 300 quid on grub to fuel the fire for the return leg back over Keighley Gate).

I keep getting people saying they’ve read my blog which is great so a big hello to Romero (who, despite his name has got a stronger Yorkshire accent than me) and Tricky - one of the cycling santas who is a steel rimmed glasses and grey haired high flying bank manager by day and a Freddie Mercury impersonator by night (only ‘half’ joking - but his Freddie outfit at the 80s night we went to a few weeks ago was a sight to behold…).

Just come back from my long weekend in Manchester. It was really good to see all the other riders again and speak to them after their success at Manchester World Cup! We did a group road ride on Monday morning for a couple of hours that included a steep cobbled hill..it was the moutain bikers that took us up there! In the afternoon it was time to go over to the track for a bit of an induction talk and to collect new kit! On Tuesday we were up at 6 and left at 7 to ride to the track for an 8am track session.  It was strange being back on the track but it was a good session.  The others did madison training and me and Jess Allen did some rotating stuff behind the motorbike.  After that it was back to the flats for a quick lunch and a cuppa before riding over to the EIS for a biomechanical analysis.  This involved being filmed from different angles on my bike either riding normally or doing a 30 second effort.  This data will then be checked to see that there’s nothing weird going on position-wise on the bike! After that it was time to head on back home! It was really good to spend time with the other academy riders but a bit of a pain having to be back for school on Wednesday morning!