Sunday 30 March 2014

Home wins butter no parsnips at SCCU Sporting 25

'Scoring goals for Palace, John Terry, John Terry' ah heady celebrations in the Palace world.
It was only after the third pint of Guinness at the windmill on Saturday that it occurred to me I was meant to be racing in the morning. It had been emotionally draining enough without the beer and by the time I got home the arrival of the British summer and the loss of an hours kip was a growing cause for concern.
The G25/44 is the lumpy part of the 45 twice, and a course you need to attack with a bit of vim, something I was decidedly lacking. Also today we were treated to two sets of traffic lights. Two laps meant 4 potential stops. Nice.
The organisers were full of apology for something way outside their control. When my already unwilling body can across the first red on the A24 the motivation went a bit flat and never really returned.
Three ports had entred but Mr Warne decided he had other things to do, so it was me and Bash on parade, for what was weather wise a perfect morning, or as near to it as you can get in March.
Bash, by his own standards had a poor ride on the Bletchingly course last Sunday but put this behind him today. He had already laid to rest any doubts about his form with a PB for the sporting 10 on Saturday. Despite road works he came through the 25 in a commendable 1.02.43
I, lethargic and unwilling added a minor off course in the closing 2 miles to do a very humble 1.09.56
The young gun from Rapha JLT, Elliot Porter, took the win with a blinding 53.50
Great to see James Stone from Brighton racing today. Been too long.

Sunday 16 March 2014

Few thoughts on Tony Benn

A great deal of what Tony Benn stood for were the very things that made Labour unelectable, and what the party led by Neil Kinnock sought to remove in the 80's. For most of the 80's, 90's and noughties he was at best seen as an elder statesman of something long since passed. I recall a debate on blasphemy, where the debate revolved around whether the law should be repealed or extended to include other faiths such as Islam. His case was that his belief in socialism was as deep and profound as any Christian or Muslims faith, and nobody felt the need to protect socialists from ridicule. Why should religions be given special treatment. It was a well made point but at the time somebody talking about believing in socialism in that way felt as bronze age as the religions present.

The recession, loss of faith in the Thatcher/Blair capitalism and the Iraq war gave Benn's profile as bounce late in life, often from a generation who were too young to remember him as a potential party leader.

In the mid 80's I heard him speak a few times, when the tide was already against him. Looking back, its hard to imagine him as a politician in the modern world. Largely because when he spoke he spoke to our best intentions not our meanest fears and prejudice. The spiteful debates around immigration or hard working families, where the Party leaders compete to appeal to our worst instincts are so far from Benn's relentless optimism about people. A friend posted on facebook an inscription Benn had written in one of his books. It read 'The best is yet to be.' In the mouth of Cameron, Clegg or Milliband this would sound like an  election slogan to go down with all the other words they devalue. From Benn it was a sincere statement of belief in all of us. And for that, whatever his political weaknesses, I mourn his passing.
 

Saturday 15 March 2014

A Revolution in a start sheet - SCCU spoco 23rd March

It is a small revolution, but in the world of cycle time trials as seismic one. Go to the CTT website and click on a start sheet, just about any start sheet. Count the number of women riders. Three, four, five, maybe seven if there is a big field? Rubbish isn't it, between 5 and 10% of the field on a good day. Now click on the start sheet for SCCU 21 mile TT on 23rd March being run in tribute to the late Don Glover. Now count them, yes 49 women riders, and still more on a reserve sheet who could not get in.

Fifty odd women have put their money down to race a tough little TT around Bletchingly. What's changed? Everything and nothing. This is not a new event, it has been run for years over a course designed by the aforementioned Don Glover. The rules haven't changed. But this race, organised by Tony Alston is the first in the new South East Women's Time Trial Series founded by Rebbecca Slack, and a huge well of women, interested in the race of truth has been tapped. Well over 100 riders have registered for the series.

Time trialling is a great way to get into competitive cycling. All you need basically is a bike (the pointy hats and scaffolding come later). Events are cheap to enter, and as you are basically racing against yourself. Even if your first ride is a stinker you have laid down a personal best to beat next time out. Many women have been testing for years, as part of triathlon, but never entered CTT events. Now finally with the arrival of a competition specifically for women across the season, TTing seems to a captured their imagination, at least in the South East.

What is particularly exciting is that of the 49 women starting the race next Sunday for a huge number this will be their first ever race. This new blood could if the idea spreads galvanise this branch of the sport in so many ways.

SEWTTS have done a great job of working with the clay that already exists but moulding it meet their needs. A traditional hurdle was that to TT you had to be a member of an affiliated club. Some clubs are great, but not all have a great track record in welcoming and developing women riders. By creating 'Newcomers CC' for all unattached riders SEWTTS have removed this obstacle at a stroke. Having a points based series based on placings, rather than fastest times and  complex vet standards creates a sense of direct competition. It also removes the advantage of targeting events on 'fast' courses. Rather than run new events they are breathing life into the existing calendar by getting organisers to commit a certain %age of places to women. The size of the field for the 23rd has pretty much doubled at a stroke.

The result is a massive win win, and the chance for the sport to reach out to the missing 51% of the population.

Not quite the storming of the Winter Palace but hopefully that start of something special in TTing

Sunday 9 March 2014

East Surrey Hardriders (Just not so hard as last year)

This event has two particular features, one, at a tad under 30 miles its a bit longer than one would choose. Secondly about halfway round there is a dispiriting climb on a grotty road at Rusper. Apart from that it's great. Maybe. In truth it is a Sporting Course but not quite as sporting as the SCA Hardriders last week or that toad of a course at Bletchingly we have to look forward to in a couple of weeks.

Well this year mother nature gave, and mother nature taketh away. Due to the beating the Flanchford Bridge had enjoyed over the winter it was closed to traffic. The result, the course was trimmed to 27.1 miles (hooray) missing out a crappy lumpy section to Reigate Heath (hooray) and as Dave Warne noted (I think getting his own back for last week) making the parcour one for Bashers (boooo!)

Four Ports plus our adopted Port, Dave Churchill lined up for this brute. slightly crisp to begin with it turned into a lovely morning for racing. Bash and Paul King were early starters. The Daves and me towards the back end.  Coming out of Beare Green I was forced to pick my way through a long tailback of traffic. On this single carriageway section with double unbroken lines, a horse box had stopped halfway up the hill. Thanks guys. While last week I lost a bit of heart this time I was able get back into it and crack on.  After last weeks mishaps, I felt I was going a lot better this time out, though still some way short of where I would want to be. But those with the strength to take advantage came away with some creditable times for March. In order of appearance

Bash - 1.10.42
Paul - 1.14.01 ( I will leave it to Mr King to explain his views on this time.)
Dave C - 1.07.55
Dave W - 1.09.44
Andy - 1.21.55

The Daves' and Ian's times were v impressive on a day when one sees that the winning time by Liam Maybank was 1.01.18

I am not racing next weekend, returning to the fray on 23rd with the SCCU Bletchingly event.

Saturday 8 March 2014

These Things Take Time - 30 years on from 'The Smiths'

I read that The Smiths debut album is 30 years old, the article said that it emerged as a classic. As a huge fan of The Smiths at the time I was actually disappointed. The singles and the John Peel sessions had been brilliant. By then I had also seen their incendiary live show three or four times. Compared to that the album sounded a bit damp, well in fact very damp. I recall a few reviews at the time saying the same. It wasn't until The Queen is Dead that for me they produced an album that was worthy of the description 'classic'. They still banged out great singles ( and b sides) but Morrissey's huge presence can't disguise the fact that Meat is Murder is short of their best. Hatful of Hollow was great but it was what it said it was, a compilation of Radio 1 sessions and out takes. 

The Queen is Dead was something of a relief, they had finally managed to capture their essence on a studio album. But seeing them live on the tour that supported it kind of closed the book for me. They were no longer the band I had seem at North East London Poly or the Electric Ballroom ( a wonderful gig that I will write about sometime). They had been a shared secret, they were now stars and the audience worshiped at their feet. Morrissey was a celebrity and that arch faux controversial character we see now had emerged and taken shape.  Some of us called for Handsome Devil to be dismissed us with 'we haven't played that for years.' They were no longer my band and I was no longer their crowd.

Thursday 6 March 2014

Biting at the feeding hand

Every so often a famous and highly gifted writer will round on creative writing courses, declaring them useless. Will Self had a dig a couple of years back. I rather enjoyed his notion that instead of doing a creative writing course you should do a shitty job that will give you something to write about.  However as far as I am aware Self wasn't teaching creative writing at that point unlike this weeks contender Hanif Kureishi who runs such a course at Kingston.

His comments have been widely reported especially that creative writing courses are a waste of time. Seems an odd choice of things for him to say. Obviously when one digs deeper what he is saying is a little more nuanced than that. It is a long process becoming a writer, a weekend writing school is no substitute for that. That working with a writer/teacher over a period of time has value that doing a range of classes with different teachers does not. Fair comment. But where I primarily disagree is around the notion that teaching Creative Writing is somehow completely different from teaching anything else. Having taken a couple of creative writing modules through the OU my view is different.

Firstly not everyone studying creative writing expects to emerge ready to produce a work of breath taking genius. A woman in my group simply wanted to write her family history to pass on to her grandchildren. She wanted them to know about where they came from and thought if she wrote well they were more likely to read it and pass it on to their children.

Secondly I cannot think of any subject where the course defines whether somebody will be a huge success or not. Holding an MBA will not make one a captain of industry, a BSc will not in itself build bridges, and rockets and cure disease. No course can teach talent, or brilliance. If any student embarks on Kureishi's course believing that alone will make them a great writer then they deluding themselves. What the course should do is provide tools, ideas, provide an environment where informed feedback can be shared. That then enables the writer to grow into whatever they can be.

The difference between creative courses and then more vocational is an economic one. A graduate Engineer does not have to be the shining star to make a living. Having a qualification as a badge of competence is a big reason for taking that kind of course. I would hazard that compared to the general population those emerging from creative writing courses are very proficient, very competent. But no publisher, let alone any reader is going to be interested in the merely proficient poem or novel. This echoes another theme that Kureishi talks about. That even great writers struggle to make money, the ones that cannot tell a compelling story are bound to fail.

The Guardian rather naughtily compared Creative Writing teaching to a pyramid selling scheme. Each tier selling the dream to the one below. The difference, if you accept Kureishi's view, that even the guy at the top isn't making much of a living.

While this is not the provocative stuff of headlines, my view is that good creative writing courses help the students develop as writers in a way that showing your stuff to your mates will not. The result is that one will get to the position where you discover if you have the brilliance to truly shine more quickly and maybe with fewer blind alleys. Even if one is not brilliant they can be a thoroughly enjoyable and exciting creative experience, and as long as one has not starved or beggared oneself in the expectation of riches to come that might just be fine in itself. 

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Blade Runner and the Riotous Assembly

In my teens I read Tom Sharpe's farce come satire, Riotous Assemby. This glorious crude and provocative book lampooned the values of Aparthied South Africa. The central plot being around the chaos the ensues as the Police try to investigate the murder of a black servant by his white employer with a 4 barrelled shot gun.

I suspect the Steenkamp/Pistorious trial would have appauled Sharpe. A story where a celebrated athlete shoots his wife but it's all ok because he thought she was a black burglar feels all to close to being source material. 

Sunday 2 March 2014

SCA Hardriders - The Race of Truth, and the truth is...

... there is room for considerable improvement.
Having hopefully put winter behind us, today was the first chance to open our Time Trialling account for 2014. Most of us had rocked up to the Redhill a couple of weeks back only for that to be cancelled due to ice.

In a month or so the fast courses on A roads will start opening up but this is the part of the season when the Sporting Time Trial holds sway. For the uninitiated a Sporting Course is lumpy, twisty often on minor roads. The course for today was all of those things, and it earned its 'Hardriders' sobriquet. A 22.6 mile loop starting near Handcross it sets out its stall early with a half mile climb straight from the start. Nice.

The nature of time trialling means that the humdrum club rider gets to benchmark themselves with best. For today's event the field was full of members of I guess time trialling's royal family, the Yates' including the legend that is Sean Yates.

There were four members of the Old Ports lined up for this baby. Sadly Peter Gray had to pull out with a knee injury, apparently caused by over zealous intervals on the turbo trainer. So it was left to Ian Bashford, Dave Warne and myself. A cold damp morning, Bashers cold damp expression when I pulled up told me all I needed to know about his frame of mind. But signed on there would be no turning back.

It all started ok, I had set my sights low for this loosener. As Bash and I agreed this was a course for Warnie, quick on the climbs and fearless on the descents. The rain held off but there was a fair breeze taking the edge off the downhill bias of the first half.

I last rode this event in 2009, and had largely forgotten it, so I the pleasure of rediscovery. It was after 8 miles I noticed that I was feeling a bit lob sided. At first I dismissed it as some product of the cross wind. But when I look down the gear changer was at a very odd angle. My right tri bar had come loose. I thought about stopping to fix it. At that point I decided to crack on and ride on the tops, but I couldn't leave it alone because I needed to change gear. The bar was getting looser and looser, rattling away until at about 17 miles there was nothing for it but to stop and set about it will my allen key. It only cost me a couple of minutes but I kind of lost heart and limped home in what was a personal worst time of 1.15.32, narrowly avoiding the wooden spoon.

While I doubt Bash and Dave exactly enjoyed it they had a more profitable morning. Bash using his power to weight ratio to good effect on the downhill sections to romp home with a respectable 1.7.23. However the king of the castle was Dave with an excellent 1.4.22. Needless to say the Ports were not about to trouble the team prize.

The overall winner, was one of the Yates. Conall Yates to the win with an incredible 52.22. But nearly has impressive, Jesse Yates riding as a Junior completed the event inside an hour.

So, it was a start, not the one I hoped for but a start all the same. Next week I will get another, slighty larger helping at the East Surrey Hardriders.

Saturday 1 March 2014

Ian Stannard at Het Nieuwsblad - Tougher than the rest

For most of the year Ian Stannard's job at team Sky will involve pounding out a tempo at the  front of the bunch chasing down breakaways or controlling attacks in the service of his leaders, Froome, Porte and Wiggins. Or he will put his massive diesel engine in the service of a sprinter as part of his lead out train. It's a role that means he seldom gets to enjoy the warm glow of victory just for himself. But for Stannard, and riders like him, for a few weeks each spring on the cobbles of Belgium and France they get their chance. Today at Het Nieuwsblad Ian took his chance, in the final 15kms working with BMC's Greg Van Avermaet he ground out a 15 second gap over the chasing group. Both men working together until they were certain it was a straight fight between them. Stannard took the initiative with a long sprint holding on to take the prize. Both men giving it everything.

The real heavy hitters, the likes of Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara will have had their eyes on the bigger prizes to come, Ghent- Wevelgem and the true classics, Ronde Van Vlandaaren and Paris Roubaix. But Het Nieuwsblad is the traditional opener to this season within a season, and has a proud history all of its own. It is a fine result that Sky, who in truth have never done themselves justice in the Spring Classics, will be delighted by.

The Sky team tactics were spot on in the last 20km. With Stannard up the road Edvald Boasson-Hagen was able to sit in with the chasing group of three. Saving his legs for the sprint he would have had the edge should Stannard and Van Avermaet be caught. In the end he proved the point in taking a three up sprint, but he was racing for third place. Stannard had been able to finish the job on his own.

The tired dirty faces looking out through the rain, beneath a sky as grey as the  jarring cobbles under their wheels tell the story of a tough race. There will be plenty of days later in the year when Stannard will get to feel the sun on his back, but today the fire was inside.