Club president Dick Poole has been honoured by the Road Records Association, by having been made a Vice President of the Association at their recent AGM.
The club would like to congratulate Dick on this tremendous and well-deserved achievement.
Dick has been involved with the RRA for a long time, and it was they who certified his end-to-end (LEJOG) record back in 1965. Below he shares a little of his RRA experience:
I’ve been a member for over fifty years – certainly since breaking the end to end in 1965. I have also had my name on the list of official observers, and have acted in that capacity on a number of record attempts – notably an attempt by the Army Logistical Corps on the tandem end to end, which was unsuccessful, and not long ago on Ian To’s end to end, which was also unsuccessful.
I observed John Patston and John Woodburn on their successful ride from London to Cardiff, and also on their successful ride from London to Bath and back. Those were both done in 1976 – both of these rides were observed from the road side.
The only other attempt where I was a travelling observer was when Ian Neville and Ray Hughes went for the straight-out tandem 50 record down the A3, which was quite hairy to say the least! They were passing cars at about 50mph and it was quite difficult to keep them in sight – unfortunately they got a puncture not far from the finish, which put paid to that!