News

For those who actively compete each year for one of the many FCCC Club Trophies it will come as no surprise that we are approaching the end of the year for which you will soon be putting your names forward for an award.

The awards are presented at the Club Night of the Year (CNOTY) each year. A tradition which has been running for decades. Personal engravings are worked on at the start of each year – in some cases being added to trophies dating back almost a century.

For a contingent within the Club, it is often true that some of our members do not even know these trophies exist or where to go to find out about them. (FYI – they are currently contained as a list at the back of our Club Rules & Regulations).

Paul Burcombe has just released the tickets for CNOTY’24 (on Saturday 31st March 2024) as the start of our annual preparations.

To make it easier for you all, and to encourage more of you to challenge for a trophy in 2024 et seq., we will shortly be sending out a new spreadsheet for you to use to see what trophies and awards are available to compete for in the hope that more are awarded for the year ahead – so they are hopefully not just gathering dust on the shelf.

Please look out for the announcements and the spreadsheet in the coming weeks.

Kind regards,

Paul Hosemann (Chair)

Saturday March 30th 2024

As the autumn leaves start to brown and fall from the trees and as we all reflect on another year of cycling that will soon be behind us it will shortly be time to celebrate our achievements on and/or off road.

A time to meet and greet one another and take pride in our shared riding at FCCC.

Whether it was your first ride in years, the purchase of a new bike at one of our club nights or your participation in some of our weekly rides, one of our Club TT’s or a sportive around the country we are inviting you all once again to the FCCC Club Night of the Year.

In 2023 we had a marvellous turnout so we are hoping to beat that for 2024. Partners and spouses are most welcome. Those that came this year can validate that it’s more than just a gathering of club cyclists!

100 tickets will go on sale very soon.

Saturday March 30th 2024 – 7pm to 11pm is the date we have secured the hall for CNOTY’24.

Yes – we know – it is the Easter Weekend so maybe we’ll throw in one or two Easter Egg Prizes for you to take home for yourselves or your families!

Please come and help make it another great Club Night!

More details will be sent in the coming weeks.

Thank you,

Paul Hosemann and Paul Burcombe

A BiG thankyou to Keith Griffiths for coming to tell his story at our Club Night and to the 25 of you who turned up to listen as well as to Andria, my wife, for the food (hot and cold) and looking after our guests.

The best line of the night was when Keith said ‘If you can do 200 kms you can do 600 kms. You only have to think of it as three x 200 km rides’.

Breaking it all down into bite size chunks.

For a chap that does so little training the distances he rides and his method of planning his rides (subject to the weather forecast) combined with his preference to ride at night was inspiring, charming and enlightening.

Willing to sleep in bus stops or on people’s lawns or in open doorways or garages left deliberately open with mattresses on the ground shows the lengths these Audax riders go just to sneak a 10 or 30 minute Power Nap 😴..

Audax in Latin means ‘audacious, courageous… spirited… foolhardy… presumptuous and rash’.

These are the ways we will now consider Keith forever!

Thank you, Keith, for being a great final guest for me to close out the series of “FCCC’s An Audience with…”

Many people have said how much they enjoyed your story!

Kind regards,

Paul Hosemann (Chair)

Thank you… plus a few other pictures from the night.

Dear Members 

I am grateful to Neil Lister for offering to assume the role of Road Secretary. 

The Committee voted on his appointment at our meeting on Monday 25 September, in which we discussed a few areas within FCCC where we would like to make a few changes. 

It is clear many of us would like to see a greater consistency of attendance at road rides and ride leading, so Neil has kindly offered to help the Club with this being his primary focus. 

I’m hopeful several of you who already help lead rides for FCCC will continue to work with and help Neil in his new role going forward.

Neil has been a ride leader, riding mainly in the mid-pace group, so he is relatively well known within this area of the Club

I am confident his affable personality, dry sense of humour, plus his desire to get involved will be a useful contribution and addition to the Club. 

Please join me in welcoming Neil to the Committee. 

May I also take this opportunity to thank Gareth Davies for his contributions to the Committee and the Club during 2023, who is stepping down at this time. His work on gathering small portfolios of our weekly ride photos back in the spring being one item I would wish to particularly highlight. No doubt his passion for photography will be something we’ll see more of over time if his schedule permits.

Paul Hosemann (Chair)