A Message from Bono

First off this week, we have a message from one of our regulars, Mark Wilson.

I’ll be riding 250 miles between May 30th and June 2nd to raise funds for Help For Heroes. This great charity raises funds to support and improve the treatment, rehabilitation and ongoing help for British service men and women injured in conflict. The charity has already achieved great things but the demands on it’s resources continue.

The ride I’m on will leave the National Arboretum on the Thursday and join up with 2000 other cyclists at Blackheath on the Sunday. The 2000 will then cycle into Whitehall making the largest single group of cyclists ever riding through London.

 If you would like to sponsor me please go to www.bmycharity.com/markwilson . You can see the details of the ride at www.pedal4heroes.co.uk . And you can follow my training on my Facebook page .

Thanks for any support you can offer Help For Heroes.

Mark (Bono)

This Week’s Ride

Looking at the forecast, we might have just missed the worst of the hail and rain – we have our fingers crossed.

Sarah has kindly volunteered to lead out the ‘steady’ paced group this week. The route is 20 miles and has just a couple of small ‘bumps’. This group rides at the pace of the slowest rider so should be good for all abilities.

The main ride is going a different route (28 miles) and likely to split again in to two teams : the ’13 mph average’ group and the ‘fast lot’. At the time of writing this, we don’t yet have a pre-ordained leader for the main group. If you fancy being the lead, please let yourself be known at the start of the ride. If you can’t lead us this week but are able to offer your services in the future, please use the contact form on the website to put yourself forward and we will create a rota.

As always, we meet from 9:50am and depart at 10:00am from the Rose and Crown, Ivinghoe.

Sarah’s Steady paced Ride – 20 miles

The rest of us Ride – 28 miles

Meet at 10 am outside the Rose and Crown for more tea, cake and adventures. Very gentle pace, walking up hills is totally acceptable.

See you there.

First up, a big thank you to everyone who came out with us last week. We had one of our biggest crowds for a long time with almost 30 riders participating.

One of the things that led to such a great ride last weekend was the ‘relaxed paced’ group led by Dave Bembridge. We are blessed again this week as Dave is going to lead out another ride of similar pace and length. We don’t have full details of his route yet but we believe that it will head towards Wing, round to Whitchurch, Weedon, Wingrave, Long Marston and Marsworth before returning to the Rose and Crown.

The “13 mph” group will follow the route detailed below.

The Route 

While the forecast isn’t set to be as wonderful as today was, it does look to be dry and we should see that big yellow thing in the sky for at least some of the ride. As always, we meet at the Rose and Crown from 9:50am with a view to heading off at 10am.

One BLACKBURN MAMMOTH pump found on Vicarage Lane, Ivinghoe if anyone has lost it please let us know by email.

Happy Birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Nicholas Lyndhurst*
Happy birthday to you…..

Oooh! Birthday cake! Must we?  I think we should…..

So, 10am, The Rose & Crown.

*Nicholas Lyndhurst was chosen as the star of this post owing to the number of Daves the Velos have amongst their number & Trigger’s insistence that Rodney’s name was actually Dave. (Only Fools & Bicycles – sorry, Horses).

Tenuous? Yep, like Velos & Athletes….

These two chaps that we spotted near Wing last week were riding a very interesting tandem – it had mountain bike tyres ! Well done lads.

Quiz Night this Sunday evening at the Grand Junction Arms in Bulbourne.

Please join us at The Grand Junction Arms this Sunday evening at 8pm to test your brains and have some fun whilst fundraising for Action Medical Research. 7pm for 8pm (curry served between these times). If you cant make it please pop along for dinner this week when Mick is kindly donating money from the sale of Cheesecake to AMR 🙂

Shorts & Tee-shirts at last ?

Our thanks this week goes out to Jayne for sending in a suggested route to Dunstable and back. We always enjoy riding new routes so please feel free to send them in via the contact form on the website.
While not scorchio, the forecast is for warm weather so time to breakout the shorts (and rain jacket as there is still a 10% chance of rain). The main group this week will be sticking to a 13 mph average. As always, we meet at 9:50am outside the Rose & Crown.

The Route

Not that the tea ride needs any excuse for cake!

Key components of pbeemai are:-

Water – thrown at anyone and everyone – 90% probablility of rain so that’s sorted

Animals – usually set free – most commonly fish, crabs, eels & tortoises – keep your eyes peeled for unusual slow moving obstructions

Flowers – well finally Spring is springing…

Beauty pageant – the usual Velos’ role call should take care of that

Music & Dance – traditional lumvong – circle dancing – we can watch our extra-circular wheels go round and invite the musical amongst us to do the accompanying. That should tick that one off.

Sand – bit more tricky, but in the absence of cake, tea riders have been known to partake of other food. We could always claim “sand-witch” got lost in translation…

Role call will be 10am at the Rose & Crown.
Come on.  You know you want to…

Laotian Pbeemai lasts form 13 – 15 April every year. The 13th is the last day of the old year, the 14th a “non-day” – neither old or new year, and 15th, the first day of the New Year.

The weather forecast for Sunday predicts a blistering 8 Degrees Celsius so in celebration we are planning on doing one of Mr Thompson’s training rides to Great Horwood. It’s almost 40 miles in total but anyone who fancies a shorter ride can turn back at Stewkley.

As usual, we meet from 9:50am at the Rose and Crown.

The Route 

P.S. We would like to wish everyone who is riding the Basin to Brownlow charity canal path ride tomorrow the best of luck. The route is an impressive 50 miles all in which is no mean feat. If you aren’t riding you can still donate to a very worthy cause whilst showing your support for our Velo Regulars in their quest.

10 am outside the Rose and Crown for 15 or so gentle miles of cycling with a tea stop half way and another tea/ beer stop at the end. What a perfect Saturday morning. All welcome. See you there.

Sally