Wigmore Cycling Club

Congratulations to Joshua Aiken and Debbie Percival on their winning rides in the annual 49th Wigmore CC open hill climb.

Here are the full results: https://wigmorecyclingclub.org.uk/2024-hollingbourne-hill-climb/

A dry day with a cold wind resulted in times that were generally slightly slower than those in the warmth of last year. Joshua took his third victory in open hill climb, having won all three in which he has competed. By finishing second Ewan added yet another top three placing in the event, whilst James, the course record holder, was less than a second behind in third and took the over 40s victory in the process. Joshua also led Elevate RT to their first team victory on Hollingbourne Hill.

Riding the event for her 20th time multiple winner of the Wigmore CC hill climb event Debbie added yet another victory to take her haul to nine and was just two seconds away from taking the vets 60 prize.

Junior prize was taken by Charles Langford. Having won the juvenile category last year Charles was one of the few riders to be quicker this year and placed 7th overall.

Arguably the ride of the event belonged to 14 year old Finley Andrews with a time comfortably under 4 minutes to finish 20th overall.

In his final year in the over 50s category Keith Walker once again took the award for the over 50s while Steve Penney also repeated last year’s achievement by taking the over 60s prize.

The event doubles as the club hill climb championship for both Medway VC and Maidstone based club San Fairy Ann, Mike Stanley now being this year’s Medway VC champion whilst the SFA result was notably close with Martin Kober taking the crown by 0.5s from John Cockrill.

Wigmore CC once again extend their thanks to the Boyd family for the use of the farm buildings at the top of Hollingbourne Hill. The area makes a great HQ for both parking and presenting the rewards, the positive comments received by Wigmore CC will be passed on.

Finally, a big thank you to all the volunteers who ensured that not only was the event safe and issue-free. There was a very impressive display of cakes!

Start timekeeper: Paul Buckley
Finish timekeeper: David Abbotts
Recorders, runners & results board on the day: Julien Barton, Kate Savage, Jamie Harris
Results board preparation: Martin Trice
Awarder of prizes: Anthony Bee
Pusher off: Phil Appleby
Signing in/out: Anthony Bee
Start area: Kevin Ford
Marshals (hill & parking): Richard Masters, David Smith
Tea and cakes: Philbrook family
Overall coordinator: Robert Philbrook
Start and results sheets: Keith Walker

Apologies to anyone missed

And of course thanks you to all the riders for making the 49th Wigmore CC Hill Climb another success, we look forward to seeing you plus your club mates next year for our 50th open hill climb!

Keith Walker

I knew Mo from the 1950s when we were both young members of the Wigmore CC, and he became a life-long friend. He was a very good time trialist, roadman and track rider, and also a very good clubman. He also did well at running, before coming back to cycling later.

One of his first trophies was the Wigmore Junior Massed Start (Road Race) Champion’s Cup awarded to him in 1956. Two years later he won the club’s 12 Hour Challenge Trophy with 233.645 miles in the KCA ‘12’ (5th place).

The next year Mo was riding for the Sittingbourne CC and in 1960, when I was on national service, he was in a very strong Sittingbourne team with Terry Hulme and Brian Hampton. They won many team awards, and Mo was KCA Senior Best All Rounder. It was his best season of racing. He won the KCA ‘100’ with 4.18.39, the fastest time on the trophy then and he won it by nearly 9 minutes. But he did a faster ‘100’ that year, 4.14.41, I am not sure of the course, and he gained a good placing in the BBAR.

In that year Mo won the Folkestone ‘25’ with 59.23, I think at Chilham. He also won the Medway Wheelers Roy Enfield Memorial ‘50’ with 2.2.38, Terry Hulme was second and Brian Hampton third counter with 2.09.07, another team win. In third place was Ken Craven, Crescent Wheelers with 2.3.29, Ken was hardly ever beaten when he raced in Kent. He was a good friend of the Wigmore. When racing in Kent he and Roy Savery used to stay with Pete Milner at his home in Bredhurst. They often joined the Wigmore club runs when they were racing down this way or sometimes they just rode down from East London to go on our runs.

In 1963 Mo came back to the Wigmore. He won the Len Chambers 25 Mile Cup in 1963 (1:00:01), 1965 (1:00:47) and 1966 (58:11), the R A Burns 50 Mile Cup in 1963, 1965 and 1966, and the Fairyland 100 Cup in 1965 and 1966. He was the winner of the B.A.R. (Best All-Rounder) Cup – Senior in 1963, 1965 and 1966. He also set place-to-place solo and tandem records for the Gillingham (Will Adams Memorial) to Canterbury and back.

In 1971 the Wigmore won the KCA BAR team. Our team was John Booty, Roger Travers and Mo. He recorded 222.683 miles in the ‘12’. The next year Mo was selected to ride for the South East District in the National 100 kilometres 4up Championship. The other team members were Dave Bedford, John Booty and Rod Kennison. They finished 4th , their time was 2.21.17. The Hounslow and District were winners, 2.07.52.

Mo did many road and circuit races, including Brands Hatch, and also track racing, but he broke a collar bone in a grass track race. After 1972 Mo stopped racing and began running. In a marathon he did a time of 2.42, showing he always had great stamina.

In his 50s Mo returned to cycling. He became a member of the VTTA. He didn’t race any more, but he did a lot of long rides still. He went to Wednesday Wobblers and he won the Wigmore Tourist Shield (for a noteworthy tour, audax or sportive ride) in 2008, 2009 and 2010.

Mo passed away on 4 December 2023 after a long illness. I wish to offer my deepest condolences to his family and friends, especially his daughter Andrea and son Steve on losing their father and also their mother Shirley, who passed away on 24 August. They lost both their parents less than four months apart.

Clin Maisey, Wigmore CC.

Very sadly we have had to cancel the Wigmore CC Bill Philbrook Memorial this year due to multiple roadworks on the course, poor road surfaces and a very low number of entries.
I suppose after 36 years of uninterrupted promotions we have been lucky and it had to happen at some time.
As a result we will be moving next year’s 25 from our traditional venue Chilham to an alternative course hoping for better luck and bumper entries!
Thank you  to all who did enter this year and apologies for not being able to run the event as planned.

1. 8Finally “Please support your local events” enjoy the ride and stay safe! ‍♀️

The event will be held at the Wigmore and District Smallholders (2 Springvale, Gillingham ME8 0JG) where the club was founded way back in 1948.

There will be hot food served at 6pm.

We also have a very special guest speaker, Ian Field (pictured on the top step in his British Champions jersey). Ian is now a cyclocross coach at Veld Coaching https://www.veldcoaching.com/ , but is the former FIVE times winner of the British National Cyclocross Championships at U23 and Senior level and raced cyclocross professionally in Belgium for many, many years. Not only that, but he’s also a local lad from Ashford!

Tickets for the event cost £25 for adults and £12.50 for children.

You can book your place by filling out this simple form:

https://forms.gle/RmXP6vtx1wLpp4Me8 – don’t forget to hit the “submit” button after you’ve filled in all the details.

Tickets must be purchase by 1st November 2023.

It only takes a minute. Once you’ve hit the submit button, you’ll get a link to pay sent to the mobile phone number you specify in the form.

Food options are:

Main course – Breast of chicken or vegetarian lasagne

Dessert – Raspberry and white chcolate, or Chocolate cheesecake

…and you specify these in the form.

Location: Hollingbourne Hill, Sittingbourne

Date: Sunday, 24th September 2023, 10:30am

Entry to our traditional Hill Climb Event up the ever challenging Hollingbourne Hill has been extended by a couple of days, and will close on SUNDAY 17th September.

Entry is just £12.50, with a host of cash prizes on offer (including age categories, not just the fastest).

Entry is on the Cycling Time Trials website HERE:

https://www.cyclingtimetrials.org.uk/race-details/25356

If you have any questions or queries, or are available to help out on the day; please hit reply to this email, or drop the organiser a message at events@wcc.bike

So the 5th iteration of our club winter Zwift League has come to an end. Points have been totted up and the final results are in. First of all I’d like to thank you all for logging on each week to race and making the league a success.

Go-Ride

🏆 Jude Tippins
🥈 Luke Smeeton
🥉 Oliver Young

Adults

🏆 Julien Barton
🥈 Steve Penny
🥉 Jamie Harris

Full league tables – https://wigmorecyclingclub.org.uk/2023-2/2023-zwift-league-tables/

All the results of the Go-ride races are here: https://wigmorecyclingclub.org.uk/2023-2/2023-zwift-league-go-ride-results/

All the results of the adult races are here: https://wigmorecyclingclub.org.uk/2023-2/2023-zwift-league-go-ride-results/

Stats for the season

22 Rounds✅

2,200+ Miles✅

4 Go-Ride Members✅

15 Adult WCC Members✅

13 Guest Riders✅

12 Different Race Winners🥇