Masters lead out ride

Come and join us for a tuesday club ride to commemorate the resurgence of the club we know and love today, retracing the route of the first official Belper BC social ride with some of those original riders this will be a social paced group to suit all abilitys the same as any other tuesday, and back to the fishermans rest for rehydration.

Here is a short back story of how we got to where we are today:

From the very start sometime in 1972 Belper BC was a Racing Club and was very successful with help from Sponsors Thorntons . Names including Derrick Woodings, Mike Allan, Pete Spencer, Mark Storer, Jonathan Marshall, Simon Parkin, Carl Owen and Jonathan Greenhill were prolific winners. But when the Sponsorship from Thorntons was withdrawn many of the best riders moved away and Club interest dwindled and so did membership. Fast forward to around 2010 and the Club was still active and was financially stable but had only 32 male members and no Ladies . It ran two Open Events, a 25 mIle TT and a Cyclo Cross but only one Club Ride which was affectionately called the Sunday 9:15 from Ambergate. This ride was a multi Club event and was used as a fast training ride or a replacement for riders who didn't have an event that day. Routes with any Gravel were avoided and the group was ofen 20 riders strong, Average Pace going out to the cafe was 20mph or EVENS as it was called then and coming back was a full on Road Race with Derrick and Bill Cotton tucked in at the back. Unfortunately it was well known that the group waited for nobody so attracting new members just did not happen SO, at the AGM in February 2013 we had 6 attendees all of whom were Committee Members and all of them agreed that the time had come to become a Social Club. It was also Minuted and agreed that Derrick Woodings and Bill Cotton would be responsible for starting and promoting this Section of the Club. Derrick and Bill worked out later that they were picked because they were the slowest members in the Club. So Finally on the first Saturday of June 2013 to the start of the Saturday Social Ride and the RESURGENCE of Belper BC where everyone was welcome and ABSOLUTELY NO-ONE GETS LEFT BEHIND. The event was publicized t in the local paper and selected what we thought then was a simple and easy ride . But on the day, only one rider turned up , a tall somewhat overweight guy called Malcolm Shakespeare (Shakey to his friends) with a shiny bike turned up and we set off from the Triangle up the road to Belper Lane Ends and on to Middleton Top. To say he struggled would be an understatement but we took 3 hours to do 24 miles. To his credit, he came back the following Saturday and the following week Kriz Plumley joined , then Rob Hunt and Ash and so it went on and within the first 12 months Cheryl and Lisa joined and Shakey lost 10kg. The Club is still growing. So when we were looking for the Official date when BBC was formed to Celebrate the 50th Anniversary and we couldn't find it we all decided that we would use the date of its Resurgence i.e. The first Saturday in June.

Please download the route:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/course/97692270