Category: Wenvoe Wheelers

WENVOE WHEELERS

Welsh Cycling Club of the Year

Well what a year we have had so far! On Saturday 12th October Wenvoe Wheelers won the Welsh Cycling ‘Club of the Year’. To say we are delighted would be an understatement.

Welsh Cycling and British Cycling have, over the last few years focussed a great deal of energy into getting children into cycling, a very worthwhile aim but our club, as a road cycling club felt from the outset that we simply didn’t have the expertise, time, location or capability to offer road cycling to children. We are not an off-road club (which is what many other cycling clubs for kids do offer) and although many of our members do cycle off-road, we felt we could not offer this to youngsters.

Whilst we are open to anyone over 16 (accompanied on the road) when you look at our membership, we are probably at the other end of the spectrum, age wise! What we do is get adults into cycling and we have been very successful at it. So successful that we recently passed our 200th member mark.

We are first and foremost a social cycling club and although we have quite a number of speedy riders, the main part of our membership comprises a bunch of people who just want to ride, chat and eat cake, taking in the fresh air and scenery. Keeping fit obviously goes hand in hand with cycling but it is not just physical fitness that we all benefit from. You cannot go far these days without hearing about mental illness and how good getting out into the fresh air and taking some exercise is if you are struggling with those sorts of problems, especially with a group of like minded people. And of course, children take their cue from what they see the adults in their lives do. So if they see their parents, grandparents and their friends getting out on their bikes, it surely passes a positive message to the kids that cycling is a ‘good thing’.

We knew that our rivals offered cycling opportunities for kids and we knew that this was a strong point in the eyes of Welsh Cycling so we were a bit nervous about our chances of winning but we did! For a club that has only been in existence for 3 ½ years we think we have done pretty good.

The awards dinner was quite a smart ‘do’ held at the Cricket Academy in Sophia Gardens and so it was that a group of unusually smart cyclists turned up in their best clobber (no lycra allowed) for the evening. We had decreed that the men should wear DJ’s and real bow ties – cue much anguish on how to tie a real bow tie. Some of them couldn’t even figure it out from a You Tube tutorial but luckily one of us ladies came to the rescue. Our slate plaque was presented by Dot Davies (Wimbledot to some of you) and we hope to display it in the village, possibly in the pub.

One of the things which we think impressed the judges was our Valeothon event which started and finished in Wenvoe on the last Sunday in June. If you happened to be up and about at 8 am that Sunday you would have been amazed to see so many cyclists in the village. We had riders from all over the Vale and further afield taking part and the feedback we had was so good, we are doing it again next year. Personally, I think the participants gave us their vote of approval because of the Welsh cakes we supplied for the feed stations. Everyone loved them! We had the racing snakes doing the 80 mile route back in about 4 hours and at the other end of the scale we had the 40 milers pootling along at their own more leisurely pace. It was a fantastic day, helped by good weather (which seems a distant memory as I write this) but what really made it work was all the planning and hard work which went into it in the months leading up to it.

We have also run a second very successful ladies ride which happened in September – again in glorious weather (clearly we have a hotline to the weather gods). We will shortly start our winter programme of turbo in the village hall and watt bike sessions in a gym and next year look forward to our club trip to Mallorca. So if you fancy getting out on your bike, get in touch on facebook or find us at British Cycling

 

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I expect the keen eyed residents of Wenvoe have spotted a growing number of cyclists in the village these last few summers. That is not such a surprise when we have a cycle route passing through the village but we also have our own cycling club, right here in Wenvoe. It was quite a surprise to me to find that somehow, a cycling club had appeared, quite literally on my doorstep. What might be a surprise to most Wenvoe residents though, is that the club has members from all over Cardiff, Barry, Penarth and the Vale of Glamorgan. We also have a few actual Wenvoe residents in our membership too.

I think you probably want to know why it is called the Wenvoe Wheelers, why and how did it start here. Well obviously it started after a few pints in the pub! What was needed was a social cycling club, open to all comers, those with plenty of cycling experience and those with none at all. Wenvoe seemed like a great place to base such a club with easy access to the Vale for lots of rides and accessible from Cardiff, Barry and Penarth.

Well, that was three years ago, and by the time you read this we will have had our third anniversary, with coffee and cake at our Sponsor’s HQ (Pedalcover) on our social ride on 6th April. We have come quite a long way in three years, it seems to me. We started off as a group simply co-ordinating our rides on Facebook and we still run our activities on Facebook. However, membership is managed through British Cycling and we encourage everyone to become members as you will then have insurance as well as access to a lot of helpful information, courses and events. I and 9 others have just done our Level 1 Ride Leader Qualification with British Cycling which allows us to lead rides of around 30 miles or so for anyone who joins one of our intro rides or Saturday Social rides. Need I add that all rides include a cake and coffee stop? No, I didn’t think so.

We have just come through a winter of Watt bike sessions on a Monday night at Ufit gym and turbo sessions in Wenvoe Village Hall on Thursdays. Who knew that turbo with a group could be such fun or that it was possible to sweat that much on a Watt bike? By the time you read this our members will have had a club trip to Mallorca, and ridden in several cycling events called ‘sportives’. We have a cycle trip to Gloucester over two days planned for the summer – including the Gospel pass, which to be frank, I am a little worried about as it is ridiculously steep.

We have our very own cycling event organised for Sunday 30th June which we are very excited about and want to make sure it goes off without a hitch as far as possible. We hope to have around 200 riders setting off from Station Road West from 7 am and returning from 12 noon, ish – depending on how quick the racing snakes are. We will have registration in the Community Centre and bag drops there, together with use of the toilets in the Village Hall before the riders set off. We will also have a bike repair tent from a local charity (Spokes in

Penarth) and a coffee wagon (we hope).

The 80 mile route will take the riders up through the valleys and up over the Bwlch mountain then down towards Cowbridge for refuelling before coming back to Wenvoe. There is also a 40 mile route which is perfectly do-able for anyone even if you don’t have a road bike. We have got masses of Welsh cakes at our feed stops and bananas and water as well.

We would love to see Wenvoe village support this event, which, in the absence of the Velothon this year we have rather cheekily called, the Valeothon! Fingers crossed it will go off alright on the day as it is quite a big event for us.

We are also in with a shout of being Welsh Cycling club of the year, though we won’t find out until later this year whether we have won, so we will keep you posted about that.

Many of our rides start from Wenvoe, usually at the Wenvoe Arms with Jen and Digby kindly allowing us to use their car park to set off from and of course you will often find us enjoying a post-ride beer especially on a sunny day.

Everyone is welcome to join us. Please come along for one of our intro rides on the first Saturday of each month, see if you like it. You will need a road bike or at least a bike that is comfortable on a road, not a mountain bike which are really hard work on the road. It’s a great way to keep fit and get out and about to see the beautiful Vale of Glamorgan. I really had no idea there were so many pretty lanes and villages right on my doorstep. I also had no idea how lovely it is to be cycling along and chatting with people as you do. It really is a great way to de-stress and see the countryside. If you are interested, you can find us on Facebook by searching for Wenvoe Wheelers or alternatively searching the internet for Wenvoe Wheelers which will take you to our club on British Cycling.

 

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