Tadworth Court London to Canterbury Cycle Challenge 15th Sept

[Graeme Smith]

If I have to have a nickname, unrelated to signs, Smudge will do.

[Julian Barker [Giuliano] USR 10]

Perfect! And the signs were good also!

[STEM]

Smudge it is

[Graeme Smith]

That's what it was in my Army Days!

[Johnj]

I seem to have a tradition of posting last on various forums, so this should be no surprise to some people.  When got home on Sunday I was exhausted and didn’t wake up until it was time to go to work on Monday.

First off my thanks to the USR’s that stepped up on Sunday, worked very hard and put on such a great show of what we can do.

There was such a lot happening on the day, coupled with the behind the scenes work with the ride organisers beforehand that I think I’d find it hard to put my thoughts in readable form so I’ll use bullet points instead:

•   Graeme leaving home at 05:30 and riding up from Southampton on his own (without diminishing the efforts of the other USRs) is worthy of a special mention
•   The R/C flying camera platform that gave Stem “camera envy” at the start
•   Incidents and ride progress being fed back to meâ€"  and thus the organisers â€" before the last set of riders and I had left Greenwich Park
•   The team making use of text messages to both put in requests for assistance and to also keep me informed of how the ride was unfolding ahead of me. I sent 64 text messages and received 32.
•   The cyclists. What a good natured bunch and really appreciative of our efforts as evidenced by a group photo request at the end of the day from a young couple we’d helped.
•    The route was interesting with an varied assortment of mud, grass and stones in the middle of a lot of deserted roads
•   My two “tank slappers” on the mud and I haven’t even got a tank!
•   Wondering how the other USR’s were managing to mix with cyclists on roads that were deserted for me as Sweeper but were still challenging in the extreme!
•   Did I say Deserted roads! Memorable encounters were with; a tractor crossing the road from one field to another; Lots of horses and an ambulance on  “Blues but no two’s” coming at me from around a blind bend doing @40mph
•   The self-adhesive bike signs created by Graeme â€" thanks for the tea as well!
•   More tea
•   Requests to double back to look for “lost sheep”
•   Being last one back and missing the food
•   The ride organisation by Cycling Support Services
•   Losing you lot on the M2 and deciding to take the link road down to the M20 thus avoiding the Medway Bridge.

As usual, sitting in the background and making things happen, my thanks to Pen for her efforts.


A great day, 255 cyclists delivered to Canterbury and valuable lessons learnt.

Can I ask Graeme, Julian, Paul, Steve and Tim to give me a few good points and a few bad points both for us and for when I speak to CSS later in the week when have a debrief session.

[Johnj]

I got this email from Les at Cycling Support Services

Hi John,

Thank you so much for your and your team's hard work on Sunday and your input to the planning of the event.  I hope you had a good trip back.

There were no big incidents or accidents and nearly everyone seemed to enjoy the challenge. timing was good, and having the motorcycle patrols was most helpful.

It would be good to get your feedback so we can debrief with Lauren later, so please let me have any comments.

Thanks again,