CTC Herts DA St Albans & Hatfield Section.

Annual Report 2007.

Over the year the section continued to organise rides on Wednesday evenings, our 'Night Owls' rides, and longer Sundays rides.

The evening rides start in St Albans every Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. & take various routes of about 15 miles, finishing at a pub, and are organised by Steve Brazier. Only three rides were cancelled due to the weather, and attendance is usually about six with a maximum of eleven. After last year's trophy for most attendance was won outright by Phil Slade, a replacement has been crafted & will be presented at the evening riders' annual dinner on 14th November.

Many thanks to the group of people who have lead our 52 Sunday rides throughout the year. We try to have different leaders each week who pick their own routes and stops. This helps to create variety in our destinations and leaders have been ingenious in coming up with new routes. They have included car-assisted trips into further flung areas. Quite a few established refreshment stops have closed over the year and we have been trying a number of new ones. We have had 45 different people coming along to these rides over the year (about the same as last year), but they didn't all attend at once. The unusually wet summer affected participation but only one event was called off because of the weather. The results for the Hargreaves Trophy, which is awarded for the most miles covered on the Sunday rides, have been very close this year. But the winner is Peter Ridhalgh, many congratulations to him!

The other results for this trophy (leaving off those with less than 10 points) are:

A well attended, successful long Easter weekend away based at Castle Hedingham was organised by Judy Alfrey.

A number of regular riders, together with cyclists from St Albans Forty Plus, enjoyed a trip to western France organised by Anne Jarman.

Rona Wightman organised 'Five miles to fabulous' - two introductory cycle rides for novice female cyclists to coincide with Bike Week.

Members have been active over the year in overseas touring, either travelling with CTC Holidays or under their arrangements. Europe remains the most popular, but the Far East has also featured.

Many thanks to Ian Smith who has continued in his role as web master. There is no doubt, from the comments of new riders who come along, that the web continues to be our most effective way of communicating our activities to the outside world.

Richard Stubbs, 29 Oct 2007

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