It's finally HOME!
After 9 years in the barren wastelands of the A25/2, Team Sherwood rode to a comfortable victory and turned round its fortunes.
In tough conditions, the riders produced the following results of which the first 5 fastest counted.
Thomas Foreman 56:00 PB by 2 minutes
Giles White 59:09
Jez Willows 59:59 PB by 2 minutes 39 seconds
Chris Draper 1:00:04
Paul Jones 1:02:51
Gary Kondor 1:04:48
Roger Widdowson 1:06:29 PB by 2 minutes 22 seconds
Paul Ward 1:11:11
Howard Clark DNF
I think it's fair to say given some of the comments that Mapperley have been known to pass over recent years that we gave them just deserts. Some would argue perhaps that they didn't have their main man in the event. Despite this, we still took 4:58:03 to cover the aggregate 125 miles compared to their effort of 5:02:40 some 4 minutes 37 seconds in arrears.
Whichever way you look at it, we were going to win today and Tom's ride, in particular, was nothing short of astounding being only 29 seconds behind Neal Parkin!
Truly an incredible ride but this takes a team effort and everyone in the winning mix has remained focussed despite the season having finished 4 weeks ago.
Also, Paul Jones damaged his knee at work last week. I damaged my knee in Derbyshire 4 weeks ago.
Analysing the information, if Garry Lee (their slowest rider) had DNF'd and Pete Phillips (their overall slowest) had have taken a place in their team and Tom Foreman had DNF'd and Gary Kondor taken 5th place, only then would we have lost by 4 seconds.
Rather than me surmising about theoretical whys and wherefores, here's their times so you have revel, sorry I mean, do your own analysis of what could have been.
The losing teams times:-
Steve Barrell - 57:49
Mat Stonley - 58:09
Stephen Long - 1:00:08
Michael Westwell - 1:03:01
Garry Lee - 1:03:33
Pete Phillips - 1:07:40
Hopefully something good will come of this win.
Organisation wise it sadly lacked. One of the Mapperley riders took my number and I collared the rider on the start line. It was only Stephen Long. I told him to go and get his number changed which in hindsight I shouldn't have done and he may well have been DQ'd for taking the wrong number.
Mapperley seem to be going through a 'transient' period. We're not quite sure what's going on. The organiser wasn't actually there so it was left to Paul Arnold and Stephen Plester to do their best and in the circumstances they didn't do too bad. If it was left to Paul Arnold, it would have been run with military precision.
There were two signing on - signing off sheets.
Historically, Sherwood first won the trophy in 1953 and then again in 1955 and then not until 2003 where we had a spate of consecutive wins under Nigel White's command if you like.
ALL HAIL KING TOM!
Here are the times with handicap allowance, handicap time and Acorn Points
Tom Foreman 56:00 Scr 56:00 12
Giles White 59:09 0:50 58:19 9
Jez Willows 59:59 1:40 58:19 8
Chris Draper 1:00:04 1:00 59:04 3
Paul Jones 1:02:51 2:05 1:00:46 2
Gary Kondor 1:04:48 6:40 58:08 5
Roger Widdowson 1:06:29 7:30 58:59 2
Paul Ward 1:11:11 9:10 1:02:01 1
Howard Clark DNF
Tom is Club Champion winning the Albert Sharpe Shield and fastest on handicap, Gary wins the Halford Trophy for the next best on handicap (one rider, one trophy).
Howard went off course, turning left up to Redmile instead of left up Granby Lane. A search party went out to find him!
A pity about the low number of entries. No team from Clarion and only 5 starters from Mapperley (including 2 ex Sherwood recruits.
(I calculated Acorn Points wrong - oops, corrected)
6 Mapperley riders including the 2 ex Sherwood recruits. One of whom left on the basis that we weren't fast enough. #dreamer
Loads of great photos from the Lighthouse.
Tony Jarrow (an old member from the sixties) sent me this:
I took photos of riders in the ANDCC Lighthouse 25 today, including some from Sherwood.
I have uploaded the photos onto the photo website, FLICKR. You can view the photos by going to:
https://www.flickr.com/gp/tonyjarrow/L11u0t
You are free to view, download and print any of the photos (click on a photo for it to appear full size on screen; click on the down-pointing arrow icon under the photo; select a file size and it will download to your computer).
Contact me if you experience any problems.
Hope you have now fully recovered from your fall last year Ed.
Tony Jarrow
I think Roger has been a bit too critical of the Mapperley 's organisation. The official organiser (Shaun) couldn't be there for personal reasons and so Steve and Paul stepping in must have been difficult. They have put on great events many times.
As for someone taking the wrong number, slip-ups like these do happen.
People swapping Clubs have been going on for years. Riders are free to join a Club they are happier with. We are all still bonded by being cyclists and remain friends.
Just keep it as a friendly competitive rivalry!
This is not directed at you, Ed but I will address some of your points. It is more directed at the person from Mapperley who copied my post and lit the touchpaper! This is getting out of hand.
It is taking up too much of my time! I typed a response and slipped and deleted over an hour's worth of thoughts so here I go again and I hope I choose my words as carefully as before though unlikely because I am getting somewhat fed up of this. So here's a more concise version of what I was going to post! A friendly competitive rivalry? That is all it ever is. It seems though that some people within Mapperley want to make it personal. If that's the case, so be it. It's easy to misconstrue the written word and I am perhaps not now giving as much thought to this as I had the previous post I accidentally deleted. Well again. So be it. If people can't act, talk and behave like grown-ups then everyone loses but some have more to lose than others. Let me explain! My post was my own truthful account of what happened on the day. Our times, their times, what could have been and a comment about my concerns in brief. Perhaps I should have spelt out EXACTLY why it lacked organisation wise. So I'll spell out a few things below to give balance to this argument. It is not a personal attack on Mapperley nor its members or replacement organisers and was not intended to be. If any of its members want or choose to take offence at it and take it personally then I'm afraid that's their problem not mine but be aware that your actions may have an effect of your beloved Club.
I am not going to take issue personally with anyone unless they want to take issue with me personally. My conduit is the CTT but I'm going to keep my hand close (so, to the person that copied my initial post and sent it to one of your club mates who is a mate of mine, be very careful how you process this information further because you are just going to land Mapperley not you in hot water. Once you make something personal, it gets personal. I take your specific actions, you know who you are, very personally. This is NOT good! You don't know me. A certain person's reaction, within Mapperley, to my initial celebratory post (which they should not even have access to, to be honest) is to make this personal and about my initial post being antagonistic. Well I'm afaid that wasn't the intention but moving forward I can tell them I am not just going to sit here and take it on the chin when I have done nothing wrong. Shaun Eden was already riding for Born To Bike in March 2019. This is not something that happened last week and if he is not a member of Mapperley then he cannot organise an event. This should have been changed by Mapperley and notified to the CTT in advance as VTTA North Midlands did in the Oct 2018 event which I noted Shaun Eden rode in. They filed documents advising of the organiser change. Mapperley could have done this and, if unsure, the CTT is there to offer support. I know what it is like to organise. No! It's not easy and you get very few supporting you. I had limited support when I did my first Open event. And why would anyone who has given up the job of organising an event want to spend their time supporting the next person in performing the task? They just wouldn't. So I know support is limited. Sherwood is no better in that respect but my events luckily turned out to be a success because of help from Steve Littlewood and all the volunteers that gave up their time to support my events. I would say Mapperley did manage to get marshals coming out of their ears which was quite an achievement. There were 3 at each left turn off the A52! There were a lot of DNS's on Sunday and very few apologies. I actually commented to Paul Arnold that it's just common decency to notify an organiser. He agreed but, of course, thinking more clearly about it now, this is no doubt because Mapperley failed to notify of the organiser change and should rightfully refund all those that were unable to attend maybe because of their administrative error in not sending out the email advising of the start sheet upload. So this raises some questions:-
1) How can a rider properly notify the organiser of their apologies if the organiser is no longer the organiser? Answer: They can't! 2) How can the replacement organiser actually know how to categorise those who DNS'd for the Results Sheets? Answer: They can't
The issue of the two signing-on sheets caused massive confusion. Paul Arnold who I've only met a couple of time, a lovely chap, quietly said to me, "If I'd have been organising it, it would have been done with military precision!" His words not mine and I do not doubt what he said. I forgot to mention that the glossy coloured event pamphlets were a nice touch too. Much better than I could manage. The tea was superb as was the Whisky Marmalade Cake afterwards. The organisation of that side of things was faultless. My initial post may have seemed to be a criticism of the event as a whole. It wasn't my intention if it came across like that. People should cut some slack. This is the problem with the written word. If someone's nature is so serious that they cannot comprehend a sense of humour then things blow up. You only have to look at what happened with a certain former Sherwood member who took offence instead of seeing a comment and taking it on face value instead of with a pinch of salt. The non-existence of the Emergency Contact Details was a very valid case in point. There was a missing rider who could have been knocked off and lying dead or, worse, seriously injured in the road and they did not have any contact details. It was only because I was able to check my archived events for the rider and get them the number of the riders' wife. It could just as easily have been another rider whose number I didn't have. A member of theirs, had a serious accident in 2017, they should realise how important this is. Mapperley did not even have the login for their Admin panel on the CTT website.
I realise they'd been left in a quandry perhaps but, I am sorry, they've had MONTHS to resolve that. It is inexcusable. If the outcome had have been worse, then they could have been seriously regretting your inactions. I hope they understand the gravity of that point moving forward as it is very important to get these things right. I am sure there was a whole host of other points I addressed in my previous post I accidentally deleted but I'm going to leave it at that for now and trust those at Mapperley who take issue with my comments will contact me personally so I can put my points across a little more clearly. So I ask anyone, have I really been too critical given the facts? I'm happy to debate this further with anyone who thinks my post was too critical.
This is a problem with "social media" in that written words can be misconstrued in a way that the writer did not intend. I avoid joining things like Facebook for this reason (as well as being a dinosaur!).
Remember that the Forum can be viewed by anybody. Only registered users can post comments.
Think carefully before posting opinions - could these upset anyone?
I couldn’t agree more. "Think carefully before posting opinions - could these upset anyone?" Of course, someone is always going to get upset whatever you do. You cannot mollycoddle people and worry about if you are going to upset someone every time you write something. The crux of the issue is whether this is intention to cause upset and that was not the intention of my initial post.
This is why I reviewed what I’d written, given consideration to what could possibly have been misconstrued and now expanded on it to provide some clarity for those who have taken offence at the fact that the organisation lacked essential requirements for the safety of all riders primarily in the event of an accident.
Is it it a surprise that I have reacted in the way I have when friends from other clubs came up to me saying that they were thinking of disqualifying me for a mistake one of their own riders made? Of course, given the fact I’d just finished it was only the fact that they were doing the awards ceremony that I was distracted from being incensed from the suggestion momentarily And didn’t tackle them there and then.
I also decided to throw down the gauntlet to those that are happy to hide behind the keyboard and start Chinese whispers. Hopefully someone fron Mapperley will have the common decency to engage me in conversation rather than allow this to fester. It’s in their interests but to be brutally honest, as I always am, my patience has worn thin already.
I’m not one to suffer fools gladly I’m afraid.
I’m hoping that they’re not now expecting this to just go away because it won’t. To me, this is unsettled until they offer an explanation and stop trying to vilify me.
Well done to the team. Who had that trophy last? It looks a bit grimy as well as bent. Did they polish it before bringing it to the race? I always did! Can it be taken for repair?
Mapperley had it last, but it fell off the base onto the floor when one of our riders handled it!
I think we'll have to look at a bit of renovation.