The Festival Road Club, based in Surrey, caters for all aspects of cycling, particularly Road Racing, Time Trialling and Track and is always happy to see new faces.
If you are interested in joining the Festival RC, please click here or the "Join Here" link on the left hand bar to contact us for further information.

Last weekend saw very successful rides for Barry and Colin McDermott. Firstly, in the Southern Counties CU 10 Mile TT which incorporated the Festival RC 10 Mile Championship, Barry scorched round in 22:41 to notch 12th overall and win the Club championship ahead of Mark Bixley riding under the club's banner for the first time in many years, who finished in 23:26.

The following day Colin rode the Hounslow and District Wheelers 100 Mile TT on the Bentley course. With an excellent performance that netted him 5th place overall, he managed to squeeze under the 4 hour barrier to register 3:59:51 which is a new Personal Best and a Club record.

Well done to both of them.

May '09

Racing update

Festival riders have been busy on the race circuit in the last few weeks. The fifth event of the LVRC MSTINA series was held in Haslemere at the weekend and netted a fourth place in the A category for Colin McDermott and sixth place in the C category for Colin Bateman. These results keep the boys well up in the overall series placings - Colin B now leading the C cat series and Colin M in third place in the A cats. So well done to the pair of them.
On the Time Trial front, Barry McDermott has been back in action with a couple of solid performances in the recent 25 mile TTs on the Crawley course and over at Bentley, both Mick Gowan and John Froud have been riding strongly. In difficult windy conditions in the Farnham RC event, Mick registered 24.10 and John 25.12. I managed to capture the boys in action:

April '09

Another win for Colin

Colin McDermott has been building on his recent form to clinch another win on the road in the LVRC Epsom Spring Classic held on the Henfold Hill circuit. After clipping away with a couple of other riders less than halfway though the race, the group maintained their gap and Colin sprinted away to the win. Following a third place in the series prologue Time Trial, Colin now holds joint first place overall in the MSTINA Jersey competition.

April '09

The Festival RC(through the efforts of Colin McDermott and Colin Bateman) promoted the early Surrey League event on the Kirdford circuit. Although I haven't got a race review, I have posted the full result on the 2009 Results page or you can click here.

With the season now rapidly gaining momentum, Festival members will be in action once again - and we'll be following their progress.
Good luck to everyone for the forthcoming season.

Hell of a club run - report by Trevor Keenan

Three members of the Festival took part in the Catford CC's "Hell of the Ashdown" Sportive on the 1st Feb. Colin McDermott, James Graham and myself met up for the start in Biggin Hill in sub zero temperatures. The 110km route through Kent towards the Ashdown Forest was due to take in some of the biggest climbs in the South East and through some stunning scenery.
With a biting wind at our backs, we soon warmed up with the climb of Cudham Hill within the first couple of miles. This 1 in 4 leg breaker set the tone of the day and was followed by some tricky descending over the odd patch of ice and onto the long, long climb of Toy's Hill. Not on a great day myself, I was already deep in the pain cave as Colin and James, obviously in good form, crept away by the summit. We then headed through Edenbridge, Lingfield and onto the "Hell" itself - Kidds Hill or "The Wall" as it's known to those that have climbed it. This murderously long tough ascent (complete with photographers to capture our pain) saw us reach the top where after a quick stop at the half way timing point, we headed back north towards the finish.
However, more drama was to come as the snow flurries started and led to distinctly difficult riding conditions as it began settling very quickly. To compound matters further, a hard impact to a sunken drain cover resulted in a loud crack which proved to be my handlebars (ally not carbon !) cracking either side of the stem clamp. Being in the middle of nowhere in heavy snow didn't give us too many options so we cut the speed down to try and finish the final 20 miles without any further stress on the bars. Colin's rear mech started to freeze up at one point too, which meant that the remaining monster climbs of Groombridge Hill, Ide Hill and Star Hill were almost the least of our worries!
As the weather improved again, and with fatigue starting to kick in, we were all grateful to finish in bright but nevertheless still freezing conditions.
All in all, a particularly tough, but well organised ride, so thanks are due to the Catford CC for their efforts in staging it.