© CTC Wessex Member Group of the Cyclists’ Touring Club
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CTC WESSEX
History &
Administration
History &
Administration
in 2007. There have been only three organisers for this, Audax UK’s longest serving continuous event. I organised up to the year 1999 and then passed over to Annemarie Manley. In 2007, Peter Loakes took over the baton and the event is still in good hands. Over so many years there have been almost too many stories to be told, but one deserves particular recognition. In 1981, for the fourth event, I had contact with a group of French cyclists and had visited them. It was agreed that they would come to Dorset and ride in the Dorset Coast 200km. A good group duly arrived and enjoyed a catered lunch and a slide show given by Neville Chanin, however, to our collective horror we awoke the next morning to a cloth of snow right across Dorset. The reputation of the “Coast” was made - we were no longer a soft southern county. The French party were mortified and turned, understandably, at Weymouth for the ferry and home, but 69 riders of the main field completed against all odds.
At this time the Bournemouth section gained some new younger members and the West Dorsets too and relationships between them were pulled together by the new culture of running “open” Audax style events which involved both sections. At that time Ray Haswell organised a 300km “Breakfast Brevet” from Christchurch to Wiltshire and back in a big loop, and John Burrows a 400km which circled the New Forest and beyond. I added to this with the 600km “Wessex Star” based on Salisbury Youth Hostel through the good agencies of Mick Latimer who was both warden and Wessex member. The Wessex DA gained a deserved reputation for their Audax events at this time, which persists to this day due to the addition of the “Dorset Coastlet 100km”, Shawn Shaw’s infamous “Hardboiled 300km”, Frank Moorhouse’s “Dorset Delight 200km”, Peter Loakes’ “Dorset Downs 100km”, “Devon and Dorset Downs 300km” and Peter Davenport’s highly successful “Gridiron 100km”. It is a tribute to these events that they still run today in 2007, with the “Downs” just celebrating its 20th year and the “Gridiron” in its 15th and attracting over 500 entries. For the dedicated headbangers who enjoy loads of climbing, Shawn Shaw’s “Hardboiled 300km” was joined by the “Porkers 400km” and the “Hellfire 600km” to form the Wessex series of events. These ran for many years as open events and are at the time of writing offered as “Permanent” events within the structure of Audax UK.
For the off-roaders, Ken Reed’s “Dorset Dirt” is a hardy perennial of 15 years antiquity. Now we also have a major series of events in the New Forest organised by John Ward. Wessex long-distance cycling events rightly bring us credit and continue with great vigour.
NEWSLETTER AND WEBSITE: The Bournemouth, Salisbury and West Dorset Sections have published a quarterly newsletter independently for the last 25 years, each adapting from typewriter to computer and desk-top publishing and keeping pace with technology. In 1988 I adopted email for the first time, certainly one of the first officials in CTC to do so and in 1999 the DA published its website; www.wessexctc.org for the first time. This marks a significant shift in communication. Bournemouth, Salisbury and West Dorset sections opened subsidiary sites after a few years so that information update could be kept local while the main Wessex site acted as a feed for them. Accesses to the sites have increased rapidly as our members, in common with the general population, acquired computers. In 2007, most members access the runs list and the entry forms for events “on-line”. Committee meetings are efficient gatherings, organised by email and with major issues already discussed in this way.
Ken Reed published the Dorset Dirt route for GPS in 2006 and Alan Clarke of Salisbury dreams of a Wi-Fi cycle mounted computer to enable him to access data on attractions as he cycles, but I think that whatever the technology, the carbon-fibre bike frame or the titanium fittings, the simple joy of cycling in Wessex will persist for many years to come.