edinburgh rc cycling club

Information from the club AGM

2007 Section Reports

President's Report

Membership: Up again. It’s interesting to compare the growth in BC affiliations over the past year. We, as the second largest club in the UK in “British Cycling” terms, grew our BC membership by 19% against the Deeside Thistle who have the biggest BC membership in the UK, with a growth of 20%, this against a national growth of 3.5% over the past year. I’m pretty sure that if our 84 members registered with Tri Scotland are added to our 141 BC members there would be little doubt as to who is the bigger club. There is also a noticeable if inconsistent trend in the figures for the larger clubs to grow at the expense of the smaller clubs. The point of all this is that there is an economy in size that offers a huge range of options to a large number of people with many interests based loosely around cycling

A major development this year was the formation of the Womens Squad. They traveled the length of the UK often in the shiny new Glen Rental Team Car, to compete in events at British National level. Our girls returned home with some noticeable successes over the year and as a result the bigger teams in the south know that Edinburgh Road Club girls are a force to be reckoned with. We are very grateful to the Hilton Edinburgh Grosvenor for the sponsorship that enabled this initiative.

The formation of a Men’s s quad is another development in our aim to further raise the image of the Edinburgh Road Club. It is hoped to emulate the example of our Women, if not in their first year then to show growth in the capability of developing into a force in British Cycling.

In developing our Race Squads we are not neglecting the main body of the membership and its many interests in cycling and multi-sport, e.g. the Monday evening Club Nights and lecture series in the Flamme Rouge – and . . .

Our new section for younger members, the “ERC-Juniors” got off to a good start this autumn. Paul Newnham with the help of Greg Walker and a significant band of helpers, coaches (and entertains!) around a dozen kids aged between 8 and 16 every Saturday afternoon in the Inch Park near Cameron Toll. I hope this will be a significant initiative in providing activities for and growing the youngest section of the Club’s membership.

Audax: PBP had five of our long distance eventers take part in and complete this 1200km + marathon from Paris to the Atlantic Coast at Brest and back again. This was a very significant achievement and we congratulate them on their success.

Saturday & Sunday Runs : These are the backbone to the activities of the club, indeed some people travel quite a distance just to join the Saturday runs in particular. A survey was carried out by Andrew Milne, our News Letter editor earlier in the year to gain some insight as to what the membership wanted out of the Sunday runs. The Sunday runs had seen reduced support in recent months, probably because of the success of and attraction of the Saturday runs. The huge range of responses did not allow us to draw any specific conclusions but it did highlight the diversity of opinion as to what cycling means to our large membership. I feel that it is our size and diversity that allows the club to breath. Everyone is able to find a level of interest that suits them within the broad range of activities that the club supports, officially and otherwise.

Edinburgh Racing Co-operative, who draw heavily on the membership of ERC for their volunteer force ran a very successful European Duathlon Championship in Edinburgh this year. Despite the atrocious weather the tenacity of the organisation resulted in the conditions being the only loser on the weekend.

Next year we propose to run more events than ever. We have a couple of new Event Organisers who are showing imagination and enthusiasm by bringing some fresh thinking to their events. We have been awarded the first round of a new National Series, the “Sup6r Six” and the last event in the Ingliston Series will be part of the National Criterium Series. This will all put a strain on our volunteer resources in the coming year and it is hoped that the membership will actively support their endeavours in making Edinburgh Road Club one of the most reliable and successful promoters in the country.

The coming year will see us embark on our third three year plan. These plans enable the club executive to maintain a focus on the needs of the club and provide fresh impetus for its ongoing development. It should be noted however that just because an initiative or idea does not appear in the plan does not preclude it from being considered for implementation. Flexibility is what breeds success.

Out with the club environs we have a number of members supporting the sport at regional and national level both in Triathlon Scotland and Scottish Cycling. This allows a club of our size to properly support and influence policy in line with our own activities and experience.

We have had another very successful year as a club and from the comments and proposals I’ve already talked about you will recognise that your executive is not about to let the club rest on it’s laurels in the coming year. The range of work done by our officials will be covered in more detail in the reports of our various officers following this. Without the quite extensive efforts of the many people running the club we would not have the success we have and I commend their efforts to you.
Ken Whitson

Vice President's Report (Sponsorship)

• 2007 was my first year in this role. It can be summed up as a year of unprecedented activity and success for ERC on the sponsorship front, but with some way to go before we fully realize the potential opportunities that undoubtedly exist. It was also something of a learning experience for me, but one which should stand me in good stead if I am re-elected for 2008. I confirm am willing to stand again for this role for 2008.
• ERC member Claire Thomas introduced the General Manager of the Hilton Edinburgh Grosvenor, Guy Hilton, to the Club. I fleshed out the deal that was initially discussed between Claire, Neil Muir and Hilton, resulting in the signing of a 2 year sponsorship arrangement. This continues into 2008.
• I originally thought that once the deal had been signed, I would take a back seat and others would handle the “operational” side of the relationship with Hilton. Others did get involved (thanks to Eric Easton in particular for his work on the Flamme Rouge re-vamp) but nevertheless, its fair to say that I spent more time than I expected on operational matters. In some respects that did keep me away from other opportunities. It was however time well-spent, as the aim was (is) to ensure that the relationship is as beneficial as possible to both ERC and Hilton.
• Our primary contact, Guy Hilton, has now moved on. When his replacement is announced I will commence discussions with him/her about the 2nd year arrangements and looking at renewal or extension of them as well.
• I also concluded the arrangements that Gareth George had kicked off with Tim Bartlett, the principal of Glenrentals, who supplied the team car (complete with ERC and sponsors’ logos) that was used primarily by the Women’s Squad. Discussions with Glenrentals for 2008 are due to commence soon.
• I secured useful publicity for ERC and Hilton (by the display of “Corex” boards) at the International Duathlon Championships in June.
• We secured sponsorship/donations of prizes for the Eastern Promise Road Race and the Ingliston Series from Glenkinchie Distillery and 2Pure, respectively.
• We continue our relationship with our original sponsors, The Bicycleworks.
• A proposal is currently with another potential sponsor for 2008. I hope to be able to confirm the arrangements any day now.
• A couple of other specific proposals were put before potential sponsors who declined to become involved. They are to be approached again for 2008.
• I have also contributed to the management of the Club through my participation at Executive Committee meetings.
Mark Finlay

Membership Services Report

Clothing
Club clothing has been by far the biggest job of the year for member services. We do two large orders per year (spring and autumn) plus other ad-hoc ‘quick orders’ as appropriate.

A couple of people deserve special thanks for their work on the clothing. Firstly, Phil Darby. Phil puts in a tremendous amount of time and effort in collating, ordering, receiving and packing the clothing, not to mention all the paperwork, negotiation and record-keeping involved. Secondly, Oliver Brookes, who does all the graphic design work for the club, and made the updates to the clothing design to incorporate the Hilton logo.

Both Phil and Oliver spent a lot of their own time this year getting the new design ready for manufacture at Reartu (our Italian clothing supplier). Well done to both. The club really does owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

Member Numbers
The club membership continued to grow this year with membership standing at over 400 at time of writing. In addition to the usual year-on-year work involved in maintaining those membership records we are improving the joining process to cope better with under-18 members.

Thanks to Stephen Roy who does a great job for the club in his role as membership registrar.

Newsletter
We are due thanks to Andrew Mylne who is responsible for the editing, production and distribution of the club newsletter. We’ve had one issued already this year, and we might fit another in before the year-end. The only limiting factor is the availability of content – Andrew is constantly on the look-out for new material so please help by contributing articles on anything interesting you’ve done in your cycling life.

Club Handbook
Cliff White is the man behind the club handbook and succeeded again this year is collating, producing and distributing it to our large membership, revamping it to include information about our sponsors. This went out along with the new membership cards, so thank you to Cliff for his efforts.

Quartermaster
Dougie Miller has been fulfilling the club quartermaster role for a number of years now. He has not had much contact with the club this year though and feels he should hand over the reins to someone else. Graham Jones will be our new quartermaster, so thank you to Dougie for his work, and thank you to Graham for volunteering.

We’ll take this change as an opportunity to refresh our list of club equipment and consider buying new pieces if appropriate.

One notable recent addition has been the headcam which you can mount on a helmet or handlebars and can be used to record around 90 minutes of video ‘hands-free’.

Web Site
Huge thanks are due to Ken Russell who maintains our club web-site. It’s a central pillar of the club’s operation.

Ken has made some nice enhancements this year, including the new club discussion forums and the What’s On calendar (due to undergo further enhancement soon). Ken is beginning some major changes to update the design and implement a new content management system which will allow him to grant update access to a wider set of people. Expect to see some changes over the winter.
Alasdair Easton




Registrar’s Report

We have managed to increase our membership levels again with an 8% increase in membership this year. Considering the amount of growth we have had in previous years we have done very well to sustain and increase membership levels at an already very high level. The splits detailed in the following pages are broadly in line with last year.


Overall Membership




Year 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002
Members 436 403 342 270 232 190
% Increase 8% 18% 26% 16% 22%

Analysis of Members



Category 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003
Youth (under 16) 4.8% 5.5% 5% 9% 6%
Junior (16-17) 1.6% 2.0% 2% 1% 3%
Espoir (18-23) 3.9% 2.5% 3% 5% 4%
Adult (24-39) 53% 56.0% 53% 55% 54%
Vet (40-49) 28.2% 26.0% 29% 20% 22%
Supervet (50+) 8.5% 8.0% 8% 9% 8%
Male 75.5% 77% 79% 82% 80%
Female 24.5% 23% 21% 19% 20%
Compete 51.6% 58% 51% 50%


Member Activities



Activity 2007 1st Choice 2007 2nd Choice 2006 1st Choice 2006 2nd Choice 2005 1st Choice 2005 2nd Choice 2004 1st Choice 2004 2nd Choice
Duathlon 2.8% 11.8% 3.7% 15.2% 2% 18% 4% 31%
MTB 14.4% 40.3% 14.4% 39.9% 18% 28% 21% 21%
Road 51.6% 23.4% 48.1% 18.3% 43% 31% 45% 25%
Track 2.8% 4.2% 3.0% 1.8% 2% 4% 2% 12%
Triathlon 22.7% 5.9% 24.6% 7.9% 31% 11% 27% 10%
TT 5.7% 14.4% 6.2% 16.8% 4% 9% n/a n/a

Stephen Roy
Coaching Convenor’s Report

Edinburgh RC now has coaches who can help our riders in all types of cycle sport. The coaches have again made a huge impact on the success of the club in 2007, from organising sessions in the Spring for road and mtb skills, to our rota of swimming coaches who train the multisport section throughout the year.

Our Saturday morning rides have been hugely popular with four or five groups setting
off from the Commonwealth Pool. These rides are separated by a few minutes and go at different paces, fastest first, so that there is a sweep up group for each except the novice run. This run is led by a number of experienced club members, on a rota, and stays together. There are often more than a hundred ERC jerseys out on these Saturday rides alone.

Coaching has also taken the form of talks and presentation and many more of these are planned every Monday night throughout the winter, in our new home at the Flamme Rouge in The Hilton Edinburgh Grosvenor, which has proved to be a great venue for these types of presentations.

The one to one coaching offered by the club is much in demand but the Joe Freil training package, which we have bought, allows coaches to look after many more on-line and is proving very popular.

The womans squad coaching at the start of the year was very successful and many club members were able to develop this further in Mallorca at our annual training camp. The evidence that this has worked will be shown in Kevin’s report.

We need more qualified coaches and I have asked Scottish Cycling for assistance with this. We hope to have a Level 2 coaching course arranged for early next year. Any ERC member who’d like to get involved with coaching should see me and we’ll discuss getting qualifications.

Two blocks of classes in Basic Cycle Maintenance were run last Winter and I have arranged another one for this November.

Ken Whitson and a team of coaches and helpers have arranged the launch of an ERC youth section. More in Ken’s report.

I also administer the ERC bike loan scheme. This has been very well used and the bikes are turned around very quickly. The onus is on each person who borrows the bike to look after it and return it freshly serviced, clean and roadworthy.

Special thanks to all our club coaches for their contributions over the year, and welcome to Steve and Julie Paulding who have recently kindly agreed to coach our mens and womens track squads.

Colin Russell





Road, Track and Time Trial


Overview:
The words “status quo” is something ERC cannot be accused of. The past year has seen further development in many areas of the Road, Track and Time Trial Group.
I reported last year at the AGM that 2006 had been a successful year but this year I believe we have surpassed that. The level of participation of Club Riders in Competitive events has increased once again this season. We have seen the development of the women’s squad and it’s been simply a fantastic year for the Women’s team with hugely impressive results from all around the country. We seem to be constantly moving forward and many exciting ideas and initiatives are already planned for 2008.However we’ve still got a few months of this year left so take a little time just to recap below on the progress that we have made as a club this year.

Medals gained:
In 2007 our riders achieved 27 medals in RTTT Events. Breakdown as follows:
Scottish Cycling Events – 12 Golds,4 Silvers and 5 Bronze.= 21 medals.
ESCA Events - 4 Golds, and 1 Bronze = 5 medals.
Rudy project TT Women Series =1 Silver
Women’s BAR is still to be finalised but this will bring Gold for Jessica Wilson Young and possibly team medal.

Track:
Ross Crook had a fantastic season and won Gold in the Scottish 15km and Bronze in the Kilo at the Scottish Track Champs. Ross also won Gold in the ESCA 10km.As a result of these performances as well as his performances in the track league, Ross Crook is the ERC Track Champion for 2007.
Our Men’s team [ie Oli Del Corto, Neil Laing and Colin MacKenzie ] won Bronze in the Team sprint at the Scottish track Champs following an epic battle with the Bicycleworks.com in the ride of for the medal.
Julie Dominguez added to the club’s haul of track medals with a Bronze medal in the Scottish 15km champs.
Unfortunately the Club didn’t host a Try the track day due to the planned day being rained off but hopefully one will be organised in 2008.
We had 13 different riders record points in the track league with Ross Crook finishing as our top male rider in 8th place with Colin Crawford not far behind in 10th place.
Ali Chisholm was our highest placed women rider with Julie Dominguez just behind.
Well done to all who took part .

Road Race:
Our Women’s team performed very well at Sid Standard RR on the 22/4 and worked together to secure Pippa Handley in 8th place overall.
This was followed up with a fantastic weekend of results at the two day Bedford event which is also part of the British women’s team series where Pippa won the second stage and was 2nd overall against quality opposition from all over Europe. Pippa was also sprints winner at the event.
Claire Thomas travelled far and wide across the country and performed well in various rounds of the British Women’s RR series with top 5 places. Claire was also 2nd in the Scottish RR champs.
The Women’s team were well supported at the Hyde Park Crit with the Tour De France being held in London that weekend. Jo Merit rode fantastically well to finish 2nd and should have won it but was boxed into the barriers with a few metres to go.
Our squad members also took part in the Scottish Women’s RR Series and Penny Rother finished 2nd overall with Claire Thomas finishing 3rd.
Pippa rode brilliantly as a guest rider for Dutch team HWV Tubanters in Germany in August that has resulted in her being offered a chance in a lifetime of riding with them full time next season. Pippa heads off to pastures new with our very best wishes and we wish her every success as she has worked very hard for it.

Our Men had their work cut out for them this season despite a very promising start with Dominic Hines winning the lake Apr on 25/3 and following it up with a 4th place finish in the Moscow APR a week later.
However success particularly for the men in the support race at Ingliston would find life a bit tougher with Steve McQueen using his tactical awareness to be always thereabouts at the finish and winning the Support event series despite our guy s doing everything they could to help Ali Easton win it. Ali finished 2nd Overall with John Duncan and Ollie Young finishing 2nd and 3rd Junior respectively. Claire Thomas finished 3rd woman.
Ross Crook stared in the premier event and worked hard throughout the series to take 3rd place overall.

This season also saw two events held on a Saturday which also included a women’s only crit race which was well attended by our Women’s squad and won by Pippa Handley.

Club riders didn’t fair too well in the Division 1 RR series although quite a few took that brave step and rode a number of them to gain much valued experience and fared not to badly with Ken Russell, Laurence Tring, Ross Crook and Ali Easton all achieving top 20 finishes. In addition to these excellent performances Chris Harney [RR Convenor] also led by example and was often joined in Div 1 RR’s with Ricky Allen, Dom Hines and Ross Spence, who did well considering this was his first season racing..

Laurence Tring took a break from MTB events and rode some of the DIV 2 RR’s and finished 10th overall in the series and was our top finisher. Ken Russell, Ali Easton, Andy Brown, Dave Moran and Dom Hines all achieved a top 10 in various Division 2 races as well as Chris Harney and Richard Allen
.However some of the riders who took part were far from 3rd Cat standard [i.e. former Elite riders] who made it very difficult for our riders top break through.

A number of our riders took part in the Vet’s series with Dominic Hines, Colin Russell, Mark Finlay and Jonny May regularly taking on the big guns with some good results. Dominic finished 7th overall [over 40’s] in the series.

Our most successful men’s rider in 2007 was Ross Crook who finished the season as ERC Road Race champion.
Ross had a fantastic result at the ESCA RR champs and finished 5th overall and ESCA RR champion. He also finished highest place ERC rider at the Eastern Promise.

Again levels of participation from our men were excellent in local events especially when 19 turned out for a Road race in Falkirk on 1 August

Time Trial:
Again our women have simply excelled this year in TTs with every Scottish TT title coming to our club.

Pippa Handley was 10 mile TT Champion with ERC Winning team prize with Jenny Wright.
Jessica Wilson Young was 25 Mile TT Champion with Louisa Edmonston 2nd and ERC Winning team prize.
Jessica Wilson Young was 50 Mile TT Champion with Louisa Edmonston 3rd and ERC Winning team prize.
Jessica Wilson Young was 100 Mile TT Champion.
Jessica Wilson Young was Olympic TT Champion and winning team prize with Jenny Wight.

Our Women dominated the women’s TT Championship with Pippa, Jo Merrit and Karen Breneman winning Gold .Sandra Murdoch ,Gaynor Hamilton and Jane Stevenson winning Silver and Julie Hardie, Angela Kidd and Ali Chisholm winning team bronze.

Our women also did superbly well at National level with Pippa Handley finishing 2nd overall in the Rudy Project TT series. Jessica Wilson Young also took in a fair few of these events and also had top 5 finishes.

Pippa Handley finished 8th and Jessica Wilson Young 10th in the British 10 Mile TT champs. Pippa managed another top 10 place in the British 25 champs with 8th place.
Jessica Wilson Young did superbly well in her FIRST ever 100 mile TT by Finishing 4th.
Pippa finished the British season on a high by finishing 7th overall in the National Championships.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that Pippa also won both the ESCA 10 and 25 mile Championships
Claire Thomas took her climbing skills to the Hill Climb Champs and won the ESCA and Scottish HC Champs.

Pippa finished the season in style with a magnificent 16th place against a top-class field at the Chrono des Nations time trial in Les Herbiers, Western France.


Our men participated win good numbers at all the Scottish Championships and had some good results.
Both Barry Duncan and Paul Black finished in the Top 10 at the Scottish 50 Champs .Graham Jones finished 5th in the 12 hour Champs.
All three had a very good season with Paul Black winning his first Open TT in Scotland and Barry Duncan going from strength to strength with every TT that he competes in. Barry finished the season on a high by finishing 10th overall in the Tour de Trossachs which attracted a quality field of some 63 riders.
Graham Jones broke his PBs in nearly all his distances.

Our long distance experts also did very well with John Connaghan, George Berwick and Mark Shannon all finishing the British 24 hour TT champs.
We also had 5 riders take part in the Paris-Brest –Paris event with John Connaghan, Colin and Sonya Crawford, Graeme Wyllie and Mark Shannon .What an achievement. Well done.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank Ken Whitson [Track coordinator] and Rob Vranjkovic and Chris Harney [Road Race Convenors] and Jackie Reid [Women’s Team manager] for their hard work and commitment in their roles this season.
Apologies for the length of the above but each of the above named riders deserve credit for superb performances in 2007.

RTTT Support Fund:
In 2007 the Group was allocated £1640 for rider support and I’m pleased to report that £1691.45 was spent on a wide range of riders with various abilities.

A breakdown of the spend is as follows:-

Race Licence and BC Membership £96
Race Entry Fees £179
Travel costs £981.54
Equipment £164.84
Extra prize money £95
Kirky 10 Marshall/TK raffle prizes £34
Misc (talk expenses, affiliation fees) £24.70
New Trophies £116.37
Total £1691.45

RTTT Meetings:
Meetings were held on 22/1/7, 23/4/7 and 30/7/7 .Thanks to all who attended any of the meetings. They have been very useful in providing a platform to discuss a wide range of issues and your contributions at these meetings have been welcome. They also allow me to take the views of the group forward to the ERC Committee meetings.

Kirky 10 TT Series:
80 riders and 20 different Timekeepers and Marshals helped towards another successful season at Kirkliston. Special thanks to those riders who volunteered their services as Marshals and Timekeepers .The new format that was introduces in 2006 continues to work well. This was supplemented in the latter part of the season with all attendees wearing numbers that certainly made them more visible on the rode.
Oli Young had a fantastic season and just kept going faster nearly every week .Oli was a worthy Kirky 10 series winner for 2007.
Special thanks to Neil Laing [Event organiser] for all the hard work he carries out in making this very popular event a terrific success story.

ERC Open Events:
Thanks to all organisers of all our other Open events in 2006 ,ie Ken Whitson [ Meldons and Duathlon], Stephen Roy [Eastern Promise RR], Jonny May [McCulloch TT] ,Colin Russell [Spring APR] and the Ingliston “team” Colin Russell , Gareth George, Neil Muir, Graham Jones and Kevin Tait.
Ingliston is our flagship event and we are grateful to the large group of helpers and sponsors who help make this popular event happen every year.
All the above events were very well organised and ERC riders turned out in huge numbers once again to all of them. It is very rewarding for organisers to see the level of participation by our club riders in the events that we organise. Well done to all who took part and special thanks to Race officials ,Marshalls, Sign On, Refreshments teams, drivers etc etc.
We will look to improve upon this in 2008 by holding organisers and helpers meeting next month to see how we can ensure our events in 2008 are once again a huge success and a credit to the club.

Women’s Squad:
This was a brave step for the club to take in 2007 and it has been a huge success. We will continue to have a Women’s Squad in 2008 and I’d like to congratulate every member of the squad who took part in events in 2007.
Thanks also to Jackie Reid, Jenny Wright, Neil Muir, Gareth George, Jen Laing , Sandra Murdock and Jo Merrit who made up the Squad Management Group and who worked hard to make all of this possible .

Special thanks to both Lee Whitelaw and Andrew Davies who helped support the Women at the events they attended down south. I can assure you that your help was very much appreciated by the team

Men’s Squad:
The Committee have agreed that we should have a Men’s Squad and a meeting was held on 1st October to guage interest from riders. Over 40 riders attended and thirty signed up to declare their interest in joining the squad.
A Squad Steering Group has been set up and met on 16 October and agreed the way forward on how we will develop the squad and hopefully have riders gaining top 3 results at the Sup6r Six race series in Scotland.

2008 and beyond:
I can guarantee you plans are already in place to ensure that the progress that we’ve made to date continues in to 2008 and beyond.
ERC are organising at least three additional events in 2008,ie Two RR’s and a TT, Our extensive programme of events at the Flamme Rouge had been agreed that will benefit all in the club .Our Coaching team will look at ways at how we can develop our riders further, from those that have never done a Race to those the Wednesday Winter Warriors. The levels of participation this season have been superb and nothing would please me more than to see new riders to our club take that first step and enter an event.
We will be supporting both a Men’s and Women’s squad which will hopefully inspire others to perform at a higher level although new riders and those aspiring riders will not be forgotten as they could be our “stars” of the future..

Kevin Tait

Off-road Group Report
The off road section is one of the smaller groups in the club with 14% of members indicating it is their first activity and 40% as their second. This does not put us off however and we have a range of rides from Saturday mornings in the Pentlands to day and weekend epics.

Day Rides

The Saturday morning run in the Pentlands is our “leisure ride” and is open to all comers with a mountain bike. This is often the first experience people have with the club and it’s surprising how many people don’t appreciate what they have on their doorstep. It’s a good stepping stone to the other rides we do on a Sunday. These are generally further afield and we have been to most of the 7Stanes man made trail centres and also kept it “natural” riding trails in Perthshire and the Borders.

Night Rides

Just because it gets dark, we don’t get put off. We organise night rides usually to the Pentlands or Glentress.

Weekends Away

Sometimes, it’s just too far to justify one days riding so we make a weekend of it. This year we had weekends in the Cairngorms and Dumfriesshire. These are a great chance to do something different that’s a bit further away and there’s also the extra social aspect.

Races and Events

It’s not all sociable and fun though! This year has seen riders represent ERC in National and International events.

Result of the year goes to Rob Waller who took first place in the Scottish Tourism Veteran Men’s Solo Category of the Chain Reaction Trans-Scotland MTB race, a 7 day stage race across the South of Scotland. He also won each of the four special timed stages in his category. The overall distance was 498km (approx 310 miles) with 14,100m (approx 46,300 feet) of climbing. Other ERC riders included Jonny May and Kati Makepeace,

At home we had a good showing in the Scottish Cross Country Series with the club riders getting some good placings in the Scottish championships.

SXC Series Overall: 3rd for Greig Walker, male masters
4th for Oliver Young, male junior
5th for Alison Chisholm, female masters

SXC Champs: Greig Walker 3rd male masters
Alison Chisholm, 3rd female masters
Oliver Young, 5th male junior

The sun shone on the Glentress Trailquest held in May 2007. In a trailquest event, a series of controls with different values are distributed across the event area. Using a map provided by the organisers, you must plan a route to visit as many controls as possible and maximise your points total within the time allowed. Trailquest events test your stamina, off-road riding ability and orienteering skills. This year’s entry was down on last year but at 74 was still big enough to make most classes competitive. Feedback so far on GTTQ 2007 is that it was harder than last year, required lots of concentration on route choice and wrecked your legs. Reports from some of the competitors are available on the website.

ERC riders included: Lawrence Tring (3rd senior male) Ali Chisholm (1st woman), Rosemary Byde (3rd woman) and Robert Weetman (10th senior male)

A few ERC riders competed in the “Three 10’s” series of events held throughout the summer by No Fuss Events. These are 10 hour off road endurance events held at Fort William, Kirroughtree and Moray where the aim is to complete as many laps of the course in the 10 hours. Best result was Fiona Donaldson coming 2nd in the women’s solo category at Fort William.

On a more international note, Lawrence Tring & Ken Russell finished 16th in the Powerade Author MTB Challenge in Poland. This is a 6 day stage race through the Polish & Czech mountains over 400k and with 12,000m of climbing. Sandy Thompson and Oli Young also took part but a mechanical prevented them finishing as a team.

Janine Inman (nee Hensman) did fantastically well in the field of mountain bike orienteering. She won both the Middle & Long events in the British Mountain Bike Orienteering Championships held at Cannock Chase. She also went to Italy where she represented Great Britain at the European Mountain Bike Orienteering Champs. The week of races, held this year in the Tuscany hills, included a range of riding terrain from steep, loose ascents and descents, to open sunbeaten fields and shady, muddy woodland. The week opened with the Sprint Race where Janine got Britain’s best ever sprint result, 12th place. Janine also got a PB in the Classic race where she finished 18th.

Spending the budget

We used our devolved money to pay entry fees for several ERC riders in the Scottish Cross Country Championships at Glennifer Braes and to support an ERC rider taking part in the World Masters in France.

Fiona Donaldson
Triathlon and Duathlon Sub-group Report

• Sub Group Co-ordinators
Chair (& Tri-Squad Rep at ERC meetings) - Peter Ness
Coaching Co-ordinator / Results Co-ordinator - Martin Gore
Treasurer - Rachel Henderson
Social Convenor - Angela Kidd
Web Site - Martin Farrell
Tri-Kit - Louise Hogg
Winter Duathlon Series Organiser – Ken Whitson

• Tri Coaching Team
Bruce Kidd STA Level 2 & SASA Level 1 / Linda Maclean STA Level 2 / Martin Gore STA Level 2 & SASA Level 1 / Niall Baxter STA Level 1 / Jim Leach STA Level 1 / Dave Jibb STA Level 1 / Cameron Wood STA Level 1 / Geoff Earl STA Level 1 / Rachel Henderson (presently attending level1 coaching)

• Competition
The ERC Triathlon and Duathlon Handicap Competition included 67 ERC members this year won by our new Triathlon Scotland President Geoff Earl. Andrew Wellings came in second place and Ben Mitchell completing an excellent season of racing came in third. 32 ERC members took part in 2 or more events and the top 10 for 2007 were as follows:
1 Geoff Earl 2 Andrew Wellings 3 Ben Mitchell 4 Paul Ewing 5 Chris Tingley 6 Martin Gore 7 Andreas Shaefer 8 Reid Cunningham 9 Louise Hogg 10 Dermot Bailie

Thank you to Martin Gore for once again updating the multisport table throughout the year.

ERC competed well at British and Scottish Championship level and a number of members represented their country at European and World Championship level.
Most noticeable performances are as follows:

Ben Mitchell
Bronze (35-39) World Sprint Triathlon Champs, Hamburg
Gold British Sprint Triathlon Championships, Strathclyde
Bronze Scottish sprint champs, Strathclyde
5th Scottish Duathlon Champs, Fife
Penny Rother
Gold British Sprint Triathlon Championships, Strathclyde
Gold Scottish Sprint champs, Strathclyde
4th Age Group World OD Triathlon Champs, Hamburg
Beth Sadler
Gold British Sprint Triathlon Championships, Strathclyde
Bronze British Sprint Triathlon Championships, Strathclyde
4th Age Group World Sprint Triathlon Champs, Hamburg
Martin Gore
Gold British Sprint Triathlon Championships, Strathclyde
Silver Scottish Sprint Triathlon Championships, Strathclyde
11th Age group World Sprint Triathlon Championships, Hamburg
Angela Kidd
Gold Scottish Long Distance Triathlon Championships
1st British National Ranking Series 35-39 age group

Mention has to go to Caroline Toshack who joined the ERC in October this year and took a GOLD in the 35-39 age group in Hamburg.

The following ERC members were selected and took part in the
Age Group World Duathlon Championships in Gyor, Hungary:
Peter Ness, Reid Cunningham, Ronald Nolan

Age Group European Duathlon Championships, Edinburgh:
Ben Mitchell, Martin Gore, Peter Ness, Reid Cunningham

Age Group World Sprint Triathlon Championships, Hamburg:
Alistair Smith, Beth Saddler, Ben Mitchell, Louise Hogg, Martin Gore, Peter Ness, Reid Cunningham

Age Group World Olympic Distance Triathlon Championships, Hamburg:
Paul Saddler, Penny Rother

ERC enjoyed a good turnout at this years Ironman Austria competition with particular note going to Geoff Earl the final competitor across the line in 16hours 58mins! and Linda Maclean pushing on (with an extra km or two! in the dark) to complete in over 17hours!! Others who took on the challenge were Adam Rouse, Alison Johnson, John Young, Lucy Proud, Martin Gore, Martin Farrell, Peter Ness and Richard Morton.

Reports of a basking shark in Musselburgh harbour did not hold back Bruce Kidd’s organising of the annual Musselburgh to Portobello sea swim. Alistair Smith led the swim in 29minutes! on the 6th of October – a sunny day taking the edge of the nippy Forth.

ERC challenged Edinburgh University to a 5km run and swim gala on at the Dalkeith High School pool. We aim to hold a similar gala and run competition next year.

• Training
Every week ERC has 3 coached swim lanes at the Commonwealth pool and at Next Generation and 1 Open Water swim session during the summer / autumn at Portobello. Numbers continue to remain high on Tuesdays at the Commonwealth Pool and Open water sessions are still growing in popularity a hardy few organising further Open water sessions on a Wednesday am during the summer or on Sunday mornings during the Winter.
The organised club rides from the Commonwealth pool are regularly attended by the tri section members and good links remain with the City of Edinburgh who are happy for ERC members to run with them on Thursday evenings in the meadows and Tuesday evenings at Meadowbank on the track. This also gives access to the XC running series during the winter.
Caroline Toshack has started a Wednesday evening coached running session at the meadows.

• Volunteering
Club members were involved in organising several high profile Triathlons and Duathlons this year. Many members volunteered to help put on these races and they couldn’t have gone ahead without their help:

European Duathlon Championships June 16 /17 – 2007 – Thanks to all the ERC members (you know who you are!) who made this event run smoothly against the winter like weather conditions in the middle of June. Other events included The Fife Duathlon / Edinburgh Triathlon / Portobello Triathlon / Portobello Aquathon

Thank you to Ken Whitson for once again running the Winter Duathlon series and to continuing his support with the 2007/2008 Winter Duathlon events.

• Tri Section Budget
This year’s spend included: Under Water Camera equipment – Martin Gore / Hire of Dalkeith Pool – swimming gala / Aberfeldy Training weekend (hire of pool)

Peter Ness