My month in cycling - October

Normally at this time of year, I write a review of the past season. This year I won't, mostly because my season has been so awful. A combination of the weather, illness, injury, and having trouble fitting training in around my work all contributed to a poor season's racing (in combination with Father Time, it has to be said). I had intended to return from the Duo Normand and get straight into preparations for the 2013 season. By the time I rode the Duo Normand, my scrapes and grazes acquired in the crash on 8th September had pretty much healed up. Unfortunately by then what turned out to be a series of aches and pains had begun. First up was severe shoulder pain, and this was followed by lower back pain, hip joint pain, leg muscle problems and the like, all mostly affecting my right hand side (which had made contact with the road). So, as I write, I've effectively been laid off from cycling (other than a spot of cycle commuting) for the best part of four weeks. Not ideal. I was too crocked to ride the NBRC Hill Climb championship. This is held on the short but steep climb at Bow Brickhill. I am gratified to see that one of my NBRC club mates won the event, though by an excitingly small margin of 0.3 seconds! Personally, I dislike hill climbs - they make me feel unwell! Formally, of course, the final event of the 2012 club event series actually happens in 2013: the New Year '10' on the first of January. The layoff has been pretty useful in the sense that I had the time to follow up on the news coverage of the Armstrong scandal. I had read Tyler Hamilton's book The Secret Race on the Kindle just before heading off to France, so I had some idea of what the USADA dossier would say. But I wasn't prepared for the extent to which USADA savaged Armstrong and colleagues. The fallout has been epic, and I look forward to Bruyneel's appeal hearing to CAS over his sanctions. My bike club, the North Bucks Road Club, has had a bit of a rough year, with declining membership and lower turnouts at our club events. Our recent AGM addressed some of these issues, particularly fired by my revolutionary zeal. This earned me nomination as club Vice Chairman. Or, as I put it, Chairman of Vice. Having ploughed through the USADA report, one might say I am now well-qualified to be Chairman of Vice! But seriously, we do hope to pull the NBRC through the doldrums and capitalise on the upsurge in interest in cycling both locally and nationally. I've begun overhauling the club's website, though at the moment changes are somewhat behind the scenes unless you're a paid-up member of the club. Attendance at our Wednesday club events has been dropping, which probably reflects lower membership but also competition from other clubs' events - particularly those held on the fast Tring course which I think has attracted non-NBRC members particularly.