Various achievements since we started out (so far)
We've only been going since 2012- but TCG riders have trained themselves up to do some pretty cool stuff so far, such as:
- Completed quite a few sportives in the last few years:
BikeBath 100,
The Somerset 100
The Black Rat
The Great Weston Ride (raising money for Prostate Cancer)
Time is Precious (our most local sportive - a fantastic local charity)
The Dartmoor Classic
The Fred Whitton
Ride London
The Severn Bridge Sportive
New Forest 100
The Wiggle Mendips Sportive
The Wiggle French Revolution
SVCC Mendip Madness
The Lionheart
The Somerset Gran Fondo
The Exmoor Exodus
(Alongside these, we've also made up and completed plenty of our own 50 to 100 mile rides, you don't always need to pay to ride a 100 miler! Just download a route to a Garmin and do it for free!)
- Completed some classic European rides, such as:
L'Etape du Tour
La Marmotte
Liege-Bastogne-Liege
Paris- Roubaix
Paris-Brest-Paris
Geneva to Nice (a six day epic ride, involving daily climbs of 10,000 feet+)
- Cycled some very long distances:
Several riders have done "double centuries" - e.g. 200 miles cycling through Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire.
One rider cycled 243 miles in one go to the start of the Tour de France in Yorkshire in 2014, the same rider also cycled to the highest point in Hawaii - the Volcano Muana Kea - which was a continuous climb of 13,639 feet/4157 metres!
One rider completed the Paris-Brest-Paris Audax in 2015 - which is a continuous ride of 1200kms/745 miles! The same rider and another TCG member then did London-Edinburgh-London, which was 798 miles in one go and twice as hilly! Yes that IS crazy!
One rider cycled 100 miles fully off-road across the South Downs on a mountain bike.
We've also done more "chilled" social rides, such as a two day event riding two days of 100 miles each day to the South Coast and back in 2015, and through Wales and back in 2016, back to the south coast again in 2017.
London to Paris - a 300 mile ride across three days (raising money for Penny Brohn cancer care)
The "Way of the Roses" coast to coast completed with the AMOS road club.
The classic Lands end to John O'Groats has been done several times as well.
In 2017 many of the TCG completed the LVIS "Ball Buster" Audax, including riding to the start and back from Timsbury. This was over 164 miles, all in.
Competed in several competitive events:
Completed various Ironman events - including "the Brutal" and Copenhagens first ever Ironman.
Raced in "the Bristol Grand Prix" through Park Street and central Bristol in 2015
Entered various hill climbs, such as completing the WTTA Hardriders series in 2015 (including winning and/or coming top three in some of them)
Raced around Odd down and Bath in 2014, 2015 and 2016
Raced in a few of the Western Series league Cyclocross races
Done a track day at Newport Velodrome (a sold out event and we had it all to ourselves!)
Completed the Avon Vallery Cyclery Grand Tour of local hills and Strava Segments - 11 different Strava Segments throughout the year including winning lots of lead time prizes and vouchers, followed up by a 80 mile/7000 feet "Gran Fondo" ride in January.
Come first place in a UK-wide Strava competition - which was to cycle the most times up Cheddar Gorge in a month!
Taken part in "spin bike" endurance events to raise money for various charities.
Off the bike and bike skills:
Its not just pure "riding" either, in the short time we've been around, we've also taught each other bike maintenance and done bike-related stuff, TCG riders have done things such as:
Restored old steel bikes,
Learnt to service and repair our own bikes, including complete builds from scratch. We have a "pass it on" ethic, e.g. we try and teach each other to do things like change cables, fix punctures, change cassettes and chains, service bottom brackets, and headsets etc.
Learnt wheel building,
Created fixed gear "fixie" bikes,
Built tandems from scratch
Built internally geared hub bikes,
Frame-building courses
Started making and selling steel bikes (Rebecca Lemen-Hogarth's started her Company Ashton Bicycle Works in 2016)
Word of the TCG does seem to spread, and we have had guest riders along from other clubs, such as Salt & Sham, Somer Valley CC, BathCC, and Velo Club Walcot in Bath. Also we've had various bike magazines along as well, Road.cc, BikeRadar and MBUK.
We've also campaigned for better cycling infrastructure in the local area (Hayeswood Road, and Timsbury Road completely resurfaced) and to get bicycle racks installed at Timsbury School, and in the Square outside Connies. We also help out in our own companies! One TCGer runs a Bicycle User Group in their company with 550+ members and helped campaign to get a £200,000 shower block installed for their fellow employees cyclists. Being in the TCG is infectious!
Bearing in mind before we started out, very few of us had not really ridden very far at all. Our very first rides used to be to Priston and back (which we thought was a massive ride at the time!). A lot of the TCG riders have lost literally several bikes worth of weight! e.g. some riders have shed over 20 kilos in weight!
Most of all, we are really proud that we have all made some fantastic cycling friends, not just in the TCG, but also with other cyclists in the local area.