The weather stayed kind for the second of the training sessions at Brantingham; a climate pocket that kept dry before the forecast snow, with little wind – obviously cold.

A couple of dozen new faces turned up for this session, 62 riders altogether, and we managed to set seven groups off from the start. Look North, the BBC’s local news programme did a couple of interviews and took some pictures/video at the start, and Steve Guymer rode around with one of their cameras strapped to his handlebars. I believe some clips may be shown this Thursday (17^th Jan).

Only the first few groups remained compact and the fragmented groups formed other groups, small and large. Consequently it wasn’t easy to keep track of the lap times. It is difficult because of time constraints, I prefer you all to be able to get back home in daylight, to match you into groups of similar abilities. The good thing about having short circuits, this one is little over two miles around, is that you can soon make your own adjustments. If you feel that you’re too strong for the group you’re in after a couple of laps then come out of the group and turn around to retrace and find a group to join which matches your ability. If you’re struggling with the group then drop back to a slower group, recovering a little before they catch up. If for some reason you lose the group, you slip a gear perhaps or someone went through too fast after you’d just done a turn at the front for example, then if you can’t get back within half a lap, turn around and join the group on the next lap.

We tried to get the names of riders in different groups but not able to identify everyone for various reasons. Anyway, what I’ve got is:

Group One:  Steve Coates, Steve Guymer, Charlie Caruthers, Mark Walker, Jim Trevor, Dean Fulstow, Adam Jordan and one other.

Group Two:  Paul Kilvington, Mike Kilgour, Paul Hickman, Andy Cawley, Dave Millson, Steve Giles and two others.

Group Three:  Neil Dean, Mark Philipson, Joe Rainey, Jason Young, Mark Symonds, Mike Bradley and Gary Knowles plus one other.

Group Four:  Dave Betts, Billy Robinson, Matthew Johnson and four others.

Group Five: A group of seven including Stuart Fletcher were joined for a while by the three girls Victoria Hood, Olivia Tomlinson and Whitney Larkin.

Group Six: A group of ten which included Richard Dean and Mandy Dean (not related).

Group Seven: A group of 12 which included Les Phillips, John Savage and Steve Hall.

For various reasons I was unable to identify Allan Young, Andy Smith, Chris Brown, Craig Scaife, Dave Walker, David Capes, David Kennedy, David Martindale, Declan Tobin, Frank Tobin, George Leighton, Gethin Owen, Glenn Halsey, Graham Morgan, James Gulbert, Neil Oakes, Nigel Sisson, Paul Noble, Paul Shepherd, Phil Jackson, Phil Oates, Richard Cutsforth, Richard Vickers, Steve Green, Steve Knowles and Tom Unwin.

The lap times were:

I did drop a clanger on the penultimate lap and rang the lap bell too early for some of the riders and a number finished a lap short. There were actually eight groups starting but it was difficult to differentiate after the first lap.

Many had a good workout and said how much they enjoyed the session. It does blow the cobwebs away and thanks for help on the corners to Rob Stones, Pete Kitching, Ray Robson, Gill Bradley, Gary Fulstow and Les’s friend Harry.

Jim Sampson