Club Update

The new Highway Code has been published!  Long awaited, and a real step change to help cyclists. Do have a look - it introduces a 'heirarchy of road users' for the first time, and gives cyclists more rights. Cycling UK have produced some great resources to explain the changes - click here. 

Tandems for hire (and more). Being part of a cycling club should help and encourage us to expand our cycling horizons. We can do this in many ways, but something that we would like to develop is the lending of club equipment and bikes for the use by our members. We want to start with making our Thorne tandem more available for club members to hire and use. It will be fully serviced and looked after by us, ready for club members to enjoy the experience of tandem riding. We have developed a booking system which should enable you to do most of the process online including booking your dates, paying a small fee to cover servicing and completing your hire details. We can then arrange for you to pick the bike up at your convenience from Maidstone. Please give it a go and let us know how you get on. The hire form is on our website in the CLUB STORE section. If you have any questions on this new service please contact Duncan Edwards.

Get involved! It's good for the soul (and the club)... This club runs on volunteers, and some of our long serving volunteers have decided to step down. Would you be up for helping out? None of these roles are a huge time commitment (most of the current Board work full time, and these are less onerous roles), and the more people who are up for helping, the more we can all share the load. There is also a ton of research showing that volunteering in sport raises mood and wellbeing! Details of where we need people to get involved are in the Milestone on page 4, but the key roles we need to fill are a Welfare Officer, a Membership Secretary, an Assistant Time Trial Secretary, a Club Kit officer, Events officers, and campaigners. If you want to chat about them, please any member of the Board a note and the relevant Board member will get back to you.

Our Club 100 year Birthday – Saturday 19^th March. On Saturday 19^th March – in just under a month’s time - we will officially be 100 years old. For good old weather-related reasons (i.e. we want a party when it’s warmer!) we are having the big bash in June, but we couldn’t let the date go by without a celebration. So here’s the plan.  Our Presidents, John and Kate Bosley, will be leading a ‘Presidents’ Ride’ on their tandem departing at 9am from Boughton Monchelsea village hall. Anyone is welcome to join them – details of the ride will be posted shortly. We’d love to encourage all other groups to also start your rides there on 19^th – there is a car park, and we’ll have refreshments (tea, coffee and snacks) for when you return. We’d love a vintage bike ride if anyone is willing to lead one? And we will have prizes for the best-dressed – whether in our Centenary kit, or anything more vintage!  Finally – we’ve had some SFACC Centenary water bottles made, in Tacx Bio which is a premium bottle, but also compostable. We will give them away for free to any member who comes on 19^th to celebrate the day!

Our Sportive – Sunday 22^nd May. Our fabulous SFACC Sportive is now open to bookings. With a 53mi ride, 74mi ride and new 100m ride for the Centenary, it’s a chance to ride with friends on a brilliantly organised tour of the Kent countryside. All funds raised go to the Air Ambulance. Last year it was over subscribed (we have around 300 places) and we raised over £5,000. Reserve your place now British Cycling  (you can change the distance if you want nearer the time) 

 And finally, encourage your friends to join us!. We are going to run the very successful ‘try it out’ ride programme again this year. Running on the last Sunday of each month, at 10am from Marden Car Park, it’s free to anyone who wants to try out group riding, for free. We will post more details on our Facebook page, but please do encourage people to come and try out our club. And if you felt so inclined, you can always gift someone their SFACC membership! 

Stay safe..

Natalie