We've always had a good relationship with the Surrey League as they are ardent supporters of women's racing, and we have in turn included several of their races in our league. But this year it's a bit more formal: we at the LWCR have joined the Surrey League for 2012, meaning that our members can get the discounted entry fee at their races. In return, we are promoting a day of racing at the Cyclopark in Kent, including a men's E/1/2/3 and men's 4th cat race.
This day is Saturday April 28, which just happens to be the date of our third league race of the season. For the first time, we are promoting our own race! We will need a hand with marshalling and managing the men's races that day, so stay tuned for info on how you can help.
Here's how it works:
If you're a member of a club that's already affiliated with the Surrey League for men's racing (generally the larger local teams like London Dynamo or Dulwich Paragon, but also some smaller teams -- check with your club's road racing rep) then you can join the Surrey League as an individual in your club's name. For those riders who aren't members of Surrey League-affiliated teams (in particular our women's-only teams, or teams outside of Southeast England) then you can affiliate as an individual with us. Just make sure you list "LWCR" as your team (though of course we know you will race for your real team!)
Individual affiliation for women costs £10, and over the course of the season you will collect Surrey League points based on your results (as long as you don't DNS or DNF a race, you are guaranteed at least one point per race!) which will be traded in for cash at the end of the year. As we have a total of five Surrey League races on our calendar, it makes sense to join. And affiliation gives you the discounted entry fee for any other Surrey League races you might want to do: men's, women's, TTs, handicaps, on circuits and on the open road -- check out the calendar here or on the Rider HQ site.
Affiliation is being done through Rider HQ this year which means you need to be approved by either your club (if a Surrey League-affiliated club) or us at LWCR (if joining through us). You can affiliate here: https://www.riderhq.com/groups/surreyleague/0/join. Then it's just a matter of entering races -- so get entering!
If you are a new racer this season, it's highly recommended that you do the Cyclopark Surrey League race on Sunday February 5. This one is for 3rd and 4th cat riders only, and will include some tips and practise on group riding and racing before the race begins. Enter here.
Some other useful links:
-- Surrey League rules and regulations
-- a list of Surrey League-affiliated clubs from 2011
-- our 2012 calendar (still in draft form with a few races to be confirmed)
Sunday, 29 January 2012
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Introducing LWCR's headline sponsor for 2012: Rapha Racing
Rapha Announces Headline Sponsorship of London Women’s Cycle Racing League
Rapha, creators of the finest cycling clothing and accessories in the world, are happy to announce that they will be headline sponsors of the London Women’s Cycle Racing League (LWCR) for 2012. Sponsorship of the London-based grassroots league is an important early component of Rapha’s wider strategy to support and become instrumental in the growth of women’s cycling worldwide.
Established by the women’s cycling community in 2010, the London Women’s Cycle Racing League is an annual series of races in London and the South East. The league caters for the growing number of women taking up cycling and becoming more competitive, and brings them together at designated races and time trial events, where they are introduced to racing, can develop their skills and get involved in healthy local competition. In 2010 Rapha launched its first collection for women, offering a selection of essential Rapha products. Technical fabrics have been combined with thoughtful details to create the ultimate training and racing apparel that is both stylish and functional.
Rapha will be providing the league with a wide level of support from leaders’ jerseys and the private-hire of circuits for women’s-only events, to end of season prizes across the league for top riders, special awards and teams. Additionally, Rapha are introducing a badging and awards system for each event participant, category winners and league leaders throughout the season. Using Rapha’s website and social media LWCR will be promoted with photography and writing by ambassadors, guest writers and interviews with local riders. Anyone participating in the London women’s league who would like to submit photography and articles for publishing throughout the season are encouraged to do so.
Simon Mottram, CEO of Rapha, said of the sponsorship: “Our aim is that women around London and the SE regions will see that all of their work throughout the season is recognised and appreciated not only on the same level as men’s grassroots racing, but setting a precedent for what can be accomplished with dedicated support from a cycling brand. For Rapha this is just the beginning of our involvement in women’s cycling. Road cycling is the most beautiful sport in the world and we want to help new riders build their confidence, grow their ambition and feel like cycling is an important social part of their lives as well.”
To further encourage the growth of women’s cycling, and following on from the women’s CX clinics led by Rapha ambassador Claire Beaumont in 2011, Rapha will run skill sessions to demonstrate some of the basics of safe road racing and bike handling for everyone from beginners to top riders who want a bit of extra practice.
Women’s cycling should be recognised globally for the incredible athletes who ride at every level of the sport. The LWCR league has already set the bar very high for what can be achieved through volunteer dedication and local club riders all coming together over the last two years. Rapha’s sponsorship aims to build on this and ensure the league organisers and riders can count on the support they need to make the 2012 season the best yet.
Thursday, 12 January 2012
League Meeting on Mon Jan 16 -- all welcome
Further to the previous post outlining plans for the 2012 season, we have set up a meeting about the league on Monday 16th January at 7pm at the Weatherspoons at Victoria Station.
http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/pubs/the-willow-walk
All are welcome. We will be discussing sponsorship, the league calendar, potential pre-league rides and anything else that comes up! AnaNichoola and Rapha will be represented at the meeting.
Please let us know if you hope to attend so we have an idea of numbers.
http://www.jdwetherspoon.co.uk/home/pubs/the-willow-walk
All are welcome. We will be discussing sponsorship, the league calendar, potential pre-league rides and anything else that comes up! AnaNichoola and Rapha will be represented at the meeting.
Please let us know if you hope to attend so we have an idea of numbers.
Friday, 23 December 2011
A note from Tabitha Rendall, the league's 2012 chief!
Dear All,
Some of you will recognise my name as having taken part in the LWCR league in 2011. I have volunteered to help in the running of the league in 2012 and, in this guise, am writing to you as we are currently in the process of trying to sort out the framework for next year's league to take this exciting league forward into another year.
Some of you will also be aware that Rapha are interested in sponsoring the league for next year. An initial meeting and some discussions have taken place and details of a proposed framework are set out below. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about what is being proposed.
1. Support and assistance
Running a league like the LWCR league takes a lot of work behind the scenes and any help and assistance we can get is welcome. Offers that have come in already following Maria's email have been gratefully received and will be followed up. We would like to suggest that for each of the major teams involved in the league (three or more of you racing regularly) one person is nominated as the point of contact for that team. If we need any help, then the point of contact person will be asked to chivvy their teammates as necessary! It will also give us someone to contact if there are any last minute changes to races. So, please give us the names of your chief chivviers.
Some specific tasks that we would welcome people with specialist skills to volunteer for are:
- Social media management: to take control of the website, Facebook page and the Twitter account to use these tools more effectively;
- Social events organisation: to be in charge of organising the social events (see below for more details);
- Email response management: to respond promptly and manage responses to emails that come to the league via the website.
Maryka and I will be the main co-ordinators for the league but as I am sure you appreciate we both have busy lives and if we don't get enough support there is a risk that the league will not continue or will not thrive.
2. Sponsorship
Rapha would commit to sponsoring the league for up to three years (TBC pending final agreements with Rapha). They would provide leader's jerseys for races (1 jersey per season to be retained by each leading rider, new leaders would get a new jersey), money towards booking circuits for skills sessions (potentially three sessions at each of Hillingdon, Hog Hill and Cyclopark hopefully to be run prior to an actual race), and prizes at the end of the season. In addition to the leader's jersey, we are proposing a badging system whereby each rider who completes a race would get a badge with the top three and the top cat 3/4 rider getting a 'special' badge. The finer details of this are all TBC.
If needed, Rapha will be able to help provide additional marshalling bibs, race numbers and the press and PR to get more people out to events.
Additionally, to celebrate the great stuff going on in the sport at both grassroots and elite level, Rapha ambassador and sport photographer, Gem Atkinson, is going to be more involved photographing and reporting on women's racing for the 2012 season.
Rapha are very happy for other sponsors to be involved but not other clothing companies which would sadly mean losing Ana Nichoola as a sponsor. Currently sponsorship from any other companies has not been sought or offered but we would hope to maintain links with LMNH and would be open to offers from non-clothes specific companies if the Rapha deal goes ahead.
For background information, inspired by the success of LWCR, Rapha are planning sponsorship of four other women's leagues next year, three in the US (New York City, Portland and a New England women's cross league) and sponsorship of women's racing in Australia (Melbourne). This is a part of and one of the first steps in Rapha's push to support and grow the culture of women's cycling, building riders' confidence and getting more women serious about the sport.
3. LWCR races
We do not have a finalised calendar yet but we are proposing to use mostly similar races to last year, hopefully with no two races on the same circuit. Additional races that may be included (dependent on the organisers' willingness to be part of our league) are several Surrey League road races and maybe one at Cyclopark (near Gravesend).
We are hoping to have a calendar with around 12 races with at least one, but possibly two, time trials. We have not finalised how rankings will be determined yet but we will probably have your top six rankings counting and we may have some sort of weighting system for the team prize. Some of the road races will only allow 3rd cats and above so we will try to ensure that there are at least six races open to all categories. We would encourage 4th cats to gain points at the evening races at Hog Hill, Hillingdon and Crystal Palace in order to move up to 3rd cat if they want to race on the road.
4. Skills sessions
As mentioned above we would like to organise some skills sessions with qualified coaches and maybe even a star rider. Ideally these would be for a couple of hours prior to a race at one of the circuits. In addition we would like to suggest that each of the main teams organises a group ride before the season starts to allow people to get to know each other and to get used to riding in a group. If anyone is a qualified coach and would be willing to help with these, please let us know.
Rapha are also running their own skills sessions and social events across different cycling disciplines which LWCR riders would be welcome and encouraged to attend. We would keep you informed via the website when any of these are going on.
5. Social events
We would like to organise three social events, hopefully with at the Look Mum No Hands cafe. We would have one pre-season, one mid-season and one post-season (this would be the the final rankings prize giving event). These could either be buy your own food and drink or pay for a ticket which gives you food and a drink, say.
Please let us have your thoughts and suggestions on any and/or all of the above as soon as possible as we would like to finalise the calendar early in the new year.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes and a happy Christmas to you and your families,
Tabitha
P.S. Please forward this to fellow team members or club forums as we do not have email addresses for all racers. We will also be putting it on the website and Facebook page.
Some of you will recognise my name as having taken part in the LWCR league in 2011. I have volunteered to help in the running of the league in 2012 and, in this guise, am writing to you as we are currently in the process of trying to sort out the framework for next year's league to take this exciting league forward into another year.
Some of you will also be aware that Rapha are interested in sponsoring the league for next year. An initial meeting and some discussions have taken place and details of a proposed framework are set out below. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about what is being proposed.
1. Support and assistance
Running a league like the LWCR league takes a lot of work behind the scenes and any help and assistance we can get is welcome. Offers that have come in already following Maria's email have been gratefully received and will be followed up. We would like to suggest that for each of the major teams involved in the league (three or more of you racing regularly) one person is nominated as the point of contact for that team. If we need any help, then the point of contact person will be asked to chivvy their teammates as necessary! It will also give us someone to contact if there are any last minute changes to races. So, please give us the names of your chief chivviers.
Some specific tasks that we would welcome people with specialist skills to volunteer for are:
- Social media management: to take control of the website, Facebook page and the Twitter account to use these tools more effectively;
- Social events organisation: to be in charge of organising the social events (see below for more details);
- Email response management: to respond promptly and manage responses to emails that come to the league via the website.
Maryka and I will be the main co-ordinators for the league but as I am sure you appreciate we both have busy lives and if we don't get enough support there is a risk that the league will not continue or will not thrive.
2. Sponsorship
Rapha would commit to sponsoring the league for up to three years (TBC pending final agreements with Rapha). They would provide leader's jerseys for races (1 jersey per season to be retained by each leading rider, new leaders would get a new jersey), money towards booking circuits for skills sessions (potentially three sessions at each of Hillingdon, Hog Hill and Cyclopark hopefully to be run prior to an actual race), and prizes at the end of the season. In addition to the leader's jersey, we are proposing a badging system whereby each rider who completes a race would get a badge with the top three and the top cat 3/4 rider getting a 'special' badge. The finer details of this are all TBC.
If needed, Rapha will be able to help provide additional marshalling bibs, race numbers and the press and PR to get more people out to events.
Additionally, to celebrate the great stuff going on in the sport at both grassroots and elite level, Rapha ambassador and sport photographer, Gem Atkinson, is going to be more involved photographing and reporting on women's racing for the 2012 season.
Rapha are very happy for other sponsors to be involved but not other clothing companies which would sadly mean losing Ana Nichoola as a sponsor. Currently sponsorship from any other companies has not been sought or offered but we would hope to maintain links with LMNH and would be open to offers from non-clothes specific companies if the Rapha deal goes ahead.
For background information, inspired by the success of LWCR, Rapha are planning sponsorship of four other women's leagues next year, three in the US (New York City, Portland and a New England women's cross league) and sponsorship of women's racing in Australia (Melbourne). This is a part of and one of the first steps in Rapha's push to support and grow the culture of women's cycling, building riders' confidence and getting more women serious about the sport.
3. LWCR races
We do not have a finalised calendar yet but we are proposing to use mostly similar races to last year, hopefully with no two races on the same circuit. Additional races that may be included (dependent on the organisers' willingness to be part of our league) are several Surrey League road races and maybe one at Cyclopark (near Gravesend).
We are hoping to have a calendar with around 12 races with at least one, but possibly two, time trials. We have not finalised how rankings will be determined yet but we will probably have your top six rankings counting and we may have some sort of weighting system for the team prize. Some of the road races will only allow 3rd cats and above so we will try to ensure that there are at least six races open to all categories. We would encourage 4th cats to gain points at the evening races at Hog Hill, Hillingdon and Crystal Palace in order to move up to 3rd cat if they want to race on the road.
4. Skills sessions
As mentioned above we would like to organise some skills sessions with qualified coaches and maybe even a star rider. Ideally these would be for a couple of hours prior to a race at one of the circuits. In addition we would like to suggest that each of the main teams organises a group ride before the season starts to allow people to get to know each other and to get used to riding in a group. If anyone is a qualified coach and would be willing to help with these, please let us know.
Rapha are also running their own skills sessions and social events across different cycling disciplines which LWCR riders would be welcome and encouraged to attend. We would keep you informed via the website when any of these are going on.
5. Social events
We would like to organise three social events, hopefully with at the Look Mum No Hands cafe. We would have one pre-season, one mid-season and one post-season (this would be the the final rankings prize giving event). These could either be buy your own food and drink or pay for a ticket which gives you food and a drink, say.
Please let us have your thoughts and suggestions on any and/or all of the above as soon as possible as we would like to finalise the calendar early in the new year.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Best wishes and a happy Christmas to you and your families,
Tabitha
P.S. Please forward this to fellow team members or club forums as we do not have email addresses for all racers. We will also be putting it on the website and Facebook page.
Friday, 28 October 2011
2011 Awards Night Recap
Many thanks to our sponsors AnaNichoola, Motion Junkies and Rapha Racing for generously providing so many quality prizes for our annual awards night (full list below). Highlights of the evening included league winner Lydia Boylan of Look Mum No Hands! RT receiving a Rapha long-sleeved jersey and rainjacket along with a trophy commemorating her win. Look Mum No Hands! RT took home a massive trophy for their win in the team category, which will be proudly displayed. Thanks to Sam, Lewin and Matt for letting us hold the awards evening there in the cafe.
Look Mum No Hands! RT members took the top team prize (from left, DS Sam Humpheson and riders Anna Grundy, league individual winner Lydia Boylan, and Helen McKay)
The jury-awarded categories each received Rapha arm warmers and cap. They included most improved rider (Tabitha Rendall, Team Larkfield Cycles), best new rider (Karla Boddy, High Wycombe CC), rider showing the most commitment (Lisa Gunn, Kingston Wheelers), and most combative rider (Nicola Juniper, Inverse/Cyclaim RT). The Lanterne Rouge prize went to the lowest-ranked rider present on the night, which turned out to be Nikki Engelbach of Pearson CC. She received a Rapha club jersey and special red cap.
Individual Prizes
1st Lydia Boylan, Look Mum No Hands! RT, trophy + Rapha long-sleeved jersey + rainjacket
2nd Anna Grundy, LMNH, Rapha club jersey
3rd Charlie Easton, LMNH, Rapha club jersey
4th Emily Bagnall, Kingston Wheelers, Rapha club jersey
5th Astrid Wingler, London Phoenix, Rapha club jersey
6th Helen McKay, LMNH, Rapha cap
7th Karla Boddy, High Wycombe CC, Rapha cap
8th Lisa Gunn, Kingston Wheelers, Rapha cap
9th Vikki Filsell, Pearson CC, AnaNichoola armwarmers
10th Dyanne Holland, Inverse/Cyclaim RT, AnaNichoola armwarmers
11th Nicole Oh, Pearson CC, Rapha scarf
12th Joanne McRae, LMNH, Rapha scarf
13th Tabitha Rendall, Team Larkfield Cycles, Rapha scarf
14th Delia Beddis, Dulwich Paragon, Rapha scarf
15th Coralie Glaunes, Pearson CC, Rapha scarf
16th Pan Pan Fan, LMNH, AnaNichoola scarf
17th Nicola Hamilton, LMNH, AnaNichoola gloves
18th Tessa Pugh, London Dynamo, Rapha water bottles + Motion Junkies kit
19th Elise Sherwell, LMNH, Rapha water bottles
20th Tracy Corbett, London Dynamo, Motion Junkies kit
Team Prizes
1st Look Mum No Hands! RT, trophy
2nd Pearson CC, trophy
3rd Kingston Wheelers, trophy
The girls from Pearson CC showed up in team kit to claim 2nd place overall in the team competition (from left, Vikki Filsell, Nikki Engelback and Mathilde Pauls)
Other Prize Categories
Most Improved Rider: Tabitha Rendall, Team Larkfield Cycles
Best New Rider: Karla Boddy, High Wycombe CC,p
Rider showing the most commitment: Lisa Gunn, Kingston Wheelers
Most combative rider: Nicola Juniper, Inverse/Cyclaim RT
Lanterne Rouge (lowest placed rider who is present on the night): Nikki Engelbach, Pearson CC
We also awarded Rider of the Day for two rounds, sponsored by Motion Junkies who awarded Hoo Ha Ride Glide and shampoo bundles:
Round 5, Hog Hill: Astrid Wingler, London Phoenix
Round 9, Henfold Hill: Vikki Filsell, Pearson CC
And awarded from the first race of the season:
Best 3rd cat: Dyanne Holland, Inverse/Cyclaim RT (winner of AnaNichoola gloves)
Best 4th cat: Kate Hewett, Team Mule Bar Girls (winner of Rapha armwarmers)
The evening's MC and league coordinator Maria David thanked everyone for coming and mentioned that the league had been a great success this year, even counting world junior road race champion Lucy Garner (Motorpoint) as one of the participants. With 55 riders taking part in 8 races on several different and challenging courses, we had something for everyone. We hope to see everyone back next season.
League coordinator Maria David MC's the evening.
Rapha Racing rep and league member Collyn Ahart mentioned that Rapha is hoping to see both the league and women's cycling in general increase in profile in 2012 by putting more into the sponsorship role. Of course, the LWCR can't operate without volunteers at the helm, and with Maria moving on to new challenges we are looking for someone to take over heading up the league next year. It's a nearly thankless task, but Collyn assured us that anyone wishing to take it on would be looked after in the form of Rapha kit in kind. So let us know if you're up for the job.
Special thanks go to Dave Hayward for taking photos of the evening.
