About Cycle Club Sudbury
Cycle Club Sudbury was formed back in the late seventies when a couple of cyclists decided there should be a local club.
Now the club sits at a healthy 70ish members. We hold a regular Time Trial series, Audax events, annual Hill Climb and even a Reliability Ride in January each year.
The club is open to all riders, young and old; no one is ever out of place on a bike!
Below is a quick run down of the club inception right up to the dizzy heights of 25 members. This article was orginially published in the club newsletter; The Spindle in September 2004 and written by life time member Leonard Finch
In the beginning there was young Harrold who with Len decided that we should form a new Cycling Club in Sudbury, there had been one some years back but it was now defunct and had been disbanded some years earlier. So Harold placed an advert in the Free Press to the effect that any body interested were welcome to attend a meeting, and on the 28th August 1979 an inaugural meeting was held and a number of people turned up.
And Bingo! the following week we were on our way. So on the 4th September 1979 The Committee was formed with Pat Raymond as Secretary, Len as Treasurer and Gordon Richards as Chairman and people paid their Subscriptions of £4 for Seniors, £6 for Family and a £1 for Junior membership.
The first person to pay and therefore our first Member was Gordon Richards, our 2nd was Harold and family which included Kevin and Christiana then 3rd was Brian Nixon who alas died in 2002, in all 12 people joined on the first night. The clubroom meetings were held in the 6th Form common room at the G.C. Upper school. Clubroom subscriptions were 10p and 5p for under 14’s, this included a cup of tea which was usually made by Christiana.
Amongst some of the early members during our 1st year were Brian and Pat Webber and family, Pete and Marlene Broomfield and Tony Hall and 2nd claim member Colin Dales who we only charged £2. Colin lived at Nedging Tye and was a member of the Wolsey Road Club, he is now a second claim member of the Wolsey.At a committee meeting it was after a long discussion we decided on the name of Cycle Club Sudbury, suggested by Brian Nixon having gone through the normal run of Road Club, Wheelers, Cycle Club etc and it was decided to have orange being our main colour for our jersey’s as the only other club in orange was the Great Yarmouth C.C.
During the 1st year we had regular club runs on Sunday’s leaving Market Hill led by various run leaders who’s delight was to take us through fords such as the one at Assington and Hawkedon and up unmade grotty roads, one such ride in November ‘79 there was 16 riders. The newsletter states that there was a complaint of Mudsplatitosomush.
Len had started a newsletter and named it the Spindle. Why? Because his old club had a newsletter called the Hub and it was said that everything revolved around the Hub. So now everything revolved around the Spindle to keep everybody informed of what was going on.
Boxing Day 1979 we had a 10 mile fancy dress Time Trial with 9 riders, Harold was in a ballerina outfit and rode in a tu-tu and Len had an apes mask and a sunshade fitted to his handlebars, the winner of the event was Paul Kelling who got mearest to the mystery time set by Gordon. Afterwards it was off to Harold’s house for mince pies, baked potatoes and wine. Harold was then living at Kings Hill.
By June 1980 we had 33 members and had £101.80 in funds.
During 1980 we had a Reliability Trial which was more of a map reading contest and a number of riders got lost, we also had a treasure hunt, which was quite popular.Time Trials were held from the G.C. Sports Centre to Bures, Cuckoo Hill, Assington along the A134 through Newton to Joes Road down Sheepshead Hill to the Sports Centre. Harold was the time keeper and used a wristwatch with a sweep second hand for timing, then we held 10 mile Time Trials from Cramphorns, now Wyevale Garden Centre to do a U turn at High Road Leavenheath, the traffic was probably a quart then of what it is to-day.
