Macclesfield Wheelers approach 75th anniversary at speed
A regional cycling club is just shy of its 75th birthday, but shows no signs of ageing.
Macclesfield Wheelers were founded in 1948 with an inaugural meeting at The George Hotel on Jordangate.
They'll celebrate three-quarters of a century next year.
The club has over 300 members and organises rides fanning out to all points of the compass catering for all abilities and, increasingly, for more types of bicycle.
Simon Griffiths has been general secretary for 15 months since retiring from work and signified the return from the pandemic as pivotal moment for the club.
He said: "The thing with a cycling club, it doesn't have a place."
"You go to a rugby club, it has a bar. You can go, whether you participate or not, you can still go.
"What we've had to work hard this last year, is to get people back into thinking 'club'."
The combination of working from home and routines being capsized by COVID-19 resulted in many snatching fitness in smaller chunks and regrouping amongst their families.
Local cycling clubs' group rides criss-cross the Cheshire Plain and Peak District but the last two years compromised those choices and saw more people going solo in the lanes and up the hills.
Griffiths wanted to switch people back on to thinking about club rides, being a member in order to do stuff with friends, colleagues, to compete.
He highlighted the full spectrum of abilities of members, from someone buying a bike just to go around the lanes through to Team GB cycling coach Monica Greenwood.
Hosting a North West Cyclocross Association (NWCCA) league meeting on January 2 this year unshackled the club from the grip of 2021.
The club took to South Park in Macclesfield to organise and marshal the event, which takes place using road bikes with adapted tyres - pit-stops included - while negotiating barriers, mud and technical turns.
Circuits are spectator-friendly and this league attracts riders and spectators from aged 8 to veteran classes all corralled by enthusiastic volunteers.
Griffiths said: "What a better event to kick off the year than that?
"It's public, people can see it, it's exciting, it's challenging, it's fun, there's music going on."
Competing in the NWCCA league at Seniors, Juniors and Under-23 level was Louis Thomas-Messenger, who the Communications Lead for the Wheelers.
Simon Griffiths was quick to acknowledge the impact of Louis' social media drive.
Instagram is perfect for cycling - galleries combine picturesque landscapes, voluminous sponge-cake slices which are photographed for posterity before rapidly disappearing with pleasingly happy faces across them all.
Showcasing the inclusivity and growing evergreen status of a cycling club is critical to its growth and success.
Thomas-Messenger said: "I've a member of the club for seven-and-a-half years now and it's nice just to be able to put something back in and, you know, put my own spin on things as well.
"One of the things I like about it is you get so much positive interaction from people, club members, non-club members.
Griffiths said: "He's massively advanced it. Ollie (Louis' predecessor) took it from nothing to where it is today, Louis' moved it on double from that.
The secretary added that because no club has a surfeit of volunteers, there's nothing to stop the incumbent in a role taking it in the direction it wants to go.
The impetus of content such as 'meet the rider' interviews synchronises with group updates, results and promotion of the upcoming rides including the Hill Climb series.
And of course, the ever-changing canvas of the Cheshire and Derbyshire countryside frames everything.
Route-planning app Komoot lists popular rides in the district as Jodrell Bank, Longstone Edge, Mam Tor from Edale, Blaze Hill and the Brickworks climb. Both Simon and Louis are fans of Brickworks, which runs up Bakestonedale Road in Pott Shrigley. According to the popular Strava fitness app, the raw statistics for the climb are 2.64 kilometres travelled, climbing 151 metres for an average gradient of 5.7 percent along its distance. It's not the steepest climb in the region, but it is one which is consistently achievable and relatively quiet.
Other terrors include Gradbach to Flash, Pym Chair and Winnats Pass.
The perception of cycling and cyclists in general is a topic of never-ending debate which stretches the imagination and pierces the sub-culture of society across the country.
When carried out as a sport, cycling escapes most of the opprobrium levelled at those in the UK who use two wheels for commuting or more simply, as a pure mode of transport.
The club has a policy of avoiding awkward right turning junctions and will think nothing about carrying on to double back and converting it to a left hand turn and taking a potential delay for all out of the equation.
Calls and signals within the group, as warning or instructions, are a feature of club rides and the January update to the Highway Code have not required any changes to these or editing the existing protocols.
Many people will have a view that cycling clubs only cater for those who can spare the time and energy to go out for 100 miles on Saturdays and Sundays.
Although the club has foundations in road racing and maintains a national time trial, the reflections of society's slipping grasp on time and consumption of it today creates filtered rides rolled out by the carpet of land around Macclesfield.
Simon Griffiths said: "We run a summer series of hillclimbs and people are very much encouraged to have a go.
"There are mountain bike trips…we are lucky in the Macc Forest and areas we can get up there.
"We tend to be road and light gravel is probably where we favour, just because of the resources of accessibility.
"If you lived in the Hope Valley you'd probably do mountain biking, you'd up and down Ladybower."
Thomas-Messenger added that there are a few members who race cross country mountain biking and a recent gravel ride lit up their social media.
He said: "Rides will come and go, but I think there is quite a broad spread of interest across a lot of rides."
Cycling in club kit in groups along open country lanes gives meaning and identity to riders and avoids the anonymity or camouflage associated with urban riding and red-light jumping.
Riding in groups also conserves energy for everyone as you can be shielded from the wind, pulled along by the draft created by your fellow riders.
Bringing the collective achievements of personal riders under the banner of the tangerine colours of the club highlights the best of people.
There are elements of socialism attached to cycling clubs reflected by waiting for those who fall behind in certain rides, or all stopping when a punctured tyre needs fixing.
The dedication and duty of the club's volunteers, ride leaders and administrators mean that it can progress.
Simon Griffiths highlighted the importance attached to each committee member creating a template or playbook so that handing over the role is straightforward.
Decluttering roles within a club at any level is also vital to success. The days of double-entry book-keeping and collecting subs in cash whilst writing everything on paper has been replaced by clouds and apps.
Griffiths said: "You've also got to make sure that it isn't so mystified and difficult, that nobody wants to volunteer.
"I think it's fair to say clubs go in waves. The chairman's new, the treasurer's new, Louis' new, I'm new. We're all less than two years in post."
Clubs need people to keep order at meetings, keep the council and police informed of scheduled events and retain public face.
Griffiths said: "If you can do those fairly well, people can drop in and run time-trials, run road races and do those other things that are peak and trough roles.
"If the process is there, written down, it's a lot easier to get someone else to do it next year.
"What you don't want to do is make it look like it's a ten year commitment."
One in four members are female. Six of the 14-strong committee are in the role for less than two years.
Technology and social media help to push the club forward through engagement between riders and non-members.
Feedback and questions keep the spirit of the Macclesfield Wheelers alive, adding 10 percent to membership in recent years.
It might take another 25 years for motorists and cyclists in urban areas to co-exist without anger, oneupmanship and pettiness, but rural club cycling can epitomise some of the best hopes in us all right now.
Read more about the history of Macclesfield Wheelers here as they make preparations for their 75th anniversary.
Macclesfield: You can also follow them on Facebook.
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