Roller Race at the 2007 Bike Film and Animation Awards

Saturday 2nd of June 2007 was a long day...started in Desborough at Mum's house....got up at 6.30 am to head over to Rob's house for my first taste of a West End Wheelers club run....dragged ourselves out of bed waved goodbye to Mum and Rockin' Desborough and headed through the mist to Rob's for the start of our 60 miler round the far reaches of Leicester...an almost perfect circumnavigation of Leicester....me and Rob rode down to the county arms to meet Iain, Gregg, Dan, Kev, Duff and Michael.........
The weather hit a high early on and the temperature rose steadily all day...there were hills; up and down, cattle grids, sheep, dogs, villages, trees and very few cars...amazing...the pace was quick all ride and Greg's route was fun and not too demanding despite some of the steeper sections which were thankfully pretty short....the Wheelers clock up a lot of miles every week and kept up a good, even pace all ride.


West End Wheelers from Jono on Vimeo

I had some trouble on the steep bits with the old fixed wheel set up with the big gear so my cadence was erratic.....i don't normally have many big hills or long periods of riding without stopping so i was well out of my recent riding experience...i realized i need gears if i was going to do this without massive effort...it was pretty demanding going up some of the hills and harder going down...spinning out and having to bring my legs under control pretty fast as a couple of the downhills ended on a T junction at a busy main road...all in all though it was brilliant and i want to get out with the Wheelers more often....shame they are in Leicester and i'm in Swansea right now.....I'll be hooking myself up with some retro cycle gear though in a Wheelers style.

The film was being shown at the Phoenix at 7.30 as part of the Bike Film and Animation Awards showing of the Leicester Bike Film Festival and as it turned out also before "The Flying Scotsman' the next day ......it's the 6th Bike Film Festival in Leicester so it's a regular event for the Phoenix....the awards on the other hand is in it's first year.


Roller Race from Jono on Vimeo
Other films in the Awards are"Written in the streets"....the London Messenger Film, "The Cyclist" which deals with a man with psychiatric problems who uses cycling and photography to cope with his illness, short films from New Zealand, Scotland, Canada also dealing with aspects of cycling..some personal and others observational.....it was wicked to see my own film up there on the big screen and at the end it got voted audience favourite .....good job i knew a good proportion of the small audience....score!!! Anyway the festival goes on to other venues over the summer so a chance to see all the films.....i might go to Brighton to see it again...don't know much about the dates yet though so i'll check and post them when i know......Quick meet up with my Bro and Rachel who is all repaired after getting hit by a car while cycling in Leicester a few weeks ago.....luckily the car had only just pulled off so no big injury but the driver wasn't really looking it seems so again it shows you cant trust drivers even in Leicester...England's Cycling City!!!
Onward to Duff's surprise party and the Wheelers flaked out by midnight on the Sofas of Loaf......classic Leicester visit...more of the same soon i think.
Back in Wales today and a trip down to find the bowl at Aberdare...this is what i found.....