News

Huddersfield Star Wheelers’ Go Ride Season is Go!

Following our mid winter break Huddesrfield Star Wheelers Go Ride sessions returned yesterday down at the track at Hammerstones. Our coaches are now fully refreshed and are raring to go.

This Saturday Kate Shaw was presented with Young Volunteer Awards. Coach Gilly Dukes said “Very proud of this young lady. Bronze, silver and gold Young Volunteer Award. Platinum next, then Level 1 coaching. She joins a group of strong Huddersfield Star Wheelers girls who have progressed to coaching and national racing events.”

The team of British Cycling qualified coaches are looking forward to welcoming old and new riders and aim to offer coaching on a number of different cycling disciplines. We have coaches who cover Cyclo-cross, road biking, mountain biking and general cycling.

If your child loves to ride a bike, bring them down and we’ll improve their riding. All our sessions are structured to deliver technical improvements and we work hard to make our sessions inclusive and fun. Some of our children progress to racing while some develop into good social cyclists who enjoy the pursuit of cake stops!

Our structured winter sessions will aim to keep them moving but there will be periods where they will be stationary so good winter clothing is a must. Most of our sessions will take place on the track but our mountain bike sessions and cyclo-cross sessions will use the surrounding grass areas so be prepared for muddy kids!

Please try and let us know in advance if your child or children are coming to our sessions. This lets our coaches plan the sessions.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the Huddersfield Star Wheelers Go Ride sessions and if you have any questions please feel free to come along and approach one of the coaches.

Details for all of our sessions are posted on the ‘closed’ Huddersfield Star Wheelers Juniors Facebook Group and this is the ideal to place to let us know if you are interested in attending. Remember, if you are not already Huddersfield Star Wheelers please click Join at the top of the page and join the very best club in the area.

Huddersfield Star Wheelers – Tuesday Ride Changes Start Point Again!

Change to Tuesday Night Ride

Tuesday Club runs will now départ from Wood Auto Factors as of 10th July 2018.

Huddersfield Star Wheelers’ popular Tuesday evening road ride will now be meeting and departing from Wood Auto Factors, Colne Road, Huddersfield HD1 3ES.

The move to Wood Auto Factors allows for plenty of space off-road for organising the groups and for parking and Colne Road is less busy than Manchester Road in the early evening.

Wood Auto Factors are just along the road from the Oxfam warehouse, and is found by turning left (from town) or right (towards town) at the bottom of Chapel Hill, from Firth Street behind the University campus, or by turning left at the bottom of Newsome Road.

Huddersfield Star Wheelers Women’s Hill Climb Returns: Tuesday 19th June 2018

A Welcome Return!

Following the huge success of our inaugural Women’s Hill Climb,  Huddersfield Star Wheelers are proud to present the return of the Alison Whitely trophy event. We had 60 fantastic riders turn up to take on the hill last year and this time we will be able to accommodate up to 100 riders. Pictured above, is Helen Roby of HDR, on her way to winning last year’s event.

The Climb!

The hill climb sets off just outside the Cricket Club and Golf Club on Mount Road and climbs for just under 1 mile to the top of Mount Road. The event is open to all women cyclists aged 12 and over and the only person you’re racing is yourself so turn up and give it a go. You have nothing to lose and there will be cake at the end! Riders under 18 years of age MUST wear a helmet.

Where, When and What to Expect?

The event will be hosted again at the Marsden Cricket Club, Mount Road, Marsden HD7 6NN, with the first rider setting off at 7:00pm.  We would like to encourage riders and supporters to turn out in the same huge numbers of last year, bring cake, make plenty of noise and take on the hill and win some fantastic prizes.

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Entries on the Night Only

Entry is a mere £4 and will only be on the night! Please let us know if you want to enter, come along and support, marshal or just make a lot of noise at our Facebook Event Page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1971091633144400/ Please leave a comment on the page if you rode last year and what your target is for this year.

Watch Last Year’s Event Round Up:

Huddersfield Star Wheelers’ Slawit Hill Climb Is Back!!

Huddersfield Star Wheelers are proud to announce the return of Summer Hill Climb competition in the Colne Valley on Wednesday August 16th!

Following the success of last year’s event, Slaithwaite’s steep sided valley is again the evnue for an inter local club competition which starts just below the viaduct on Holme Lane and climbs up towards the Rose and Crown atop Cop Hill. The route is just short of a mile and climbs around 420 feet averaging out at 8% with some steep ramps thrown in for good measure.

Huddersfield Star Wheelers are inviting members from all clubs in the East Pennine area and we’re looking for all riders to come along and just give it a go and mix pleasure with pain. For those whom the pain may be too much, we’ll also welcome anyone who can come along and support the riders or marshal and just make this a great event.

The event headquarters is at Gutsibits along side the canal at Slaithwaite. Click on the blue motorbike below for more information. Signing on will be from from 18:00 with start times of 19:00 and we’re taking £4 on the day which includes insurance.

Following the huge success of our women’s only event earlier in the year, Huddersfield Star Wheelers are keen to see an amazing turn out again at this event!

So please come and give it go . . It may not be fun but will be painful and ENJOYABLE!!! We know we live in a hilly part of the country so let’s make the best of it.

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Huddersfield Star Wheelers Women’s Hill Climb – Oh What a Night!

I’m not one for writing anything longer than an email but last night really did take my breath away and I thought it best I reflect on our journey, largely from my own perspective of course, as to what happened. It wasn’t just another hill climb, it was a whole series of stories that culminated in what I can only describe as the cycling event of the year. Sorry Sir Gary, but this was way better than the Tour de Yorkshire, but in fairness it captured what the Tour de Yorkshire has shown, and that is women’s cycling is absolutely fantastic and the energy all the riders spent on that hill last night could keep t’Huddersfield lit up until winter!

All of this started with Dick Facey, our seasoned Hill Climb event organiser and general uphill fanatic, who came to the committee and said he’d got a slot for a brand new hill climb, and given we are a club that’s committed to racing equity, we decided we’d make it a women’s only event. It seemed an easy decision at the time and I promised Dick that we’d make sure it was a success.

Roll forward the middle of February and following an approach by long time Star Wheeler Deryck Jones of Modesto Works, Matt Bourne, Helen Hudson and myself met Deryck and started talking about branding and in particular our Hill Climb and how big an event we wanted it to be. Roll forward to the first Saturday in March and on a bitterly cold morning, I attached my Sony action cam to my bike and set off with Helen to shoot some ‘action sequences’ for our first video, and after we thawed out I hunted round the internet and found the Dame Kelly Holmes quote and our first new brand video was produced.

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The video was just a teaser and following some frantic Tweeting (yes people still use Twitter!) we started to generate some positive feedback, and lots of interest about the specifics of the event. One person in particular, Beverley Lucas, CEO of Knight Composites, was particularly keen to get involved to help with the promotion of Women’s cycling events in our small corner of Yorkshire. Beverley might have spent a long time living in the USA working in some big companies in the cycling industry but deep down she’s just a hard working Sheffield lass. The first chance we had, Helen and me popped down to Full Gas Bikes at Fox Valley and we talked about our ambition. Beverley was hooked and we agreed to meet up on a chilly April 1st (more fool us that day) to do more filming on the hill and for Deryck to do some pieces to camera.

Following a late call on Facebook, we rode out with Gilly, Helen, Diane, Louise and Helen Roby, our winner on the night. This is where our first story starts. Louise rode out to Marsden on her trusty ebike. She knew she couldn’t compete but she wanted to part of the event. We filmed for as long as we could stay warm but once Di started more or less turning blue we knew it was time to retire to the Handmade Bakery in Slawit to shoot the interviews in the video below. We created three films with the primary film being about creating an inclusive event anyone could take part in, whether you’re a racing snake like Helen, or someone like Diane who wants to ride for her club and post a time she can beat next year when she’ll be in the Vet 70 category! Kudos to Diane, Maz and Betty-Ann for smashing it last night by the way!

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We finished our cake and coffee, and wrapped up the filming had a good laugh about sports bras and saddles and off we went home. Helen and myself went home to pack for our 6am flight to Palma who started to ride up hills setting PR after PR. But one person didn’t go straight home – Louise. Not content with not being able to take part she decided there and then on her journey home to go to Holmfirth and to buy her first ever road bike so she could enter the hill climb. Four weeks later we met up again and we rode all the way over the hill with one stop half way. Louise was so happy but she wanted to know she could do it again so just seven days later, not only did she ride over the hill without stopping but she rode over the ‘Buck’ in what I can describe as a soul destroying headwind, the kind that ruins the descent on the other side. It was a fantastic day out for someone who’d only ridden a road bike for days never mind weeks, and I don’t believe a word about the skinny bloke at the front being a wind break because he only breaks one type of wind according to his wife.

Once we’d published the video above and started really pushing the event, something very special and truly amazing came to being, and our second story started to be written. The family of the late Alison Whiteley nee Garside got in touch and asked if they could support the event and give us a donation. Everyone at the event will have heard the touching word’s of Alison’s father reminding us all that “If they can do it, so can I”, and forever more we will have a trophy in Alison’s memory, and those words will be our very special reminder each year, of what we can all achieve when we put our hearts and minds to it.  Hopefully, Alison’s 12 year old daughter Florence (pictured below), will be able to come along each year and show us all “if they can do it, so can I”. Truly inspirational.

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We continued the theme of the event promotion, tongue firmly in cheek, but keeping it very real as an individual sporting challenge, by (not) sticking cleats onto Helen’s new Jimmy Choos, images of cake and the cake, coffee, ride, repeat meme.

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In between the social media shenanigans, Alex Raine our women’s ride secretary, arrange a recce of the hill and went out there with a big group of Steady Eddies and got some last minute training and hill reps in. Big thanks to Alex for sorting that and encouraging so many Huddersfield Star Wheelers to enter!

And so we came to the night itself. The weather seemed perfect at the Marsden Cricket Club, whom we must thank for providing us with a fantastic venue, but there were tales from the top of the hill and the first arrivals from over t’border who’d ridden here, that there was a bit of a headwind blowing. Nobody seemed at all phased by it and slowly but surely the car park started to fill and the whole hill just seemed to come alive.

There was always a steady queue in the club house and the cake came in from all quarters and in all styles and gluten free too! We had some club riders turn up early to keep the road safe and the remaining Tuesday night club runs all spilled onto the hill from the top all the way down to keep noise levels at fever pitch.

So it was over to Dick’s team of holders, catchers, timers and general all round helpers to keep the whole show on the road clockwork fashion with 57 amazing riders giving it their all to get over the hill as quickly as they could possibly muster. I’ve never seen so many people and so much energy and support at a club level event. It was absolutely awesome and one rider, gave us this feedback:

“A huge thank you to everyone who was involved in the event last night, marshals, time keepers, holder at the start line, cake-bakers and cheerleaders. It was well-run and a great success. It was also notable because it was just a hill climb ….. You hit the mark with that and the number of entries and the fact we all buried ourselves shows it was taken as seriously as any other hill climb event would be. I hope you keep this in your calendar for future years and can build on this success.”

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Well from where I was stood, directing traffic most of the night, it was just an amazing night in so many ways for so many people and I enjoyed it all from start to finish. And thinking of start to finish, Helen Roby was with us at the start and is a credit to her club HD Revolutions, so I must end with one last picture of a very proud athlete receiving the Alison Whiteley Trophy, who will always put everything in when she competes but will always have fun doing so.

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If anyone else has any stories to share from last night please drop me a line at huddersfieldstarwheelers@gmail.com

Thank you all for making it an amazing event and see you all again next year!

More photos from the event can be found at the following links. Thanks very much to all of the photographers.

http://johnmaz.com/hswhillclimb.html

https://www.facebook.com/groups/28961600735/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/viewsaremyown/albums/72157684221924145

Huddersfield Star Wheelers Women’s Hill Climb – Tuesday 23rd May 2017 – 7:00pm

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Just a few weeks to go!

There are less than four weeks to go until Huddersfield Star Wheelers Women’s Hill climb which will start from just outside Marsden Cricket Club atop the beautiful Colne Valley between Huddersfield and Delph in the hilly West Riding of Yorkshire. The Cricket Club will have plenty of parking, the bar will be open, and hot drinks and cakes will also be available.

The Climb!

The hill climb sets off just outside the Cricket Club and Golf Club on Mount Road and climbs for just under 1 mile to the top of Mount Road. The event is open to all women cyclists aged 12 and over and the only person you’re racing is yourself so turn up and give it a go. You have nothing to lose and there will be free cake at the end!

Entries only on the Night

59 riders have committed to turning up on the night and we politely ask that those riders sign on before 7:00pm. We also have 30 further places. so if you are still keen on taking part please turn up before 7:30pm and there will hopefully be a place for you on the start line.

Remember entry will be on the day only and will be just £4!  Whether you are competing or not you can still have a fantastic evening cheering on everyone else from the side of the road!

We’re committed to turning up!

The following 59 riders committed to turning up to the event this week!

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Finding Marsden Cricket Club!

Marsden Cricket club is just below Marsden Golf Club on Mount Road. Please arrive at the venue for 7:00pm and preferably from the roundabout at the bottom of the hill so you can safely turn left into the car park.

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Contact

You can contact the organiser via the email address race@huddersfieldstarwheelers.com

 

Huddersfield Star Wheelers Host The Yorkshire Summer Cross Opening Race For The Fourth Year!

Cylco Cross Racing

For the fourth year in succession, Huddersfield Star Wheelers are proud to announce that we will be hosting the first race of the Yorkshire Cyclo-Cross Summer season on Wednesday 26th April 2017.

The event will be held at Newsome High School and there will be two races, the first being for under 14s which will start at 7:00pm and the second for seniors which will start at 7:30pm.

Signing on will start around 6:00pm so please arrive early. Entry prices will be confirmed as soon as possible.

Further details can be found at http://yorkshirecyclocross.com/  and directions to Newsome High School can be found using the map below:

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Please remember even if you’re not competing please make an effort to turn up to the event to support Huddersfield Star Wheelers, and to help with setting up the course, marshalling, signing in and taking down the course at the end of the night. Setting up the course starts at 3:30pm and the course is taken down after the last rider crosses the line and all the timing chips are collected.

For further information please contact Graham Piccavey at race@huddersfieldstarwheelers.com or visit our Cross page.

Callum Wilson – 3rd Youth Male at Sherwood Pines

Huddersfield Star Wheeler, Callum Wilson bagged an impressive third at the 2017 Midlands Mountain Bike Series – Round 1 at Sherwood Pines.

The third place was particularly special because Callum started at the very back of the grid because he wasn’t able to compete last year due to an ongoing back problem. The ability to make up places in a busy field is further compromised because so much of the course is single track. Callum was further held up as the whistle blew as the rider in front didn’t get traction away from the line.

Callum sprinted past as many riders as possible before he first enetered the woods and arriving in 8th place for the first lap, but with race distance being three 20 minute laps, making places from there would always be a challenge and passing lapped riders made that a little more difficult at times.

Nevertheless Callum dug deep and each lap made up places until he was fourth and was within half a minute of the third place rider in a very strong field. Unfortunately the leader of the race had to pull out due to a mechanical failure but that left Callum in third place which he held to the line finishing less than a minute behind the overall winner.

Given the run in to the race and the quality of the field, this is a fantastic result for Callum and for Huddersfield Star Wheelers who have supported Callum through a difficult year, through the coaching at Hammerstones and the high quality rides that are available throughout the year and in particular the rides on offer both on Tuesday and Thursday nights.

Huddersfield Star Wheelers Results:

Jamie Ramsden, Fun Male, 10th
Richard Williams, Fun Male, 25th
John Docker, Grand Vet Male, 10th
Ben Ramsden, Juvenile Male, 13th
Adam Jackson, Juvenile Male, 23rd
Dylan Boyes, Juvenile Male, 25th
Gary Jackson, Veteran Male, 67th
Callum Wilson, Youth Male, 3rd
Sophie Ramsden, Youth Female, 4th
Ruby Boyes, Youth Female, 5th

Volunteer for the Street Bikes John Radford Memorial Ride

The John Radford Mixed Ability Memorial Ride and Cycling Festival is taking place on Saturday April 29th 2017 at the Spenborough Track, WF15 6LW On the day there will be various events and rides both on the track and on the road following 20 miles which includes part of the Tour de Yorskhire route.

Gill Greaves, event organiser, of Street Bikes CIC, is looking for volunteers to help out with the different events, especially the 20 mile road ride. You don’t have to be a ‘ride leader’ more just someone with good riding skills and a sense of direction who can help a large group of mixed ability riders ride safely for 20 miles.

If you would like to volunteer, whilst wearing your Huddersfield Star Wheelers jersey with pride and supporting Street Bikes, please contact Gill via email at info@streetbikes.org.uk or phone 07873 773 417

J Tomlinsons of Nottingham are supporting the event and Street Bikes are raising funds to build a new classroom.