Category Listing: News

When we first built the site, most ride destinations were expressed as villages or towns. Most riders took a picnic lunch. It therefore made sense to keep a café list separate from ride destinations.

These days, ride leaders are more likely to nominate specific outlets. I have therefore merged the café list into the list of ride venues which now specify:

• Whether a venue should appear in the café list; and
• Whether it is open or closed

I also took the opportunity to prune some entries.

All new cafés, restaurants, pubs, etc added to ride venues will get added to the café list automatically. Please continue to use the forums to let ride leaders know about new places you discover.

Please let me know if you find a venue has closed. I can update our entry and that will flag a warning to ride leaders thinking of going there. If you think we're missing a venue, you can now check the café map in case you have misspelt the name, or the name has changed.

Andy

We've made a few web site updates:

• New Cycling UK-inspired branding
• Ability to switch between showing runs by type, and by date
• More detail about ride destinations
• Better response to replies to our emailer

Continue reading →

Thank you to all our entrants, and congratulations to the winners.

Continue reading →

I'm seeing a lot of rejected emails from Virgin Media and NTLWorld - they're the same thing.

It didn't take a lot of googling to find that it's a general problem, not specific to us. Bounce messages say the Virgin Media/NTLworld email servers aren't responding.

Bearing in mind that:

• Virgin Media / NTLWorld is losing interest in its email service
• Before we switched to Amazon Web Services for our email, it frequently falsely reported our emails as spam

It could be time to switch email providers.

Setting up your own email address with its own domain allows you to switch broadband suppliers without having to change your email address. I've had the same address for decades having switched several times.

There are loads of suppliers that can provide the service. FWIW, I use IONOS. A big benefit is that it sends me a daily email telling me about any messages that have gone to spam.

At the last committee meeting we agreed to investigate an alternative supplier for our club jerseys.

Up to now we've used Force GB, but we have been increasingly concerned about its viability:

• It's advertised sales email address doesn't work
• It's web site is no longer available
• Production of the jerseys was reliant on a single individual and has ceased while he's not available
• We've been told we need to order a larger number of items per order - meaning a longer wait for people ordering jerseys while we accumulate an order

As an alternative, we're investigating Owayo:

• A long-established supplier
• Allows ordering of single items
• Allows you to order items directly
• Many of us have the Hayling Cycle Ride jerseys supplied by Owayo, and the quality is good

Owayo has a different product range to Force GB. You can see the jersey range here, and the gilet and jacket range here. Those pages also provide specs for the available clothing.

Continue reading →

Following discussion in the PCTC committee, we'd like PCTC members to consider providing us with your date of birth. That would allow us to:

• Identify any upward drift of age that could indicate a recruitment issue
• Produce a more accurate return to Cycling UK which asks us for an age analysis each year
• Campaign for cycle provision - for example, a recent planning application by McCarthy and Stone implied that old folk are not interested in cycling!

Entry of your date of birth is optional. If you are concerned that your birthday might get into the wrong hands, you can use a date that is a day or so out. That will have no material effect on the stats but will obscure the real date. For what it's worth, I've entered my actual birthday.

To provide your date of birth:

• See the new 'Date of birth' section of your profile:
  • Click/tap this link; or
  • Log in to the site and click/tap the 'Your profile' link shown at the foot of every page
• Alternatively, send me or Tricia Farnham your date of birth so we can enter it for you

Note:

• You can remove your date of birth at any time via your profile or through a request to me or Tricia
• Dates of birth are visible only to site administrators
• Dates of birth are used only to aggregate statistics based on age for use in campaigns and reports
• Statistics generated by the site will not disclose individual birth dates

There's more information in our published privacy policy.

Please let me know if the above does not address all your concerns.

Thank you,

Andy Henderson
Secretary, Portsmouth CTC

You can read the latest edition here. If you are not already logged-in to the Portsmouth CTC site, you will need to log in to see it.

Contents list:

• Stormy weather
• Editorial opinions
• Presidents' thoughts (that apostrophe is in the right place)
• Fine weather for a bike ride
• Going tubeless
• Blueybells
• The rain in Spain
• Col ascents
• Transcontinental cycling
• Wildflower rides
• Home automation 3
• Mrs Pink and her sister go cycling again
• Far east adventures
• Dartmoor Ghost
• Hill climb and freewheel competition 2022
• Puzzle page

That's a good variety, I'm sure there's something to interest, if not inspire, you.

As you read the articles, remember to click photos - most will show you a larger version and you won't lose your place.

I'm looking forward to getting your contribution to the Autumn 2022 edition.

Martyn

Dear PCTC member,

Just a gentle reminder that work will start soon on the Spring edition of the Pedal.

Thanks to everyone who's submitted an article to date, but we could do with a few more. Let us know what you've been up to over the Winter and early Spring, or maybe what you're planning for the Summer. Articles on rides (however long or short), reviews of bikes or associated equipment, or maybe more technical articles on cycling issues. Essentially, anything loosely related to cycling. We'll even publish non-cycling articles if it's of interest to other members.

The deadline for copy is Saturday 30th April.

There's still time.

M

editor@portsmouthctc.org.uk

We're going to start work soon on the Spring22 edition of the Pedal. Please can I ask you to consider submitting an article.

The article doesn't necessarily need to be that long. As a guide, somewhere between 250 and 1250 words supported by photos/maps/diagrams/charts etc, is about right.

I thought it might be useful to have a theme for the edition. So with the recent poor weather conditions causing issues for cyclists, I thought "Stormy Weather" might be appropriate. Articles and photos loosely based around the theme would be good.

It doesn't of course exclude articles that have nothing to do with the weather. Articles on tours, rides, technical issues, reviews of bikes and associated kit, cycling issues etc, would be welcome.

So as ever, whether you've cycled from Havant to Havana, Bedhampton to Bedford or simply Westbourne to West Dean, we'd like to hear about it.

Don't forget, the Pedal is written by the members, for the members.

If you've got an idea and would like to discuss further, please do contact me. The deadline for articles is the 30th April.

Set your creative self free!

Martyn
editor@portsmouthctc.org.uk