Paddington Cycling Club?

Hi,

Been lurking on here for a wee while and having seen this thread, thought it was about time I posted something.

I was a member of the Paddington cc from 1976 to 1979. My family moved to Warrington Crescent (bottom right in the map, above) and I soon discovered the track at the Rec.

I spent 3 years racing on that track, as well as time trialling with the club, mostly 10s and 25s. I did a bit of road racing too, at Eastway circuit in Hackney amongst others. My track bike was borrowed and my road bike was also my training and touring bike, as well as converting it to fixed wheel during the winter.

I, too, remember club rides and weekend trips with John Austin and his wobbly saddlebag. Paddington cc had a strong social side.

In 1979 I moved away to go to university and that was the last I saw of the club, apart from attending a few Tuesday night track leagues in the 80's if I was in London.

I was working in Bangor in 1995 when I saw a cyclist dressed in the club colours so I stopped him for a chat which is how I found out that John had moved to north Wales.

I have a photo of racing at the track from those days. I'll find it and put in on here.

Here is the picture, taken in 1977 or 78, I think. It was printed in the local paper. Yours truly is in front centre. You might recognise some of the others.

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Fuck yeah Crimea pPass what a dump. I think someone came off at 40 mph on the decent and bounce off that sharp left.

@Yoav, I remember those bikes thats why when John said a Raleigh was up for sale I bought it, check the porn thread that Raleigh Track bike was the same as what I rode at PCC.

Eastway, cycle 13 miles across London get your gearing checked out race then cycle home, fuck East London is/was a shit hole.

Is Eastway still there? I thought it had also gone the way of the Rec.

With 500+ pages of posts in the bike porn thread, you'll have to point me to it :-)

Is Eastway still there? I thought it had also gone the way of the Rec.

With 500+ pages of posts in the bike porn thread, you'll have to point me to it :-)

First Page First Post I had the same bike.

Hi Yoav,
Didn't realise John went to Wales, makes sense though, thanks for that:-)

I too remember the 10s out somewhere Neasden way, mostly because I lived in Hackney and it was roughly 20 miles to the start, the TT then 20 miles back home. Sort of interval training before I knew what that was! Did my first one one a Sun GT with steel rims and got told off for using the 13 sprocket (I was 14:-)

Great to the see the pics look a couple of years before my time, but only that.

Eastway's gone under the Olympic park:-( There where rumours it was going to be replaced but that appears to be unlikely now.
Remember well the really tight first corner that was the beginning and end of many a new riders race... Also, while we're reminiscing, during one of the schoolboy races a seriously good rider (I won't name because I forget but possibly Spencer Wingrave) was so far out in front he stopped in the valley, took his kit off and crossed the line naked:-) 'allegedly'

Diable,
Yep East London was definitely a shit hole then, Eastway was little tarmac heaven in a wasteland.
Your experience of the Crimea sounds familiar. I was lucky enough to be behind (obviously) a clubmate who belted straight down, didn't get the corner quite right, his shriek and the sound of metal was a clue to slow down...
Found him 20 metres or so into a field of sheep with two screwed wheels and a LOT of road rash!

Ivan, on the decent I remember overtaking cars in the middle of the road I reckon you could get 60mph on the decent (maybe wishful thinking from a teenager) and coming off on a rainy day and sliding down a road on my arse ;p that hurt..........

Had a look at the photo, no familiar faces, who remembers Derny Racing at the Rec?

Its like no one remembers this track, its the same as Speedway or Greyhound racing at White City where the new BBC building is.

I think 60 was possible too, though through teen googles I also thought I could win the Paris - Roubaix;-)
It definitely made your eyes stream and was, until riding the Alps, the fastest I'd ever gone. Though thankfully I made it all the way down on the saddle, that had to hurt geezer...

^^ It was there or a group delusion is currently in place, mind I have been eatin a lot of mushrooms lately... Nah, fuckit, I remember the pain! It happened.

I came off somewhere in Bangor, But that hill was awesome as a teenager first time passing cars at full pelt and they couldn't keep up, damn fcuking cold though I was an ice cube at the bottom.

The only downer was the obnoxious Welsh ;o))

Yep we scared the ever living shit out of a bloke in a 2CV,
8 of us passed him out so quick he must've thought he'd left the handbrake on:-)
he was still wobbling when I looked back, oh the fun!

You must have gone to Calshot back then as well I think it was a very short track then.

No H+S 40 riders going around..........

Nope,
Didn't make it to Calshot, don't even remember it?
Just Paddington Rec and Eastway and some very hilly 10s in Wales!

I only heard of HHill when I went to work in a bike shop!! The shame!

Nope,
Didn't make it to Calshot, don't even remember it?
Just Paddington Rec and Eastway and some very hilly 10s in Wales!

I only heard of HHill when I went to work in a bike shop!! The shame!

Ha Ha I raced at HH and Welwyn Garden as well.

I never even got to have a go on a wooden track:-(

What was Welwyn Like?

Ooh suppers on

Will reconvene later, definitely going to tap up Amos for more Paddington info next w/end.

Nice, wish all my crashes had been on lovely spongy wood;-)
If you're gonna go down it's only fair to take someone with you:-))

I think it was tarmac, wood was nice I got taken out on the bend and it doesn't hurt when you slide down the banking, my bike took 3 other riders out though ;p

See what you mean, that is a nice Raleigh, although the club bikes weren't anything like that. That's a club bike I am riding in my photo. No idea what make they were as they were all painted the same plain blue. Later on, I was loaned a lovely chrome track bike by a fellow club member whose name I forget and then in 1979 I got my own track frame built by a builder called Alec Bird in SE London. He had a workshop at the back of the old Holdsworth shop in ?Penge?. I kept that frame for many years hoping I'd race again but never did. In 1995, I met a young cyclist so keen to race on the track, I felt sorry for her and gave her the frame.

I rode at Herne Hill just the once but never at Welwyn. More recently, I've had a couple of goes at the Manchester velodrome. They do "taster" sessions for about £10, no experience necessary, but I soon got the hang of the wooden bankings.

I also remember well those early morning rides from central London to time trials in the outer suburbs. Did more miles getting there and back than the race.

And to add to the name dropping, I can say that I raced against Sean Yates when he was riding for the Archer RC (sponsored by Cutty Sark whiskey) at Paddington. Of course, when I say 'raced', I mean I was on the same track at approximately the same time as him. Any impression of actually racing him is purely accidental :-)

I came off somewhere in Bangor, But that hill was awesome as a teenager first time passing cars at full pelt and they couldn't keep up, damn fcuking cold though I was an ice cube at the bottom.

Sorry slow on the uptake Diable, I never gave you props for calling it a hill:-)
I think most Londoners would want to call it a mountain:-P

Love the Raleigh, beautiful bike.
I used to get the loan of a 753 Team Raleigh road bike from a (well off) mate for road races that weren't at Eastway, too many crashes!!
Err almost exactly like this (except with nice white bar tape...):
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/TI-RALEIGH-TEAM-753-CAMPAGNOLO-SUPER-RECORD-ULTRA-RARE_W0QQitemZ140391538794QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Bikes_GL?hash=item20affce06a#ht_500wt_1182
That was my dream bike for ages till I saw a Colnago Master... Eyes drift off into distance

Yoav I remember the club bikes being no name jobs in blue and Alec Bird frames, they were pretty tasty. Though Penge felt like going to East Berlin!
Terribly decent of you to pass it on to a enthusiastic youngster, karma should be knocking your door down:-)
As for the Sean (the Beast) Yates name dropping...
say he just pipped you on the line, I'll back you up;-)
Being on the same track definitely counts in my book.

Is Eastway still there? I thought it had also gone the way of the Rec.

Eastway's gone under the Olympic park:-( There where rumours it was going to be replaced but that appears to be unlikely now.

No, the replacement of the Eastway cycle track is well on schedule as part of the all-singing, all-dancing new Velopark. The Eastway Users' Group, of which I'm a happy member, has been working very hard on securing a great new deal for cyclists there, particularly thanks to the chair, Michael Humphreys, who's been putting in a sterling effort. There'll be the Olympic velodrome, currently being constructed, a one-mile road circuit, a XC MTB circuit, cyclo-cross provision, and a BMX facility, downgraded from supercross.

You load of old-timers could also be forgiven for not seeming to be aware of the excellent Hog Hill road cycle circuit in Redbridge. ;P Off-road provision there isn't so good, but the road circuit has been very successful in hosting races. Also, British Cycling has a focus on building circuits, and a few more are being made a reality around the country. I'm sure that more velodromes will be built, too.

Herne Hill is still under some threat and its future is uncertain.

I enjoyed all the reminiscing in this thread!

'Old timers'!
Take that back!!
Oh. Wait. Yeah. Fuck:-(

Thanks for the news on Eastway Oliver, that's brilliant, I shall definitely being returning to it.
Less reminiscing, more racing:-)

Wonder if they'll leave the wicked sharp 1st corner?

No, the layout will be quite different. This plan is a bit out of date now but it is a little clearer than the ones showing every little bit of trail:

As I say, quite a lot has changed by now, but you get an idea of the road circuit. There won't be quite such an extreme corner as that old one, but plenty of difficulties to keep it interesting.

OK, now that's cleared up, it's back to reminiscing about Paddington CC...
TBH, this thread has been great, it brought back a lot of old memories which I thought I'd consigned to the dustbin of my brain.

I used to drool over Colnagos as well but the reality was very different. I remember going on my first club run, meeting at Kingsbury circle in north London. My bike was a ratty old Sun on which I toured England and France. I also didn't have any proper bike kit. Still, I managed to keep up and when I got home, I checked the map - we did 90 miles that day - no wonder I was so tired.

I also realised I had to get a proper road bike and some proper bike kit. The next day, I found a second hand Mercian bike in the local paper which was mine for £90. That was my racing/training/touring bike until I could get enough money for buy a second hand Condor frame which I built into my race bike with the Mercian consigned to training and touring.

The next upgrade was to a brand new frame, a first for me, a lovely Woodrup which I bought from Whisker's cycles in Kilburn Lane (does anyone remember that shop? - proper old fashioned bike shop was that place), which I would probably still today have if some scrote hadn't stolen it (along with a pair of Campag record wheels) - would have made a brilliant fixie, which is where we came in ....

So, what happened to Paddington CC? What brought on its demise? I can see that loss of the track and of John Austin would be major factors? Is John still alive? Has anyone seen him recently ? Not sure how old he would be now but in my teens, he seemed very old, but probably was only 40 or so.

Cheers Oliver,
New Eastway looks a bit more technical than the old one, looking forward to it:-)

Yoav, yeah! back to rose tinted memories...

Snap my 1st bike was a Sun GT, so obviously much better than yours;-p
Had shiny steel rims and shit.
First proper road frame was 2nd hand Robert 531SL for I think £100.
Did eventually, after racing days, manage to get hold of a Colnago Master while I worked at Bike UK.
Rode it round Europe then spent a summer couriering on it while at art school!!
Handled beautifully, very fast but predictable and comfy:-)

Kingsbury Circle, yes, had forgotten the name, always thought it was a deeply inauspicious place to start a bike ride! Remember bringing an old raincoat that weighed more than the bike! and being dragged back, an absolute wreck, to Highbury by Carl Shavitz (any bells?)
Carl used to look after those of us from East London, his day job was world folk music recording and playing:-)

Whiskers! Ahh drifts off into distance again
Absolutely, had to go there to get my first schoolboy block 17-21, my first set of tubs blah blah:-)

I'm down to Folkstone next w/end for 2 days riding with Amos (he's still ridiculously fit) and will spend as much of it as I can delving into the who, what and where of PCC, I think he's still got one of the old jerseys:-).
Will let you know what I turn up.
John was mid forties when I was there in the early eighties and he was pretty fit so he could well still be around, I hope so, he's a bit of a legend, or should be...

Whiskers, I remember them as they built my first proper road bike I had a Ken Ryall frame bought some new Campag bits and kept some of my old stuff then slowly upgraded to some Shimano 600 bits and pieces.

One of the photos I posted up was a fellow PCC member and he is riding the club tandem, that was fun to take around the track.

I remember Steve Hefernan (sp) used to race at the Rec sometimes and I think as most cyclists in the day he worked part time at Condor.

Jeeez I remember John and his lets cycle 35 miles have a 30 min rest do a 25 miler time trial then when thats finished cycle home. Lucky he always had some liquid glucose with him hidden away, remember hill climbs and tricycle racing and there was that old timer with one leg that would crop up at those meets.

Kingsbury Circus yeah thats the meeting point I remember one run when some youngster turned up all beaming as his Dad had bought him a new bike (the equivalent of a £99 Halfords special) and the trip was to Amersham, half way there the bike started to disintegrate and somehow he limped into town and John had to pay his fare back to London as there was no way he was cycling back.

I also fcuking hated/detested having to repair Tubs grrrrrrrrrrrr

Go on admit it did any of you shave your legs as the lady spectators loved the smooth feel of your legs smothered in a cream to keep the muscles warm ;p