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moderate my tone!

Suffice to say, Father’s day ended then on a somewhat sour note, with a
“Pompous Dit” e-mail to the event organiser, Donald Ashton of the
Farnborough & Camberley Cycle Club. The point to be made here is that for
a high-profile event like a CTT National, perhaps the public image of organised
cycle racing deserves something slightly better. The objective of a
championship is surely to crown the best rider at the time/distance, not to
provoke potential NIMBYs into organising the next anti-cyclist internet
petition.

In the course of writing this article I noticed that the
final outcome of the case involving the death of Ray Dare, Kingston Phoenix
was made public (week ending 15 th June). Ray was a friend of mine from my
time as a distance runner in the Mole Valley AC in Dorking, along with his
other Kingston clubmen Peter Edwards and the late Alan Lovett. Ray was
killed just a year ago on the A41 dual-carriageway near Aylesbury,
Buckinghamshire in a veteran’s 10-mile record attempt. The offending
motorist found responsible for his death, Alan Mills, escaped prison following
an appeal for leniency from Ray’s widow Beryl. At the time of Ray’s death
however the attitude was somewhat different among some of the Bucks.
locals. It seems that someone saw fit to organise a petition to ban cyclists
from all of Buckinghamshire’s dual-carriageways, collecting some 642
signatures. Surely a case of not wanting to tackle the root cause of the
problem - poor driving - and going for the line-of-least-resistance; i.e. anything
for a quiet life. Ah, the mind of the NIMBY! As the Americans like to say “They
walk among us!”

Sad news from Barry Means, that his wife Mary

rd
died on Saturday 23 June. She had been battling
with cancer for a few years and died at home. Barry
please accept on behalf of the club our condolences.

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