MB Swindon February News

AGM/Curry/Beer Night

We’re holding a social night (with curry) combined with our AGM (annual general meeting) on the 27th of February at the Check Inn in Wroughton. All members are invited to join us.

We are meeting at 7pm for the MBSwindon AGM. This is going to be a quick review of the year, a look at our future plans, election of officers and answering of any questions members might have. Questions can be sent in advance via email. See below for address.
Curry at 8pm for £5 per head. This is optional – members are welcome to attend the AGM without booking the curry.

Please confirm curry booking by emailing chris@mbswindon.co.uk.

Club Events

Non-members are welcome to come along to an event or two before deciding to join the club,  “try before you buy” as it were.

Our Friday night rides (every Friday, 7:30pm) at the trail continue into spring. We’ve also got 6 sets of lights that we are able to lend to anyone who wants to try night riding at the trail before purchasing their own lights. These must be booked in advance, on a first come, first served basis. You can do so by emailing phil@mbswindon.co.uk

• Sat 5th Feb – Ridgeway ride
• Sun 13 Feb – Club ride: Avebury and Wansdyke
• Sun 27 Feb – Club ride: Cwmcarn XC (Twrch trail)

Don’t forget that any events marked with are novice friendly!

We’ve also got four trail building days planned for February. It’s always good to see new volunteers who are willing to put something back into the trail. Remember, the whole trail is volunteer built, so if you don’t like the mud then come and help us do something about it! These days are subject to weather conditions.
Please double check the events page before heading down.

• Sat 5 Feb – Build day February #1
• Sun 6 Feb – Build day February #2
• Sat 19 Feb – Build day February #3
• Sun 20 Feb – Build day February #4

As always, you’ll find details of all the above events and many more on our events page.

Weekend Trips – BOOK NOW!

We’ve got several weekend trips planned this year. Please take a look and help us by booking early. The first in particular; the more people who come then the cheaper it will be per person. We are also planning a “novice friendly” ride at Brechfa.

All of our weekend trips are sociable and new riders will be made very welcome. We’ll have a range of rides available at them too.

• April 1st: Brechfa (Wales)
• April 29th (Royal wedding bank holiday) Mayday Welsh adventure
• May 21st: Ridgeway weekend

Prize Draw – Win a £50 Voucher!

MB Swindon and Post Office® have teamed up to give you the chance to win a £50 gift card – redeemable at loads of different stores, including Halfords, and you can spend it all at once, or over time, its completely up to you.

To be in with a chance to win this fantastic prize, all you have to do is be a paid-up member of the club on the day of the AGM & Curry Night when the MBSwindon team will randomly select a winner from the membership database. Doesn’t matter if you join now or you joined last year, so long as you have a current membership at the time of the draw you have the same chance of winning. Couldn’t be easier!

Ladies-Only Croft Trail Ride

After the success of our previous ladies-only day, Jodie (MB Swindon’s Women’s Officer) is running another Ladies Only ride (click here here for the last ride report) at the Croft Trails in Swindon.

These rides are very popular (not least because of the fabulous half-time refreshments Jodie usually produces) and you can expect many of our regular female club members to be there enjoying a fun few laps round the trail without the boys getting in the way.

Non-members are most welcome to come and join the fun before deciding to join the club. All of the trail is rollable, so pretty much any bike with two wheels can make it round.

Laps will start at 10am.

Croft Trail Diversions

You may have noticed the diversions that we have put in place at certain points around the trail (marked with red and white tape). We have done this to close off some of the sections that have been affected by the recent weather. We’ve never had to do this before, but due to the increased popularity of the trail recently combined with the snow and rain we’ve had to close off the worst of the areas for now. We’ll have them re-open as soon as we’ve done what we can to fix them.

100th Member Bonus

Congratulations to Richard Amey for becoming our 100th club member!

And Finally…

On a serious note we’ve had report of an incident involving a cyclist and a dog walker on the footpath that goes around the park. We have no idea who this cyclist was or whether he had been using the trail or was riding through the park. The verbal exchange that took place lead to alleged physical contact by the cyclist on the dog walker. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out the possible ramifications of incidents such as these. If you do choose to cycle on the main wide path that leads around the park remember that walkers have right of way on anything other than our designated cycle trail. We’re aware that walkers and dog walkers also use our trail, sadly there isn’t much we can do to prevent this. If you encounter walkers on the trail please remain calm and explain that the trail is intended for mountain bike use.

Thanks for your continued support
MB Swindon Admin Team