The NBRC Club Reunion held on 26th October turned out to be hugely successful. All credit to Dick Selley for making such heroic efforts in bringing this all together. As a relative newcomer to the club (I joined about 25 years ago!), there were many faces there who I didn't recognise, but their names were known to me from previous reunions.

Great to see so many old friends on Sunday afternoon and many thanks to Paul Watson for hosting us - Cafe Belge was a great venue for the event. Thanks also to Joe Quill for getting the old NBRC rollers repaired, refurbished and running - they were set up at one end of the room, next to a table of NBRC memorabilia, and old club jerseys hanging above. A few of our unusual trophies were on display, including The Wooden Spoon, plus 11 albums of Frank Allcorn’s photos, old Cycling magazines from Alan Ransley’s loft and a collection of club newsletters from 1992 (Grass) to the present day.

The roller competition was excellent, despite riders having to be frogmarched up to take part! The lucky ones chose Joe’s bike with higher gears, riders on Dick’s Hetchings found themselves on 72” fixed. Despite this severe handicap, a good competition ensued. Dick was first up and recorded 1min 14 seconds for the 500 metres (one revolution of the clock). This remained the record time for all of 3 minutes until Joe stepped up and knocked 15 seconds off Dick’s time, however he retained the over 85 years category record!

After this the younger set posted the following times........

1st Leigh Smith 26 seconds
2nd Simon Moss 27 seconds
3rd Simon Cannings 29 seconds
4 Tony Parks 30 seconds
5 Tim Searle 33 seconds
6 Chris Selley 43 seconds
7 Karlo Porter 49 seconds
8 Neil 53 seconds
9 Joe Quill 59 seconds
And in 10th place, the Lanterne Rouge: Dick 1min 14s (Coureur Ancien Record)

Isobel (Simon and Katherine’s daughter) made a valiant effort, despite falling off initially, and succeeded by staying on for a couple of hundred metres on far too big abike.

The afternoon saw several riders giving it some welly on the rollers. I was quite impressed, as whenever I've tried rollers I've been terrified of falling off them! Each successive rider seemed to go faster... here's Tony showing his skills honed over the years in medium gear events.

Rollers are at their best in a one to one contest.

In the video above, you can see the large monitor whowing a slide show of old photos of the club.

As the afternoon progressed, more members and former members came along, and it was great to meet people you don't see often or haven't seen for a long time. And of course, this was the main point of the afternoon!

Overall, we had a superb turnout, with room for even more next year. Dick Waldron, a founder member, sat with Goz Goodman and Geoff Clark, who joined in the first year of the club's existence. A lot of the names on our trophies were present and we may try to give out a few again next year.

Several old members said we should make the event an annual one and if we do, perhaps a number of ex members who sent their apologies will be able to come along.

Thanks to Tony for the photos and videos: if anyone else has photos to share drop Robert an email, and they can be added. We know there are Facebook posts but Robert doesn't use Facebook, so doesn't see them!

Report by Robert and Dick