Pro-Velo Support

The Grimey Lymies

Four years ago our club was totally road and time trial focussed and had no mountain bikers at all. That all changed virtually overnight when a small group of us got invited to a test ride day at Cannock Chase. We reluctantly decided to go along thinking that we would hate it as we were dedicated road riders. How wrong we were! Everyone loved riding off-road and after that we all bought mountain bikes.

Our club shirts were the road jerseys which were mainly white with orange and blue. We decided to create a new club jersey especially for the new mountain bike section. This did not go down too well with a small minority of the old 'roadies' who did not seem to like the idea of having mountain bikers in the club but we went ahead anyway, hence the idea of the pirate, flying in the face of convention!

I designed the 'Captain Cutlass' logo which appears on the front and back of our shirts. Husband Martin came up with the nickname 'Grimey Lymies' as we always seemed to be covered in mud and grime, mainly from falling off. The Lymies part of it comes from our club name,Lyme Racing Club whose members are often called 'Lymies'. We now have about 50 members proudly wearing their Grimey Lymies shirts which we think really stand out in a crowd, that is a quarter of the 200 members that we currently have.

Not long after our interest in mtb'ing started we entered our first races. We found there was a great and welcoming atmosphere which was not too encumbered by stuffy rules like those on the road and that families were welcomed to come along to the events as well. This was a revelation and soon we had quite a lot of people not only riding but coming to support as well.

Whilst most of us are forty somethings, in our second childhood and have no chance of ever winning anything we all love the shared highs and lows of 24 hour events and others such as the 6 hour enduro's and the Merida Marathons. We now have some good younger riders who don't mind making up a team and the cameraderie is the most important thing about each event.

In fact on the first Sleepless in the Saddle that we entered both my hubby, Martin and club chairman Brian rode with cracked ribs which they sustained practicing for the event the week before but as usual they both crashed, this time hurting themselves. Each lap they rode was preceeded by taking paracetamol but they still loved every minute of it though in a very pained sort of way. By the way both of them fell off again on the first lap!

The team and club spirit at the races is really good with everyone willing to help each other especially when the going gets hard as it has done in the deep mud of the last couple of years at both Mountain Mayhem and Sleepless. Even when one of our team captains, 'Satnav', snapped his chain just after starting his lap and had to freewheel or walk for the entire lap we cheered him on loudly as he came into the finish area then teased him rotten about posting the slowest lap time of the weekend.

At most events we now have thirty or more club members turning up for the weekend and now we usually have two teams in the 24 hour races. We have volunteer cooks, masseurs, mechanics and a very accomplished band of hecklers. We even have our own club mascot, Polly the Parrot (stuffed) who comes to every race with us.

More and more members have expressed an interest in riding next year so there may well be 3 or more teams if we can all get into the events. You may have seen our Grimey Lymies flags and banners at events. These were all bought by selling at car boot sales to raise the neccessary money to buy them.