60 Ride With… Kingston Phoenix

Small is plentiful for the Surrey club making waves in the time trial scene

n an era when cycling clubs are seeing their membership increase to unprecedented levels, Kingston Phoenix is the antipode.

But that is not to its detriment.

The club has somehow managed to maintain a membership that doesn’t exceed 100 but in its case having a relatively small membership appears conducive to a successful and community-based club.

A club that was founded for south-west London cyclists to race in time trials, the Phoenix jersey continues to be a regular weekend morning and weekday evening sight on the country’s TT courses.

Racing together

Because of the comparatively low membership numbers, coupled with the majority of the club’s members being racers, it is not unusual for 40 per cent of the entire club to be racing in the same time trial.

Not many clubs, too, have so many riders who compete in long-distance time trials.

President Brian Powney, a long-distance veteran who can count two 24-hour rides to his name, boasted: “I get a lot of people involved in the club who go onto race 100mile and 24-hour time trials. In the last four years, we’ve had five 12-hour racers.”

There was frequent talk of club riders assisting each other in long-distance time trials, turning up unexpectedly to hand out drinks, fruit and energy gels. It was that familial feel of the club that was tangible the moment CW met the club.

Chat was invariably about cycling and our ride options, but every conversation seemed to lead to a discussion about the next social event, of which there are many.

A spring Majorca training camp is the club’s biggest get-together, a yearly event that has been happening for the past 25 years.

If conversation around the Surrey country lanes wasn’t about the club’s dinner dance, birthday and New Year’s Eve club parties, then it was a history lesson in the club’s proud past.

Take Ron and Frank Powney, for example. They set a new Land’s End to London tandem record in 1955. Concerned about London traffic derailing their attempt, they wrote to all London police stations prior to the ride informing them when they would be passing through their boroughs.

Land’s End folklore

To their disappointment, there was no reply. That was until they got within the London suburbs and saw a policeman at a set of traffic lights in Hounslow, ensuring that green