The Club is affiliated to British Cycling, the Internationally recognized body for cycle sport. We currently have over 50 Club members affiliated to British Cycling, enjoying the various benefits, such as legal aid and insurance, in addition to access to all levels of racing. (BC membership is not required for Time Trials). The Club has available a number of free or discounted memberships available for anyone who has not been a BC member in the last two years. Please contact me for details.

We have a large number of young riders (under 16years) competing in a range of events, primarily off-road, but also closed-circuit road racing, with a high level of success.

The Club actively supports the South East Road Race League, recently having 10 riders in a field of 51 (yes, we did provide the winner!). This rejuvenated league provides a good programme of racing, aimed largely at the lower categories, but with a number of events open to 1st and 2nd category riders.

We also have a number of members riding LVRC Road Races (for the over 40s). These races are split into age categories - 5 year bands - with events split usually into 40 to 55 years, and over 55s, so that older riders race within their abilities. These races provide an excellent introduction for older members wishing to try bunched racing, or return to the sport they knew in their youth.

For a more informal introduction to bunched "racing", don't forget Lydden on Tuesday evenings.

For further details on any form of road racing, please contact me, John Duckworth 01303 872513.

In the near future, it is intended that we will post race results here, so please let me know what you are up to.

Off-road, thin tyres, and some of the most exciting (but safe) racing you will ever come across - that's Cyclo-Cross. Cyclo-Cross is an almost exclusively winter sport. Short courses (often less than a mile long) on a mixture of grass, dirt tracks, tarmac and hardpack are tackled on machines which look very similar to road bikes. Their thin tyres have a knobbled tread and powerful brakes and low gears make Cyclo-Cross bikes easy to handle on the rough.

Massed starts make for fast races which are usually no more than an hour in length - sometimes shorter for juniors, women and veterans.

Cyclo-Cross is one of the most accessible forms of cycle-sport. Races have a relaxed, informal atmosphere and entries are usually accepted on the day. There are categories for younger riders, with a reduced entry fee. The short lap length means that the better riders often lap some of the slower competitors, but that's not the end of the race - you can still submerge yourself in the action, enjoy your own private battles and forget whether you are first or a hundred and first.

VC Deal are closely associated with the London Cyclo-Cross Association. Indeed their Junior Coach, Richard Wood also co-ordinates the London Cyclo-Cross League and VC Deals youngsters have dominated the younger categories of the League over the last few seasons. The LC-CA operates a strong youth policy and is the only Area Association to have established a Youth Development Squad, which has resulted in it being generally acknowledged as having the greatest concentration of youth talent in this country.

Riders from VC Deal, particularly from the younger categories compete locally, regionally and nationally in Cyclo-Cross with great success. Over the last four seasons we have produced the Under 14s National Champion once and the Under 14s National Trophy Series winner 3 times together with a host of other national medal winners.

If you are one of these people who like getting up at the crack of dawn and would enjoy the sensation of bashing your head against a brick wall for a minimum of twenty odd minutes, then Time Trialling is for you!

Known as the "Race of Truth" as everything is against the clock. Distances covered are usually 10, 25, 50 and 100 miles. You can then also attempt a 12 or 24 hour event.

Details of how to get started etc are available on the RTTC site.

The club has achieved success in this discipline at National level to which Ian Ferrell has referred on his comments page. There is still a strong Time Trialling element to the club so any new member wanting to take this up will certainly not be alone.

Ian is also the clubs time trialling secretary, so please contact him for more local information.

Since the early 1990's VC Deal has had representation in mountain bike cross-country racing although in the days when our members primary interests were very definitely road racing and time trialling the successes enjoyed by our off-road pioneers, Dave Williams and Richard Wood were more in spite of, rather than because of, their membership of VC Deal. However since those early days of mountain biking its importance within the club has grown and grown, and helped by the recent formalisation of our long but loose association with the Activ shop at Folkestone, mountain bike recreational riding and racing are now enjoyed by a sizeable minority of the clubs members. We now have members riding and racing in our colours in virtually every age and ability category, from Under 12s right up Grand Veterans (over 50s) and from pure Novices to Elite racers.