Remember, to ride safely and legally at all times.
The MCS Chaingang is a regulars favourite, and a well attended high intensity training ride, with up to 30 riders taking part each Tuesday evening from late March until mid September each year. For full details, please see below but always remember to check the MCS Members’ Facebook Group before turning up in case of any last minute changes to the planned event. Non-MCS Club members can ride for free twice but then need to join the club (for insurance reasons) which is a bargain £10 for the year. JOIN HERE.
Meeting point and parking
The meeting point is at the main entrance to the Chase School on Geraldine Road. There is some on-road parking just up from the school, toward Barnard’s Green for those coming from further afield. Please park responsibly and with a mind for local residents. Note, there are NO toilet facilities at the start and you will need to go into Barnard’s Green for these.
Start timings
People usually start arriving 10-15 minutes before the advertised start time. At that time, the A group will leave and then every 3 minutes or so the next group will head off. Usually each group will have someone who takes charge. It is worth arriving much earlier if you plan to do a warm up before beginning as the ride waits for no-one!
Route
A fairly flat 26 mile (43km) figure of eight route with a few undulating bumps, no uphills lasting more than a minute though! Link to: Strava – MCS Chaingang Route – we have shortened the finish slightly to make the ride safer. The end point is now the 30mph signs just before Longridge Road.
The ride usually begins with a quick tempo spin down to Guarlford before the pace ramps up on the way to Welland and onwards following the ‘MCS Chaingang’ route. On the way back into Malvern, after passing the Three Counties Showground, the group tends to break up as people will push harder for the final mile or so back towards Poolbrook – racing here is fair game!
Where’s the end?! 30mph signs at the top of the little rise before the junction with Hayes Bank Road. Regroup at the bus stop after the Longridge Road/Churchdown Road crossroads.
Chaingang Etiquette
Chaingang is an individual, team training session with a max of ten riders in each group. Riders will ride very close together in a long line. The front rider will put in an effort (no more than 30 seconds) and then rotate out to the side (always the right hand side) after checking it is safe to do so. They will then work their way to the back of the line, before re-joining it. It’s courteous to call ‘last rider’ so the rider working their way down the line knows when to re-join. The new ‘front rider’ should be putting in their effort, spinning at a similar pace so that there isn’t a sudden shift in speed; when done well, it barely feels like a change in the speed for the group. Riders in the middle of the line will benefit from the aerodynamics to recover a bit, ready for their next effort at the front.
You should start with the group that you feel best placed to ride with, accepting that if the pace is higher than you can manage, that you will drop out of the group. Please note that the groups are usually advertised as: A, B+, B, C+, C and these are not the normal Sunday speed categories; the A group can average up to 45km/h on a chaingang ride for instance.
Beginner’s chaingang – for those riders, completely new to chaingang, the first few weeks of the season will have a ‘D’ group which is usually a no-drop group, that will aim to increase its average speed each week from a first week average of about 18.5mph (29.5 km/h) getting you ready to move up to the C group later in the season. If you can ride at 15.5-16mph (25km/h) by yourself for about 1 hour, you should be absolutely fine in the D group.
There’s a great video about a chaingang (or a ‘paceline’) put together by GCN:
