2016 has been a good year for Kingsmoss CC in its ninety fourth year.
With another year of consistent membership growth we have seen numbers grow beyond 100 members. Another great milestone we are proud of.
2016 certainly has felt as if KMCC has become part of the local community more so ever as we've seen growth of our female membership rise also.
I'd like to thank Roberta Henry for initiating this at start of the year and the ladies taking lead with a few runs of their own as well as taking part at a bike maintenance course and riding a 'Girls Only' sportive in east Down together earlier in the year. Perhaps a thought for us in 2017?
With more ladies in the Club I believe we have quite a few couples now cycling together within the Club as well as a few entire families.

This certainly shows the demographic of the traditional club cyclist changing and I believe we must embrace this in 2017 with the development of more social runs to suit our the needs of our families within the Club and EVERY member of the Club intermingled at these events.
I would specifically like to thank Stephen Goudy as being one of the main driving forces behind getting 'bums on real bikes' this year and migrating his spin class members to the road and coaching them over the year.
I hope we see him take a role within the Club in 2017 and shape some development for our new to the sport riders as has proven to be a great coach and not afraid to put his hand up to help the Club.

2016 saw another two very successful open events at KMCC.

Our open 10 mile time trial on the Woodgreen circuit was a well run event which saw some of the best riders from Ulster turn up and support us. Special mention to Xeno Young (Dromore CC) who won the event and has progressed well at a provincial and national level. I wish him good luck in the future years.

The Club sportive in May saw a record number of riders turn up a week ahead of the Gran Fonda Sportive and ride on a glorious sunny day in East Antrim.
This year saw us raise further funds for Cancer Fund for Children which gross to date is over £13'500 . A truly commendable amount.

With both of these events, the success was down to rallying of Club members together to ensure all competitors got road safely and well fed & watered. Something guest riders expect now as we do it so well.

Thank you to everyone involved at both open events for giving up their Sunday mornings.

A few people I'd like to specially mention are:
Colin Campbell & Paul Dillon for ensuring all H&S related areas of these events are covered with the relevant local authorities. Again something we do as a Club which is very time consuming and goes on in the background with no/little mention.

Davy Robinson for co-ordination of all race related operations. Gathering up marshals, time keepers, pusher offs, judges, sign-ons, prizes and ensuring everyone gets there! Davy certainly has been a key focal point for communications in 2016 and stepping into the Secretaries role recently has not gone unnoticed, especially for a man who does a sixty hour week at his real job!
Again, it would be great to see Davy take up an official role within Club in 2017.

Thank-you to our marshals & time keepers for supporting our racing men & women in 2016. A reason I believe it is vital for more social runs in 2017; to ensure our Club racers mingle with our non racing members and get a chance to thank them for giving up evenings & mornings to ensure these events go safely.

To the ladies and gents who helped meet, greet, feed & water our riders at this years sportive a massive thank-you.
We all know your input makes a good day out on the bike great and in some cases that cup of tea and sandwich is the difference in making or breaking it for many a tired rider.

Open Racing has had a progressive year within the Club. Ivan Cooke had a smashing season riding up through the ranks in a consistent and admirable season making the transition from A4 to A3 to ride alongside Rob Carr in 2017.
Ivan's ability to migrate from being a strong Club rider to A4 raced show that this format works well and those looking to reap similar benefits hopefully will join up with him on his chain gang runs on a Saturday over autumn/winter 2016.

A special mention to Derek Ferguson who not only won a couple of the masters road races this season but represented the Club at the national masters TT championships in County Mayo in August.

As well as racing the Club has been represented at most of the major Sportive's in NI over 2015. The sportive scene has exploded on a massive scale over past few years with these events giving the non racing cyclist a goal to aim for.

Most of our Club runs are catered to enable these riders hit the ground running fit and complete a normally gruesome climb such as Torr Head to Spelga mountain to the elusive Mamore Gap. Completion of any of these events is commendable and a big well done to everyone who has completed these in 2016.

This year has seen an evolution in the Sportive or leisure cyclist. This has been the inception of the Super Sportive rider who go that (excuse the pun) 'extra mile'.
These individuals certainly have driven up the Clubs Strava miles and a very special mention to:

Andrew McIlwaine who has been raising money for Leukaemia & Lymphoma NI

Stephen Hunter who 'slapped' Lough Neagh five times in September for Hope 365.

Barry Neilson who completed the Newcastle to London 310 mile endurance event in a commendable 26 (?) hours.

John Reid who has completed a recent 600km ride which sees him on a massive annual mileage for 2016. Something very special will be on cards for 2017 I believe!

These long distance runs have been successful as a core number of Saturday, Sunday and summer evening runs occur regularly throughout the year.

Someone who I'd like to thank for communicating on social media on the leisure run plans has been Keith Gibson.
Keith's input has been great over past few months and his route creation and uploading to Facebook is something which seems to have been very popular this year.

As discussed earlier this summer, CI do run Cycling Coach Foundation & level 1 courses through the year. Rob Carr, Davy Robinson & Stephen Goudy have shown interest in the next course and I believe we should build on this as to have official points of contact for new and existing members to communicate with regarding goals and moving to the next step on their own cycling journey.

Hopefully, once this starts to fruition, we will see an official Club policy on development and specific runs to cater for specific needs in 2017.

As the season rolls to an official end I would like to thank one other person.
Paul Dillon has been the Club Treasurer for quite a few years now and has kept the accounts 'buoyant'. He has been our main liaison with our Club kit suppliers over the past few years and ensured that the relevant checks & balances occur in an efficient and timely manner to not just keep all our riders in the latest kit but also ensuring our reputation not to have any outstanding debts is adhered to.

As well as this, Paul's experience and advice on the road has been welcomed over the past few years. I can think of quite a few times he has turned from the bunch and come back a climb to help a slower rider (normally me).

As he has indicated he is standing down as our Treasurer (hopefully to focus on a season of road racing & time trialling in 2017) and I wish him the best.

Finally, as the Club members are set to renew their licences over the next few months I would like to see as many as possible taking up valid CI licence options for 2017.

With one hundred members plus in the Club, we only have 20 paid up CI members (the others taking up with CTC).

For the sake of development of the Club, its riders and our rights to vote at the provincial & national AGMs (currently only have 2 votes), I believe we should be looking toward one body to affiliate to.

We must look towards the future of the Club, it's place and reputation for future riders.

We look forward to 2017 with great pride as it will be our 95th anniversary but also excitement and enthusiasm. We invite you all to continue on the journey with us.

Stephen Laird