By John Leitch
Posted: Saturday, October 11, 2014 - 11:34

Sunday afternoon at Cyclopark was chaotic, well it was for me at least.....but good fun.

There were some close shaves on timing as the motorway had a bit of a glitch early on.

Every year it seems that we get more riders and more races.

On Sunday, for the first time we were able to run separate races for Under 12 girls and Under 12 boys. Last year we did that for both the Under 8s and the Under 10s and it went down well.

Keeping girls on bikes is a priority for all cycling clubs such as ours. The result was seeing 16 girls having their own race on one half of the circuit while a squad of U12 boys were on the other half. .... and one of the U12 girls in action was our own Redhill Raider Emmie Wright.... well done Emmie.

All in all we had a good line-up

Under 8 girls
Annabel Canning
Emily Kirk
Mathilde Sturman

Under 8 boys
Daniel Warhurst
Justin Collins

Under 10 girls
Ellen McLeod

Under 10 boys
Joshua Golliker
Alex Collins

Under 12 girls
Emmie Wright

Under 12 boys
Ben Elliott
Alistair Canning
Louis McLeod

Under 14 race
Christian Bright
Alex Wright

total: 14 Redhill Raiders' riders

In the three younger age bands (U8 U10 and U12) everyone got points for their club.... and the club with the most points was Barking & Dagenham, with Bigfoot coming second and then Redhill Raiders third.

The prizes were £150, then £40 and then £30.... so we've banked £30 thanks to the first 12 riders names above.... and with a big thank-you from me to those who were racing for the very first time.... well done.

I didn't get much time outdoors and when I did it was to hand over winnings, but this clip (see Facebook link below) does include a couple of shots from one race, the U12 boys and so you get a good look at Ben, Alistair and Louis as they start on the front line. Here's the link.... https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152830483633436.1073741836…

The club has quite a lot of road bikes available to loan out... it's free as we got them thanks to several grants over the past six years. At the moment there are half a dozen such bikes looking for new owners so if you feel whizzy please let me know.