Hi everyone
Sunshine .... and all was sweetness and light (but with a nippy wind).... so with surprisingly dry tarmac we had a go at the skills circuit to log some early 2014 figures.
Paul Wright was doing his first coaching session... he has to get in six of them before British Cycling remove his coaching L-plates.
Paul took the younger whizz-bangs and his report is in red (see lower down) while I tried to keep the fully-fledged riders on the move.
In addition to that, local school teacher Roz came along to watch as she too is set to become a new Level 2 coach.... so she also is on the look-out for six coaching sessions.... my hope is that as she settles in with her school club and those kids subsequently get champing for that bit more, then we'll start to see some of them at Raiders on a Sunday.
Welcome to three new riders. Louis Robinson, aged 9, was first out of the blocks with Ewan Giddings, aged 8, hot on his heels. During last week I had contact from Anthony Collins to see if it was OK for his son Alex to join us.... and so they were in the line-up. Good to see you all.
Yes, we got the older group into action with the skills circuit and here are the results:
age 7
34secs - Annabel Canning
age 8
36secs - Joshua Sharples
39secs - Jack MacLennan
39secs - Angus Walton
42secs - Sam Lewis
46secs - Ewan Giddings
age 9
38secs - Alex Collins
39secs - Louis Robinson
age 11
30secs - Megan Maloney
Only four riders have ever hits times in the 20-second zone, in other words gone sub-30seconds.
Today Megan came close to becoming the fifth as she lowered her figure from 32sec on the first attempt to 30sec on the second run.
The wind blew the cones about no end, so it was a case of picking exercises that didn't need too many and then putting them down in little heaps of two or three to give added weight.
That resulted in the 'past parking space' exercise re-appearing.... it is one where two rival riders each have to battle for the parking space 20m ahead of them... but to get there they each have to do a complete circle round each of two cones (it was stacks of cones yesterday)..... it was all very un-nerving (as always) but there were some big improvements on riders' cornering ability. Well done to all the new riders on that score.
To keep warm the whole group rode laps of an oval circult and logged as many laps as possible... reaching a group total of 112 laps in the four minutes allowed.
It would have been a tad higher but there was a bit of a moving barricade for riders to tackle as Timara and Megan decided on having themselves a rolling shoulder-to-shoulder gossip shop which meant the others either had to overtake (preferable) or undertake (not recommended).
Final race - girls - six laps handicap.
It's not really fair to give a result as Annabel Canning was off first, being younger than the others, with a half-lap start. At the mid-race point she was close to catching the other two... rather than it being the other way round. Wonderful riding.
But then disaster struck, she whiggled her way out of a corner until the wobbles got the better of her and down she went. Her nerves were shot but she still got back on after a re-start (impressive).... though this time the eager hounds were on the trail and Megan took it from Timara.
Final race - boys - six lap handicap
1 Jack Maclennan
2 Joshua Sharples
3 Angus Walton
Bike for Sale - new owner found
The bike that Matthew Ferguson put up for sale, having out-grown it, has been snapped up by William Gatland, who was on a Raiders' loan road bike.... so if you wanted Matthew's machine then you're too late.
John
Paul's report - I had the youngsters.
I was impressed with the skills of all the Children particularly thinking about their young age.
We focused on braking, talking about looking straight ahead, covering their brakes, and avoiding sudden braking.
After a warm up we played a game of "what's the time Mr Wolf". This shows that when you brake the back of the bike rises up, and therefore you need to keep your weight back.
We then moved onto our bikes, stopping when I said, stopping at Red cones (lights surely), before go on the green..... Emily was especially impressive in stopping, not putting her feet down, before setting off again.
We then cycled into smaller boxes, but as the wind picked up we had to get the Children back on their bikes to keep warm.
Final race
India unfortunately clipped another girl's bike, but showed some amazing skills to keep herself upright. When she finally came down, she picked herself up and carried on. Well done India!
Back to the race Marisa led into the final lap but unfortunately run out of puff and was caught by James. Emily came third. Well done to all.