Posted: Wednesday, March 12, 2014 - 19:58

From Andy...

A glorious day at last...  Taking advantage of the full area, we had the riders warm up on the extended course, before getting on with the safety checks.  This highlighted a number of issues which ideally would be picked up before the session:

Under-inflated tyres (possibly the cause of a fairly high speed crash in the session)
Poorly adjusted brakes
Poorly fitted helmets

 

In order to help address this, and ensure sessions can get underway quicker in future we are going to look at running some side sessions for parent to advise on how to check and make basic adjustments.

With this out of the way, we split the group into two, based on age/ability.  Paul took the younger/less experienced group, and I took the older/more experienced group.  On our agenda today, was group riding - specifically riding in teams as you see in track events.

 

We started off with the basics of riding in the 'train' to get the riders used to the close proximity required.  Moving on rapidly to give each of them a chance to see the pros and cons of different positions within the train - from lead rider progressing back through the train to the end.  To make things simple, we started with "behead the snake" as a means of changing the lead.  This involved the train progressing at a steady rate, and the lead rider sprinting off the back, around the oval, until the catch the back of the train.  Working through all the riders gave them all a go at the front, and a chance to experience how the wind effects them in the different positions.  Moving on, we progressed to the 'normal' way to change the lead - "through and off".  This exercise was performed on the bends, and involved the lead rider swinging wide and allowing the train to pass on their inside before re-joining at the end.  With all riders progressing nicely, and becoming more and more confident, we moved on to the final exercise - Italian Pursuit.  Once again, the riders form the train only this time they are losing their lead rider off the track, with each lap until finally there is just one rider left.  Oh - and we do this with two teams starting on opposite sides of the track, so it becomes a bit of a sprint.  With some fantastic communication and riding skills, this part of the session was incredibly exciting, and produced some amazing speeds. 

 

The final part of the session, was a handicap race for those that still had the legs for it.  We saw about 8 riders rolling up to the line, for a 10 lap epic on the extended course.  Some fine riding and a few laps in we had Peter Carpenter leading a very close following Ben Elliot at high speed.  It looked obvious - Ben was using Pete with a plan to sprint past on the final lap.  Some excellent bike skills and pace though, saw this plan thwarted, and Peter rolled home victorious with Ben almost alongside, and Josh Sharples following in third place.

 

For those who think these sessions are easy rides around a playground, and to give some perspective, one rider clocked up 18km in the session - a pretty good effort !!!

 

From Paul...

 

A very complex warm up course was set up, and we got the youngsters whizzing round the course. When we drew them all together we carried out a helmet check and a bicycle check before splitting into two groups. Please can the helmets be checked. You should be able to get 2 fingers only under the strap.
I took the youngsters once again. I went over what we had done previously, hoping to reinforce and to add to what we had done. A lot of the children were much more confident; Justin who last time had only been able to freewheel, proudly told me he was standing up on the bike. We then practiced braking again and there was a lot less using your feet to stop. Marisa had developed so much control that she was stopping and then starting without putting her feet down, as did a number of the other children.
We then moved onto cornering which builds on what we had been doing, particularly with braking. I brought up keeping your inside pedal up, and apart from the youngest children, the 4 year olds everyone took it on board. This is a very important skill to learn. For the older children I brought on the ideal line for cornering which is start wide, head for the apex, and then exit wide, and some took it on.

For the races as it was a lovely warm day and there were lots of children we split it in to 3 races. In the first Lucas won, and then Adam won the second. The third race was a girls race which was won by Gabriella. There was a final race between the winners and:

1st Adam
2nd Gabriella
3rd Lucas

We finally had a race between the youngest, Oliver, Toby and Marisa. This turned out to be a real battle between brother and sister, Toby and Marisa. Toby led all the way only to be pipped on the line by big sister Marisa.

Well done to all.