Saturday 24th March - Go Ride at Stocks Green School

Finally! No adverse weather today and we could get on with some bike riding.  Twenty young riders signed on including a few new recruits, which is always good to see.

Calvin ran an off the bike warm up for us before we all gathered in for a quick welcome and introduction to the session.  With our trip to Bedgebury next week in mind, we had decided to work on some essential trail skills; riding out of the saddle, unweighting the front of the bike and avoiding obstacles.  Before the session we'd identified some natural hazards around the site and some additional props to expand our repertoire of planks and logs.

Calvin leading out the middle group

With plenty of coaches today, we were able to split into three groups: Michele, Gareth and I worked with the youngest riders, while Damian and Andrew were assigned the older riders and Jez and Calvin took the middle group.  All the riders worked really hard and even our youngest riders were all confidently riding out of their saddles and managing to get their front wheels a little way of the ground and even over some obstacles.  Walter fetched the much needed biscuit tin for Michele's group, however given the number of Custard Creams that were left I'm not sure the other groups got their biscuit break!

Zara avoids some of the local hazards

A quick bit of course re-setting and we soon had an interesting endurance course to work with.  We added in escape routes for some of the obstacles and it was good to see the riders making decisions about whether to ride over or around.  It's surprising how the addition of a few obstacles really sees the riders fatiguing much more quickly than on a simple course.  A couple of our youngest, bounciest riders were begging to stop before the end!

There was just time for a quick de-brief and a reminder about next week's trip to Bedgebury before it was time to sign out.  Well done to all our riders and thanks to our parents, coaches and volunteers for enabling a big group of kids to enjoy a morning of bike riding.

Nicolas was reluctant to ride out of his saddle!

Raring to go, we start the endurance block.

Through the trees

Over the planks and up the bank

It proved to be a tiring circuit