3rd & 4th July 2016 - Go Ride, Youth Ride & Lee Valley Velodrome

Saturday 2nd July - Go-Ride

Despite it being summer fair season, it was great to see 16 young riders sign on for today's session, including a couple of new riders (Henry and Catherine).  With the field still too wet to use, the session had to be on the playground and we focussed on riding one handed (and for some, no handed) in a controlled manner. We started with riding the line one handed (with riders encouraged to try using their weaker hand) and then progressed to taking a bottle, teddy or other item from a helper and then picking up items from a crate.  After a break for some cheesy snacks and few renditions of Happy Birthday for Oliver, Leo and Serena (and some chocolates from Oliver - yum) the riders spent about 12 minutes riding continuously, completing a fabulous 113 laps of the trail.  That left us just time for a bottle-pick relay challenge, which allowed the riders to put their skills to the test in a more pressured environment - glad to say everyone did really well and were considerably more confident riding one handed than at the start of the session.

Bottle pick extravaganza

Teddy pick!

Go Riders at the end of a good session

Saturday 2nd July - Youth Ride

With racing on Friday and other commitments we were missing a few of our more senior riders but we still had two groups go out. They enjoyed by far the best of the weather and completed the rides in good time and without any mechanical issues.  Here we are back at base still smiling and enjoying the sun (just before it really threw it down!!).

Claire, Hope, Katy, Izzy, Malcolm, Luke, Izzy & Ellen - Saturday Youth Riders

Sunday 3rd July - Lee Valley Velodrome

Hannah, Toni, Ellen, Calvin and Dan were up early on Sunday to take part in the regular British Cycling track session at the Olympic Velodrome on Sunday.  The session focussed on Keiran racing and gave the riders an insight various aspects of the race, such as the benefits of leaving room between themselves and  the rider in front so as to "rush the gap" when starting their sprint, the techniques for a held start and dropping in behind the derny, as well as finishing with some flat out Keiran racing.  Exciting stuff and well done particularly to Dan who got a lot of new experiences, having only recently started doing track cycling and coped superbly. Well done also to Malcolm and Nick for "volunteering " to help with the held starts - it's a lot harder work than it looks!!

After the Keiran session had finished there was a hour novice session as a gentle introduction to track cycling which I helped to coach and it was good to see some new faces from our friends at Southborough & District Wheelers; if there are any 12+ KVKs who think they would like to have a go at track cycling please speak to myself of Kary.

Damian, Nick & Malcolm helping out on the track at LV (Toni, Hannah & Calvin too!)