Saturday 22nd April - Racing in the forest with Bedgebury Boars

This morning we headed over to Bedgebury to take part in the Bedgebury Boars XC racing.  We had a great team of 11 youth riders and 3 adults, competing in 4 different age groups, U8's, U10's, U12's & Seniors

It's quite a hectic morning and I find it really difficult to keep track of all our riders and make sure I get to my own start on time.  Brilliant riding from all the KVK as usual,  here's a few pictures to give you a flavour of the morning.  The next race is on the 20th May.

Results so far:

U8's 
Betsy 1st Girl 
Franklin 5th 
Ivo 6th 

U10's
Albert 3rd
Oliver 11th
Charlotte 5th Girl 
Zara 4th Girl (tbc)
Lucy (tbc)

U12's
Hope 1st Girl
Eloise 3rd Girl
Joshua 15th (not sure Joshua should be racing in U12's!)

Gareth giving Franklin some pre race tips (U8's start Franklin, Betsy & Ivo)

Trying to get a team photo with everyone looking the same way! We are missing Joshua, Charlotte.

Another attempt!

Hope and Eloise on the podium (U12's)

Post race euphoria (not the results just that's it's over ;-))

Saturday 1st April - Go Ride Racing at Stocks Green

We all enjoyed another successful morning of Go Ride racing organised by Calvin and ably assisted by Luke, Claire, Michele, Rob, myself and a generous smattering of parent volunteers. There was a good turnout of 20 riders; 8 girls and 12 boys.  We started with our usual one lap TT and followed up with mass start races using the same course, with the addition of a sprint lap for our older riders.  We added some short sprint heats in to mix things up and closed with some fun team time trial heats.  As usual lots of great riding from all the kids. Big thanks to Calvin and all the volunteers for making it happen.

Minis mass start

Mini Boys Podium

Mini Girls Podium

Junior Mass Start

Junior Boys Podium

Junior Girls Podium

Senior Mass Start Race

Senior Boys Podium

Senior Girls Podium

Riders all lined up and ready to go!

Focussing on the essentials: doughnuts, I mean TT results ;-)

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Saturday 25th March Bedgebury Forest

A trip to Bedgebury is always a treat, and today was no exception.  We met up in the car park and split into a couple of groups, one heading off on the family trail and one aiming to tackle some of the red trail.  Calvin and Luke got invited to join some other riders from Wigmore and Bedgebury Boars, so they headed off into the forest without us.  Thanks to Michele for the pictures, I had a great morning riding the red trails with my group.  Both groups met up at Louisa Lake, where we said goodbye to George who had to rush off before continuing our rides.  We made it all the way through Fibre Glass Trees before deciding to take the family trail back to Cake Run.

Starting the climb to the water tower. Michele's group looking strong

Deep in the forest

Polly and Ellen, a rare opportunity to take it easy ahead of their race at Redbridge on Sunday.

Dylan and Thomas ready for Cake Run!

Where's Franklin? Great riding from Thomas, Dylan, Franklin, Ewan and William.

My Group:  Eloise, Hope, Dan, Joshua and Joel, back from our adventures on the red trail.

Saturday 18th March Go Ride & Youth Ride, Sunday 19th Power Pack at Cyclopark

Go Ride
We've entered a new phase; with our founding riders and those that followed shortly after established as skillful bike riders, it's time to start on the next generation.  It's back to basics and time to provide lots of opportunities to practise skills and gain fitness.  Today it was all about slow and controlled riding, sometimes with one hand.

We kicked off with an old favourite "squares".  Riders have to negotiate a square of cones, passing their front wheel outside the cone and then their back wheel inside.  We set up a variety of different sized squares and before long everyone was having a go.  That was just a little skills exercise.............

Our warm up activity was another one of my old favourites, I call it "mirror", it's an oval circuit with a channel running through the centre.  Riders set off in pairs down the channel, diverging at the end and rejoining at the other end.  The idea is to keep an eye on your partner, match their speed and re-enter the channel at the same time.  We added in high fiving as an intro to one handed riding, before moving onto monster bottle pick.  That's the same as normal bottle pick but with bottles and teddies and sticks and off the box, off the floor etc etc etc.  The thing is just to keep trying new things, harder things, different things.  All the time improving control, just not really noticing.

We needed a break from skills so we had a biscuit - picked up from a helper/box of course, before moving onto our endurance challenge; 15 minutes continuous riding with a few lumps and bumps.  Just something to get the blood pumping before our final team challenge.

We finished off with team challenge bottle pick, I remember that because my team won and we definitely did not cheat (well that's my story and I'm sticking to it).

Another great session watching our brilliant riders become better and fitter bike riders, doesn't get much better than that ;-).

Youth Ride
Moving swiftly on, just a few Youth Riders today (KVRT were racing at Lee Valley), I had to turn Dan away as I was short on adults (partly because it was KVG training camp week).  Nevertheless, Luke, Hope and Eloise joined myself and Christophe on a 16 mile loop called "Kite"; lots of tail and just a small diamond kite at the top.  It was sunny, we were on our bikes, no tears, no punctures, it doesn't get much better than that ;-) (hold on I've already said that once about today).

 It was a good day, the only bad thing that happened was that the automatic gate at school wouldn't shut when I left :-(.  Never mind, it's not a bike riding thing so nothing to worry about.

Ready to head back down the Col de Mote

Sunday 19th March - Power Pack at Cyclopark
Looks like everyone had a good time at Power Pack today, both our club Isla bikes got an outing,  Christophe sent me these photos.