Kent Velo Kids: Saturday 25th November - Big Day at PORC & Kingdom

Today the London League were coming to Penshurst for Round 10 of the Cyclocross League. In a bid to try and accomodate as many of our riders as possible I'd made several suggestions including riding over there, racing or coming along to spectate and check out the beautiful Kingdom clubhouse.

For me the morning started with an early morning meet up with Damian and a chilly ride to Hayesden Country Park where we met up with Calvin (bang on 8.30am), shortly afterwards Malcolm and Hope showed up, Hope definitely looked shocked not to still be in bed. We were just wondering if Hannah was going to make it when she came around the corner with her Dad. We'd somehow missed them waiting in the car park. Anyway we set off on the 8 mile ride to Kingdom, it was beautiful, but very cold. Damian kept remarking he'd meant to bring his camera. As the youngest member of the group, Hannah was struggling with the cold and when we made it to Penshurst Place, we decided to ask Rog to divert via the cafe and execute a rescue for Hannah. I gave the others directions and we parted company while Hannah and I warmed up at the Porcupine Pantry. Our rescue vehicle arrived shortly afterwards and Hannah was soon on her way to Kingdom for a large cup of hot chocolate and to meet up with her Mum and brother Nicholas. Meanwhile I high tailed it the rest of the way on my own and arrived to find Malcolm attaching bikes to the roof of their car; at least they'd made it safely.

Ride to Penshurst: Hannah, Hope, Calvin, Damian, Malcolm and me. Lars and Leon decided the start was too early!

We couldn't find Betsy!

Onto the racing. Even when you know the normal organisation of these things a new venue can be quite confusing (or maybe it was just the eventful morning I'd had), but I eventually spotted several KVK jerseys and knew I was in the right place. Albert, Ivo, Oliver, Betsy and William were all racing up, down and round; Jez remarked it was a good course for spectators, I was feeling dizzy. It was a good show from our team though, with everyone finishing in one piece with smiles on their faces and some excellent results. Congratulations to William on his first race for KVK, Oliver for fighting back after an early unscheduled dismount. Ivo finished strongly and looked pleased with his performance. Albert managed to hold onto second place finishing 34 seconds behind the leader and beating his regular rival Theo from SDW. Betsy rode skilfully as ever and finished 8th in the U10 Girls.

Next up was Ellen in the U16 Girls. The course was tough, not so much from a technical point of view more the fact that it was either up or down and the few bits were sticky mud. Ellen was our only Youth rider today, she did well in the conditions and finished ahead of the field in first place, riding the last section with a puncture.

It was great to see lots of familiar faces, cheering our rides on and generally enjoying watching the race and the atmosphere of the place. Apologies if you were there and I missed you!

KVK race team and supporters: Ellen, Hope, Oliver, Albert, Betsy, William, Ivo, Jim Joshua, Daniel, James and Ewan, Polly, Emily, Dominic & Leon

Results: https://www.londonxleagueresults.co.uk/RaceDB/Hub/CompetitionResults/18/

U10 Boys: Albert 2nd, Ivo 6th, Oliver 7th, William 15th
U10 Girls: Betsy 8th
U16 Girls: Ellen 1st
Vet 40 Men: Gareth 24th - out of 67 starters, consistently good racing :-)
Vet 40 Women: Kary 8th - out of 9 starters, not my finest moment :-)

A few shots of our riders in the U10's, they just don't really show how hard it was!