17th February 2018 - Col de Coldharbour - Ride & Full Report from Michele!

Hope you are having a great time. It was great to see Polly today! :)

Riders: Calvin, Polly, Malcolm, Jacks, Jimbo , Joshua, Ella, James, Ewan and me. Olly and Dylan didn't turn up.  Claire was home with Ellen who had been up sick all night.



What a smart-looking group of riders we had today.  Polly and Calvin zoomed off to ride the track twice while the rest of us formed a super-compact group of 8 (4 pairs) seamlessly moving between doubles and singles given the various obstacles of parked cars, walkers, dogs, horses and vehicles sharing the road with us.

Ella was a super ride-leader (by my side) managing her speed really well to keep everyone in a bunch. Joshua loves a challenge and really pushed himself to be first up the hills. Ewan demonstrated super group-riding skills keeping to the wheel in front of him and Jimbo mastered keeping a steady pace up the hills so there was no need to walk--even when it got really muddy!  Ah yes, the mud. While we might have had sun to rival Kary's in Spain, we doubt she had to spend the rest of the day cleaning her bike!

Saturday 10th February Go Ride at Stocks Green

Oliver demonstrated just how cold it was!

Oh my goodness, another chilly start to the weekend that looked set to jeopardise our Go Ride session.  Last weekend Michele was at pains to point out that it is never really cold enough not to go outside here compared to her native Minnesota so I was determined to prove that the KVK will always ride if we can. We don't want to put anyone off so ahead of the session I made sure that Soigneurs were aware of the likely conditions and were well prepared to support their young riders should they choose to take on the challenge of a very chilly morning at Go Ride.

Following on from our comprehensive risk assessment, Luke and Jacob coned off a safe channel across the playground to link sections of the perimeter path.  That gave us our basic circuit.  Riders could get moving as soon as they arrived.  By 9.45am we had ten hardy KVKs signed on, all riding their bikes and breathing hard in the cold air.



Our plan was to keep everyone moving as much as possible.  We stopped briefly to give riders some pointers on mounting/dismounting, followed by a really good practise session that saw everyone getting to grips with quick transitions from riding to running.

We also ran through some drills using different gears; the idea being that by the end of it riders had practised changing from gear to gear and would feel more confidence choosing and changing gears while riding.

We worked through our normal half-time break but stopped briefly before the end of the session for a quick biscuit.  We set up our final endurance circuit and challenged riders to ride hard for five minutes.  Perfect timing; just as they finished it started to rain.  Time to go home.  

Well done to everyone who rode and all our volunteers and parents for facilitating a hard session.  I hope everyone is curled at home with a mug of something warming and a good book (or something similar).

Damian chatting to the riders about mounting and dismounting

Cayden practising some speedy re-mounts

Charlie practising "hopping on"

They really did have fun (even though it doesn't look like it!)

Meanwhile in Minnesota..............

Saturday 3rd February & Sunday 4th February

We've done quite well this year with a couple of off site rides and an indoor session but the weather was against us today so I decided to cancel our first Go Ride session at Stocks Green :-(.

However, one of the many advantages of belonging to a Go Ride club is that our riders are invited to Club Clusters for a variety of disciplines at different venues.  Some of them took advantage of the opportunity to ride at Cyclopark and Lee Valley Velodrome this weekend.

Cyclopark Club Cluster

Ivo & Thomas setting off on the MTB trails

I headed up to Cyclopark where five of our hardiest riders took part in the Club Cluster session.  Chapeau to Ella, Thomas, Ivo, Hope and Eloise who flew the KVK flag despite the freezing conditions.

Ivo and Thomas opted for Cyclocross, which seemed to lead into some trail riding .....Hope, Eloise and Ella all chose road.  While the coaches put all the riders through their paces, I got the job of tidying up the sign on desk and drifting around waiting for stuff to happen.  Fortunately, other than some frozen fingers, not much bad stuff happened so I got to see what was happening and catch up with some parents.  It's always good to see young people whizzing about Cyclopark.

Ella joined the Beginners road session. She persevered despite very chilly fingers ;-)

Eloise and Hope with the Intermediate/Advanced Road Group

Second Club Cluster of the Weekend at Lee Valley

Hope and Eloise rode at Lee Valley on Sunday (much warmer indoors). Mathys took advantage of the opportunity to ride outside, I guess Christophe was running alongside!