Saturday 19th December - Go Ride & Roller Challenge

Saturday 5th December - Hour Challenge

This session was inspired by Alex Dowsett's announcement that he was going to attempt to set a new Hour Record on 5th December.  Unfortunately he had to postpone his attempt after he contracted COVID 19, but as we'd already scheduled our attempt we decided to go ahead.

Each lap of the school is 500m and all riders rode for an hour, taking a quick break if they needed one. Our first group of riders stacked up 131 laps or 65.5km and the second group added a further 97km or 48.5km. Great riding from everyone who took part!

Saturday 28th November - Gary's Zoom Bottle Pick

September 2020

September 2020 was a great month for us as we managed a little bit of everything.  The month kicked off with a road circuit session at Cyclopark hosted by Spring in the Park volunteers with help from club coaches from Kent Velo Kids and Redhill Raiders.

We also managed two weekends at Stocks Green where we ran our double session, with Go Ride first for our new and younger riders followed by an off site ride for our older and more experienced riders.  

Finally we squeezed in a trip to Herne Hill Velodrome that we shared with Bigfoot CC. 

Sadly, new restrictions introduced shortly after meant that was the end of our real life Saturdays for a while :-(

Saturday 22nd August - Hill Climb Challenge Ride

Hannah & Chris were in the driving seat for this one,  Chris arrived well prepared with a notebook, stopwatch & pen!

First stop, The White House

Everybody makes it to the top of Col de Coldharbour

Back at base, classic edition Go Ride medals all round.

Go Ride 15th August 2020

Michele and Calvin led the session today while I was swimming.......but not in Barden lake 😆

Saturday 8th August - Go Ride and Off Site

Another hot sunny day dawned and our willing gang were on hand to run Go Ride and an off site ride.

Michele led the skills today and everyone made huge progress on body position, looks like the session ended with an extreme limbo competition!

Our off site riders got a chance to practise their skills too and it looks like they made a little stop at the unofficial bike park next to Barden lake, well I guess I did tell them to stick to the shade!

Go Ride & Off Site Saturday 1st August

 

Another good turnout today and a wide range of ages and experiences.  Michele worked with some our new starters and younger riders, while Gary challenged our more experienced riders with some cyclocross skills.  

Getting to grips with gliding

Saturday 18th July - Week 2 Return to Go Ride & Off Site Riding

Our second week of Go Ride since lockdown and once again we had a good turnout.  Last week twenty young people came along to ride their bikes and have some fun.  This week we were a few down with sixteen riders but just as much enthusiasm! 

Our sessions are a bit different now; everything has to be booked and paid for in advance, this actually seems quite popular, and the parents I've spoken to so far see it as an improvement.  Our coaches are really enjoying working with smaller groups of riders and I know the riders will benefit from more opportunities to practise and get individual feedback.  On the downside, we've had to scrap the biscuit tin and the games of tag that inevitably started up during break time, but everyone seems to be adapting well and there has been some great bike riding going on.

Last week we focussed on slow riding and balance, this week we added in some mounting and dismounting practise.  We stuck with our 20:20:20 format dividing our one hour session into three blocks, skills, endurance, competition. We included last week's balance box in this week's endurance circuit and added the limbo/hurdles.  Both sessions finished off with a limbo elimination competition.  Our overall winners were Alice in session 1 and Alfie in session 2.

Taking a break, siblings pose for a photo!

Fraser demonstrating excellent limbo technique. Unfortunately for him Alice beat him in our final elimination contest

Limbo Champ Alfie, cleared the pole set at 82cm from ground. This is definitely a club record!

We definitely need some more robust training hurdles!

Once again a few of our older riders headed off site with Gavin and Jez and were joined by Hope, who is proving to be a great asset to the team.

Off site riders Reuben, Harry, Hope and Leon made it to Ightham Mote

You have to ride up it to ride down it!

Our next Go Ride sessions are on Saturday July 25th.  Session 1 9.30am - 10.30am, Session 2 11am - 12 noon.  There will not be an off site ride this week.  Please book on via Eventbrite links on our members facebook page or members email.

Can't Wait To See Our Riders Back Together Again

This was the last time we were at Stocks Green School together, that was way back in March, Saturday 14th to be precise.  It was a wet day, but as you can see that didn't stop the kids having fun.

Since then, we've had loads of dry, sunny days, perfect for bike riding but we haven't been able to take advantage of that great big field or the lovely short grass!

Things are changing though and we hope to be welcoming riders back for short sessions from Saturday 18th July.  The coaching team are looking forward to hearing all your cycling stories from the last three months and can't wait to see how much you've improved!  

Zoom Coaching Session with Hope - 13th June 2020

One of the things I love about the KVK is that as they get older they love to get involved and share their love of cycling with other riders.  Inspired by some of the sessions Hope has seen or been involved in outside the KVK she volunteered to host our first online Zoom coaching session.

Oliver, Ivo, Harry, Ewan, Eloise, Euan, Fraser and Betsy zoomed in to join her for some top tips on track standing.

Sounds like everyone had a good time, hope you are all cracking on with your homework now!  Hope will be hosted the second session on Sunday 28th June at 3pm.  

Hope at Inglis Towers AKA "Mission Control"

Euan has clearly read the joining instructions very carefully ;-)

No KVK Zwift session today but Ivo squeezed a quick virtual ride in before Zoom

Locked down but not down.

With all our club sessions currently suspended until further notice, it's good to see that many of our riders are still riding; indoors and outdoors as part of a family group.  Other bike related activities such as clearing out the shed, building ramps and bike washing are also good ways to keep busy.  

Riding outside with Gary is a bonus of lockdown for Ivo

Meanwhile, Gareth & Albert get towed round by Betsy ;-)

 

Once a KVK, always a KVK! Roller practise instead of school work

Oliver, just one of our KVK Zwifters, who've been enjoying the world of virtual training

Building ramps in the garden looks really fun :-)

Sunday 8th March 2020 - VCL Early Season Racing at Cyclopark

With one of the National Youth Series events planned for Cyclopark later in the year, this was the first of their test events.  You'd be forgiven for thinking Spring in the Park had started early as we lent them all our kit for the race ;-).

Thanks to Jez for photos and brief race report. "Great day for the Hackers, with Betsy an excellent 3rd and Albert a fine 4th in a strong field.  Oliver placed 6th and Ivo very unlucky with a mechanical in 7th.

Fantastic to see our Kent Velo Youth kit racing at Cyclopark :-)