SIP #7 16th June

I was away on the Isle of Sheppey today, no worries though as the KVK team were on good form; in fact I think it's fair to say nobody missed me! Great photos as ever from Christophe, which together with the results seem to say it all.  Oh, and Happy Birthday Polly!  

KVK & KVRT results: Ivo 3rd, Thomas 6th U8 Boys, Oliver 8th U10 Boys, Lucy 3rd U10 Girls, Hope 2nd U12 Girls, Nico 25th U14 Boys, Toni 1st U16 Girls, Ellen 2nd U16 Girls, Polly 4th U16 Girls

Kicking off with the U8's Ivo and Thomas looking super cool and relaxed on the start line.  Thomas started the series riding his regular bike but has upgraded to one of the club road bikes; great to see this progression in our young riders.

Penny for your thoughts Ivo!

U10 Super Stars Oliver & Lucy, post race refuelling

Seen here, Ivo enjoying some post race nutrition.  This along with the 'KVK base camp' is all part of Spring in the Park for the KVK.  Next up the U10's; Albert, Oliver and Lucy have all raced regularly, and all seem to be riding bigger bikes than when they started (maybe down to post race nutrition again??) It's great to see them signing on and lining up and even better to watch them race and hear them chatting afterwards, they could almost be part of the pro peleton!

In the U12's we ve had Hope and Eloise racing most weeks.  Eloise has taken to racing like a duck to water and has made some good progress in her first Spring in the Park despite being poorly for several weeks.  Hope continues to battle with Freya from Thanet..........

The long drag up from the bottom of the circuit

Freya keeps an eye on Hope, as she needs to!

This week's battle victory goes to Hope

Nico has been our sole representative in the U14's this year.  He has been battling with a couple of individuals from various clubs, his dogged determination and naturally competitive nature have seen him win a few of these in a very strong U14s field.  Go Nico!

U14's get off to a quick start.

Nico stays with the opposition

Nico loses out to Big Foot rider this week :-(

Despite being a small club we continue to dominate the U16 Girls race with Toni, Ellen and Polly racing pretty much every week.  I'm hoping that by the time our current racing girls Hope, Eloise and Lucy reach this stage they will not be racing in front of/behind the boys, they will have their own dedicated races..........#closethegap, #girlsracetoo.  In the mean time these three continue to surprise and delight their established fan club with a combination of great riding, great kit and their thoroughly good sporting nature

Trying to avoid a puncture, pre race

Starting with the boys this week, and they are off.

Staying with the boys in the early part of the race

Ellen finds her groove and sticks with it

At least is was a nice evening for a long solo ride

Ellen's strong sprint places her in 2nd place this week.

Toni finishes 1st Girl

Helping out on the night is what makes it possible, the KVK will always lend a hand.

Next week is the time trial, and then it's the final race for series points.  Good luck to all our riders.

Go Ride 10th June & Youth Ride

Great turnout today with thirty one riders signing on.  Thankfully our three freshly qualified coaches Jez, Gareth and Andrew were ready for action, Andrew even took photos and did a write up:

“It must have been the sun or Kary’s national marketing campaign, but we amazed to have seven new riders today.  They all got involved straight away and showed the bike skills that they already had.  At least one had ridden at another club before and showed themselves very capable.  The challenge for the coaches was to learn all the names, though it was clear that the riders progressed more with their riding than the coaches did with remembering names - name badges in the future / or personalised jerseys?

The group progressed well riding as a line and learning to stop in a small space as well as picking up those essentials of covering the brakes and keeping up the inside leg round corners.  So we were pleased that by mid-way through the session Kary said that we could join the big endurance challenge with all of the other riders on the grass.  We quickly split into two teams (green - because they were on green bikes or jerseys) and red / orange (for the same reason) and joined into the endurance relay; this being in full swing there was an initial trepidation on the part of the green team as so many riders seems to be involved, but Alice quickly took the lead and helped her team get fully involved.


What an amazing turn-out and we will look forward to getting to know the individual skills of the new riders.  Everyone had a great time!" By Coach Andrew

Getting organised for our sprinting drills. Paced by one of the YV's, then sprinting for the line on the whistle

Our pre-session practise session; tights turns and stopping in the box

Gareth takes our newest riders through a quick skills check

Older riders "Chasing the Snake" - paced by Luke

Jez gives the riders their briefing "stay behind Toni's back wheel until I blow my whistle"

A round of applause for the riders, coaches and volunteers

Panorama!

Youth Ride
This week we tackled Reverse ISO Henry VIII. A select group of young riders and some willing adults enjoyed a 22 mile route taking in Hever Castle (hence the Henry VIII) reference.  I learnt from Christophe that the French don't have cat's eyes, but I'm sure french cats have eyes???

Anyway it was a good ride, nobody crashed, nobody cried.  In fact they were all smiling at the end.

Nico, Hope and Eloise - we never did find  Henry VIII!

SIP #6 9th June

Another great evening of racing but best of all Eloise's home made birthday cake in KVK colours!  Thanks to Christophe for the photos.

Quick results summary: Ivo 4th, Thomas 8th, Albert 10th, Oliver 13th, Lucy 5th, Hope 3rd, Eloise 6th, Nico 22nd, Ellen 4th, Polly 2nd, Toni 3rd. Overall standings are Round 5 can be found here: http://sitp.teamdarenthcycling.com/results/

Ellen, Polly, Eloise, Toni and Hope with THE cake

Ivo and Thomas on the start in the U8's race

A cake in KVK colours!

Lucy and Albert are 'All Ears' for the Commissaire's briefing

Perfect post race snack for Ivo

Ditto, Thomas

Lucy finishing just behind Albert in the U10's race

Eloise and Hope getting off the start line in the U12's race

It's not choc chip ice cream but it's close

Hope beats Freya in the U12's

Not much cake left now girls, you better get on with your race or it will all be gone!

Nico in the U14's , he went on to beat Stanley from Hub Velo 

U14's Sprint Finish, nice timing from Nico ;-)

U16's start, Toni, Polly, Ellen, 2nd road centre

A hard effort on the last lap ensured Ellen held onto her position in the overall standings.

Customary Toni Attack?

I spent half the evening grovelling on the floor; removing transponders from front forks!

3rd & 4th June - Club Cluster at Cyclopark, Hillingdon National & Eastbourne Festival of Cycling

Saturday
It was a case of divide and conquer today; Michele headed off to Cyclopark as our club representative at the BC Club Cluster session with Jez and Calvin while myself, Damian and Claire were at Hillingdon for one of the national series races.

Thanks to Jez for the write up from Cyclopark:

KVK were invited to participate in a Go Ride Club Cluster session at Cyclopark - A good opportunity to mix it up with riders from other clubs in the region.  With this being half term week numbers were down but we still fielded six eager riders.  Michele took care of sign on and the organisational duties.

Riders were offered the choice of either mountain bike or road sessions.  Franklin and Joshua headed out with the mountain bike group to hone their skills on the trails, whilst Jago joined the novice road group on the top oval to get to grips with his new bike.

Nico, Oliver and Ivo linked up with the intermediate/advanced road group on the lower oval.  The session was led by Alan and Bruce from SDW with the main focus being on group riding.  Calvin and I were tasked with pacing/herding duties as needed.  The previous weekends SITP races had seen a number of incidents, so the aim in the first part of the session was to increase awareness of other riders whilst riding together in a group.  The session started with some paced bunch riding and then progressed onto practising chasing down a breakaway group of riders.   After a short break the focus turned to working on sprinting.  The first activity had the riders sprinting out of the bottom turn for the full length of the front straight.  The riders then moved to the middle oval where there were split into smaller groups for some through and off sprinting up the main start/finish straight.

 All in all a great club cluster session with everyone leaving with smiles on their faces – although that could have been more to do with the tasty hog roast on offer :-)

Sunday
A beautiful sunny day and we were heading down to the seaside!

Full report and photos to follow