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 :-)

Saturday 7th March 2020 - Club Cluster at Cyclopark & London League Cyclocross Presentation at Kingdom.

A great turnout for  Club Cluster this month

It was a busy day in the world of cycling, the afternoon saw the London League Cyclocross Presentation at Kingdom, Penshurst.

We have a great little cyclocross team who regularly drag their parents to muddy fields and woods on Sunday mornings throughout the Autumn and Winter.  The general theme is racing your bike, falling off, playing with your mates and eating cheesy chips/hot dogs.  This season the team has been Betsy, Ivo, Albert and Oliver, with a one off appearance from Harry.  Hope (JRC-Shutt-Ridley Race Team) has usually been on hand too to share her knowledge and experience and give our riders a shout out.

All our riders raced brilliantly over the series.  As ever there are highs and lows in the world of cyclocross racing, but all our riders finished well overall.  Betsy was 2nd in the U10 Girls, then in the U12 Boys Ivo, Albert and Oliver finished 7th, 11th & 12th respectively.  Harry's one race placed him 31st ( he's been racing indoors on the track, much kinder on the washing machine).  Hope fulfilled her aim of finishing 1st overall, having won each of the races she competed in.  

Betsy 2nd overall U10 Girls

Saturday 29th February - All Off Site - Except We Weren't...............

This was the second time in our ambitious four week block that we had to change our plans..............I rode the Penshurst Trail on Friday afternoon, while it was rideable, the standing water and mud pools meant I was really wet thirty minutes in and that was before the rain started, without unscheduled dismounts or a puncture!  By the time I got home I was colder than the last time I swam in Chipstead Lake in January ;-). I knew I had to call it, these are not the sort of conditions that make for a fun bike ride.

So I made the decision to cancel early; Friday night I put the call out to train indoors and send me the photos.  Here's what happened...........

Harry still trained at the Cyclopark Development Centre session - BBBBRRRRRRRR - Chapeau Harry!

Hannah & Iris got their running shoes on..........Iris got a 5km PB 

Ivo was warming up at Redbridge (AKA HoghillI). Note close proximity to Inglis's hamper :-)

It was a tough day out at Hoghill for Ivo, he fought hard in the wind and uphill and just missed a podium spot, finishing fourth.  Hope had a top step sort of day. Woo Hoo!

Back indoors, Alfie showing plenty of commitment (more than the cat)

Oliver, putting his roller skills to good use

Thomas training with tunes.....

Betsy aiming high in Yellow

Albert going full gas

Gareth training to keep up with almost teenage son???

Sunday, indoors at Lee Valley.  It's early but it's warm and dry :-) Ivo, Harry, Lucy & Fin at Club Cluster

Lucy headed off to Hillingdon after the track.  I'm reliably informed that she had a great race, managed to stay in the bunch and finished 2nd Girl.  That's her second, second place in two weeks! Go Lucy!

So all in all a good weekend for all our riders who really wanted to get on their bikes (outdoors or indoors).  Next week we'll be joining other clubs at Cyclopark, Gravesend for Club Cluster.

Saturday 22nd February 2020

It actually seemed windier to me this weekend when I looked out of my window this morning; I decided against packing the feather flag ;-)

A few more riders this morning took us to fourteen in total and lots of enthusiastic parents.  I'd set up a couple of U turn challenges on the playground, so as they arrived, riders got started on these. As riders get fitter and stronger it's easy to overlook the value of including skills in coaching sessions, we try to continue to give our riders the opportunity to practise the basics, we just have to keep making them more difficult!

As planned, we split the riders leaving our oldest and youngest members on sight to work on everything "cornering".  Meanwhile our mid age/size riders headed off site towards the Col de Coldharbour.  I'd warned them there would be mud but they seemed unperturbed.

Everyone made easy work of the climb, use of gears is getting better.  We had a very short stop at The White House, for a readjustment of clothing and a quick drink (note to self need to practise drinking on the go) before heading off down the bumpy track.




 This is where the mud started; once we'd made it through the thick mud on the approach to the five bar gate we had to negotiate a deep puddle, then it was up the hill. We practised our U turns again on the track approaching the chocolate box cottage and threw in a little hill effort before sending James and Hannah off ahead to check out the bumpy field.

Once they'd given us the all clear, everyone headed off down the hill and made it through the gate, through the mud and eventually to the other side of the field.

Refuelling took place at our traditional pit stop area; Jelly Snakes and chocolate Hobnobs were the order of the day.

We managed a bit of team TT format riding on the way home and of course a couple of laps of the pump track in Westwood.  All in all a good morning's bike riding.  Back at Stocks Green, there was just time for a quick photo then everyone headed off for the rest of their weekend.  I'm just waiting for a full report on the coaching session ;-)

Next week the plan is for everyone to ride off site, in small speed/endurance based groups.  Subject to the water levels on the Penshurst trail we will head that way.

15th February, KVK defeats Storm Dennis

Ok so plans had to change this morning; an Amber weather warning and predictions of dangerous gusts meant we decided to keep everyone on site.  Despite it being the first weekend of half term we had our usual enthusiastic bunch of riders, undeterred by the windy conditions.

We kicked off with a Club Run Pairs drill.  We'd split the riders into two groups; the riders working on the smaller playground worked really hard on keeping their group together and there was lots of communication.  On the main playground, the need for speed, eclipsed technique, so a good start but some more work needed!

Tight and tidy, great group riding

Need for speed getting in the way of skill ;-)

We moved onto slow and one handed riding as a warm up for teddy and bottle pick activities.  It was a good job the winds didn't develop as forecast, we would have been chasing bottles around the playground all morning.

Skills like this take a lot practise and there is always a way to make it more challenging, so time sped and it was soon time to move onto some endurance riding.  

We set up a circuit that included a dismount zone and a feed zone, where riders had to take a bottle and deposit it in a box.  Successful riders gained a point for every bottle they managed to land safely in the box.

After 15 minutes, many bottles had been 'picked', some of those made it into the box.  The sludgy surface had caught a few riders out, so there were quite a few muddy leggings about the place too!

Hannah reveals the bottle scores.............

A good test of speed and skill. After 15 minutes these were the scores:

1st Place - Oliver 9 bottles
2nd Place - Bronnie 8 bottles
Joint 3rd Place - Zach & Jess 7 bottles
Joint 4th Place - Fin, Ivo, Wilbur & Fraser 6 bottles
Fifth Place - Alice 4 bottles
Joint 6th Place - Thomas & Ewan 3 bottles

January 2020 - All Systems Go

New Years Day - Madison Cyclocross at Herne Hill

Ivo and Oliver teamed up for the News Year's Day Madison Cross at Herne Hill and bagged a spot on the podium - a great way to start the year.

Saturday 4th January
We kicked off 2020 with a trip to Bedgebury to ride the trails.  It was a small but perfectly formed group of hard core riders.  Apparently the bike washer was out of order, something they only discovered after the ride ;-). It was great to see Calvin back from Uni too.

Meanwhile our Cross Racers were competing at Ardingly......

Sunday 5th January
Club Cluster at Lee Valley Velodrome - a few hardy souls got up for the 8am start, it's always worth it and you can go back to bed later in the day if you get yourself well organised!

Indoor Sessions: replacing an inner tube and indoor training tools
January 11th, 18th & 25th.

We really enjoyed our morning at Ightham Scout Hut, taking wheels in and out and switching over inner tubes.  Jez had our club pressure washer in action.  It gets taken to cyclocross races and makes an appearance at Go Ride sometimes to get the worst of the mud off the kids' bikes before they go home.

Enjoying a workout on turbo trainers

For our second and third session we were at Weald Memorial Hall, trying out turbo trainers and rollers.  Gavin had a great little set up with a darkened part of the hall where he managed to project a training video onto the wall to give our riders a taste of indoor training on a turbo.  It was very popular and a great intro to training indoors.

The rollers were also a great success; we were lucky that Hope could join us for the first session to show us just how good you can get!  Then it was down to practising............

By the second week, everybody had managed to ride unassisted and progress was being made by the minute.  We ended the session with riders lined up across the hall, all riding smoothly, and demonstrating their skills from tentative one handed riding , all the way through to removing a jersey while on the go and riding none handed with just one leg.  All in all a very successful and enjoyable session.

By the end of our second session everyone had made huge progress. 

Hannah nails it with encouragement from Damian

Sunday 26th January London Cyclocross League Round 13 (final round)

Albert, Betsy and Ivo completed the last round of the London Cyclocross League at Redbridge