Hi everyone
That was a jolly session..... no rain and a dry surface, just like we had it a fortnight ago.... but the wind.
The wind was quite forceful and I thought beforehand that I must dream up things to do that involve a minimum of cones as they are going to scatter all over the place..... hence the exploration of the world, well the further parts of the tarmac.
Two new faces rolled through the school gates: they were Justin Collins aged six who is the younger brother of Alex, while dad Norman Blissett brought his son Finlay who is six months short of his fifth birthday. Welcome to you both.
Paul Wright was tackling his second coaching session... and he marked himself down for the younger age group.... so I was whistling to keep the older age group in some sort of order, well trying to.
Before the riders split into two smaller groups, all 24 rode together for six minutes while we counted the total laps completed in six minutes.
The tally ran to 404.
In addition to the Raiders on the merry-go-round, we also had a dad and a reindeer bulking up this group.... the dad was on duty talking to his four-year-old son Joe whereas Dasha, someone's reindeer friend, seemed to sleep throughout the entire period.... probably dreaming of moss and the like.
By way of contrast the next exercise challenged riders to move forward as slowly as possible, and they were individually times from when they crossed the 'start line' to when they emerged at the 'finish line' which was only three metres away.
Balancing in the stop-box results - time in seconds
16 - Megan Maloney
15 - Joshua Sharples
14 - Angus Walton
13 - Peter Carpenter
13 - James Tingle
11 - Joshua Golliker
11 - Louis McLeod
10 - Amelia Jury
8 - Alice McDermott
8 - Alex Collins
6 - Ellen McLeod
6 - Ewan Giddings
4 - Annabel Canning
One of the other exercises is what I call a dog handler's obedience test. Riders pedal towards a line of cones, spaced out one at a time, and just before each one they hear the instruction 'left' or 'right'... so a touch of last-minute balancing is needed and readjustment of direction.
I thought it might be worth introducing a new touch whereby riders rode in pairs, shoulder to shoulder, so every time they had not just to think about passing the cone but also leaving enough room for the other riders.... it [proved to be a good challenge for some and I thought it's a 'must do again' routine.
Final race - older group - girls handicap (5 laps)
1 Megan Maloney
2 Ellen McLeod
3 Annabel Canning
Final race - first older group - boys handicap (5 laps)
1 Joshua Sharples
2 Angus Walton
3 Ewan Giddings
Final race - second older group - boys handicap (10 laps)
1 Alex Wright
2 Louis McLeod
3 Joshua Golliker
aul Wright who was coaching the younger group has fired this over.....
Once again I had a group of very keen youngsters. It was fantastic to see some new faces, as well as lots who had been there last time.
I am still trying to teach some basic skills, and that means that we will have to go back to some skills again and again.
After starting with some basic skills such as freewheeling, pedalling standing up, and putting the two together, leading to getting to the "Ready Position" where you stand up on the bike, freewheeling with your pedals level.
I then went back to braking, as although some can do it very nicely, some needed a bit more help and a refresher. We then went and checked our helmets and some were adjusted, as some were a bit loose.
We then went to riding slowly, as that helps with balance followed by a slow race where the children ride round in a small box slowly.
We finally went to a couple of races.
The first was a basic race which did 6 laps of the course. In it James followed the Leader before catching him on the last lap and getting the victory.
1st - James
2nd - Joe
3rd - Emily
The second race was a "Devil" Race where the last rider is pulled out every 2 laps. There then was a last lap Sprint between the last 2.