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Sat 11th Feb 10am - 12pm
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Sun 12th Feb 12pm - 1pm
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Sun 19th Feb 12pm - 1pm
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Sat 25th Feb 10am - 12pm
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Sun 4th Mar 12pm - 1pm
Five-year-old Callum scatters older riders when it comes to Welly Hoying
Hello, hello....we had a fairly warm day today.....and dry at that.... a very few spots of rain but no more....what's this - Sam Sanders sporting no more than a yellow Raiders' t-shirt.... .so yes, I'll class that as the start of the summer
Welcome to two new riders
Holly from Brambletye school came for the first time... and just when we were deliberating on having enough for the second session (with most of our regulars being off at Calshott to try their hand at track riding)... out steps Holly's older brother Daniel, aged 13, who had been squirreled away in dad's car all the time the first group were on their bikes.
Nice to see you both... and do come again....and dad has a bike... yes, we want parents on bikes.
First session
There's a exercise we've done for the past four or five session now, immediately after the warm up, and it normally develops into a slight muddle so I thought that by doing it repeatedly, back-to-back, then eventually the penny might drop.
Only it doesn't..... and this time I'd say it generated the biggest muddle to date!!
Today we had two engines (that is to say parents on bikes, safe and solid, riding half a lap apart, moving at a slow and steady speed). Behind were two strings of riders. At the whistle the rider closest behind the engine has the choice of accelerating and sprinting ahead to the train in front (if they are full of beans).... or staying where they are (because this train is going plenty fast enough, thank you very much).
Today at the best (or should I say worst) moment, one engine seemed like it was blessed with all the magnetism on the entire planet... and so sucked in small cyclists like it was some sort of cycling black hole, while the other dad was left riding on his own-some. Perhaps I need to drop this one.
Next, riders got to terms with a 'saddle push' exercise which inolves standing next to the bike and (while walking/running) pushing it to a finish line using the saddle only... so a one-handed push.
Several or you who started not able to cope with the 'balance' made really good progress. Well done. Practise it at home on the garden path... but keep off mum's flower beds.
We moved on and when we got to the welly-hoying there were a lot of complete misses thanks to the new rule that riders have to travel on the outside of a line of cones.
The pink wellies had the name Abbie written inside them, or so I discovered when Thomas Clayson told me.
Thomas was in a philosophical mode and would have liked a pause and more information on who Abbie is... but I don't know...
The wellies cost £1 at a school sale... they were bought as a result of a (highly successful) earlier short-term loan of a pink welly in the distant past from fellow coach Adrian Webb... or should I say one of his children.... I don't think Adrian himself every wore them.... even when young.
Final race - first session - younger ages - 3 laps
1 Callum Pringle
2 Holly Wade
3 Robert Pringle
Final race - first session - older ages - 6 laps handicap
1 Jamie Pullen
2 Iain Clamp
3 Sam Sanders
Second session
We had to man-handle the playground furniture outwards to make room for Ryan, or should I say for Ryan's new bike. It is some mean machine.
The Olympic sprint exercise was put on hold until riders completed an individual one-lap time trial. Top 4 figures:
21.0sec - Ryan Jolly
18.0sec - Daniel Wade
17.5sec - Jamie Betts
16.4sec - Nick Gill
Two riders wanted a second go and Daniel trimmed his time down to 17.4secs while Ryan worked out the best gear for accelerating out of corners and got his figure down to 15.5sec... which was the fastest of the day.
We staged a low-gear race which got some of the riders red in the face as their steeds had the most amazingly low gears so their legs were flailing in a blurr yet they were hardly moving forwards.
Final race - second session - handicap
1 Ryan Jolly
2 Holly Wade
Holly, having stayed on from the earlier session, got a decent head-start on the rabble (oops, vigorous conversationalists).... but other than Ryan everyone blew up as they failed to catch her.... including her brother who is four years older!!
Green Jersey winner: Callum Pringle....the Welly Hoying Champion
The Green Jersey award this week was going to be to the first rider to knock all four yellow cones off the red box. The big guns came out and mostly shot wide. Only one managed a bit of a hit, dislodging a single cone.
Then it was five-year-old Callum's turn and without so much as a panic wobble as he rode up one-handed, he managed to scatter all four, the full set. Well done Callum.
