Hi everyone
Talk about a new month and the start of spring, we had March hares leaping round all over the place on Sunday.
After dividing the heaving mass into two halves, I swopped groups with Bee Gregory from last month and stayed on the oval loop with the older lot and we had our first-ever go at Madison..... starting with the basics.... like the hand-sling.
If you have never seen a Madison race before here's the 200-lap event from the World Championships in Columbia that was staged over the weekend from YouTube.
It is a track event and it's often called chess on wheels.... there are two riders in each team and one team/country... the pace is too fast for one rider alone so one rider of the pair does a high-speed lap or two in the race and then exchanges with his/her partner..... using a hand-sling to throw the new rider into the race at speed in order not to lose their place in the line.
Some further explanation here on how to do it
It works also on road bikes so that's what we were doing as it is great for extending out beyond your comfort zone into new territories... you have to be close enough to another rider to join hands.... and then do the throw/exchange without sideways wobbles that would result in handlebar clashing.
We did walk-throughs on foot and then laps of what it known as 'load and reload'.
Really we could do with that smaller circuit to tackle Part 2.... and fewer riders..... as we got to the point where there were so many it was impossible to offer individual attention to make further progress.... but overall I saw lots of skills coming to the fore, as frayed nerves eased....so well done.
Other than that there were lots of other new stuff by way of exercises.
That was a result of me dipping my toe into assistant coaching action in the half-term holiday at the two Regional School of Racing (RSR) days.... both at Cyclopark, one day for girls (U14-U16) and another for boys (same age bands).
Several of the older riders who come to Power Pack were selected for the RSRs so that helped me on Sunday when I got riders to tackle similar stuff.
The list of copied items kicked off with a 'humps and bumps' routine where riders were in four separate lines of six, the following five being told to copy what the leader did, and the leader was told to weave all over the place as much as they fancied.... then change leader each lap.
Bunny-hops were also needed as riders came along the straight.... that is the entire bike off the ground. It produced some big surprises... as some of the smallest/youngest riders in the group did the biggest leaps of all....... while others couldn't get off the ground. That said, you do need clip-in pedals.
'They need something to leap over' said a dad (himself a coach) who was watching with his young daughter.
'We could put Hannah on the track then,' I suggested with a touch of inspiration.
It wasn't what he had in mind.
Next we had riders in packs of nine, three in a line and three lines, one close behind the other. The front line of three put hands on shoulders, moved sideways and backwards then slid into the back. All went really well.
Then the same packs of nine only this time the back three had to make their way to the front by riding through the middle of the six in front of them. I expected problems. They never came. Phew.
Thanks here to the parents/coach with bikes who either made up lines of three so everyone got a turn, or acted as a 'pilot fish' where groups were ragged and needed compacting.
And finally we had a SprintFest.... riders in about six groups in order to achieve matched ability.
Some great sprinting.
The two mad March hares who had to go to hospital by ambulance are alive and well, should you be wondering.... back home but sporting bruises and a black eye (Kent Velo Girls and Dorking Raiders).