Hi everyone
What a splendid day it was on Sunday..... sunshine and riders everywhere.... every time I blinked there was someone else emerging from behind the wooden stockage.... and there's so much play-kit in every corner now to keep the school-kids fit.
I've had quite a busy post-Cycling Nuts fortnight, one strand of that being to sort out loan road bikes for the four newcomers who headed to Cyclopark to race on their MTBs and who came home so enthused with the day that they asked if they could get their hands on something nippier.... so bikes in and bikes back out to new users.
We had two new faces on Sunday, one being Marcus Davidson who is nine, the other being Seb Gerrard aged five and freshly onto two wheels.... time flies as the last time I saw the latter (and it was only in a photo even then) he was new-born aged two days just, a fledgling gloriously balanced on his dad's shoulders....
....which gives me an idea for introducing a 'sack carrying' competition for Raiders' parents, they ride with their offspring across their shoulders.... one for the Gatton Park day perhaps..... OK guys you could carry the wife instead (or vice-versa)..... could be the second race perhaps.
Andy Carpenter had the older group and I took the younger lot.
I almost lost four of them, stuck in a bog. They went to ride round the world in two lines, each led by a suitably slowish-moving parent on a bike..... and then I ran after them, spotting their snail-trail of wheel marks across a bit of grass..... and there stuck in the middle of the sogginess were four riders.... sinking (well stuck).... each needed a push to get out onto solid ground once more.
So after six or seven tours of the world, and a lot of chit-chat on the way, we got a tad more serious and tackled the little loop through the archway of saplings. There were the usual first-time disasters as handlebars hit the sides and heads had to be ducked but the skill level quickly rose and we went into team time-trial format.
With four teams it was a question of who could beat Team 1 as they logged 63 seconds at their first attempt.
Back on the moon (well the tarmac) we did an individual challenge where riders either rode down a wide alleyway or a narrow alleyway of cones.... and advanced to doing the same thing one-handed when confidence levels rose.
Final race - younger group - younger riders - five laps handicap
1 Nikki Ager
2 Lucas Lamberth
3 Oli Roper
Final race - younger group - older riders - eight laps handicap.
Yes, eight laps... or at least that was the plan... only it proved quite eventful.
Joseph Armstrong was agreed to be third.... and that left the two places ahead of him.
I got Emily Kirk as winner ahead of Tate Pitchie-Cooper, but the advice from the sidelines was that although they started in different handicap groups, based on my assessment of relative ability, Tate had been caught by faster-moving Emily but he then speeded up and uncaught himself (I quite like that word) and hence had won.
I'd missed that so I thought a hasty cop-out (my me) was needed and decided on a further two-lap run-off... just a head-to-head between the two of them.... twice round the circle of green cones.... note the word twice.
I set them off on the whistle and then realised that the green cones had been sucked up by some magic hoover and so Emily and Tate were on some fantasy ride.
Anyway, the magpie was tracked down and we got the green cones back and the whistle went again.
"Two laps" was the instruction.
They did two laps...... and then two more..... and then two more....... and then....
I think on Friday I probably ought to go back over to the school and see if we have a winner... or at least offer them a top-up of water if they're still battling it out.