That was a splendidly busy session on Sunday….. a healthy number of new youngsters settling in as well as the older whizzy riders who Sean (coach) kept on the move.
One totally new face: Oliver Jayasingha, aged six. We was hesitant about dipping his toe in the water at all, but having committed he fitted into the group of seven splendidly.
Plus three nearly-new riders who came back for their second appearance. Lovely.
I headed off on the customary tour of world with the youngest group, with a dad as lead engine, Julian I think. He had planned to hive off for some training on his own so thanks for helping out first.
What has previously been a tour of the world morphed into a tour of the galaxy this time because since our last session, the school has spread a brown plastic ‘footpath’ round the entire grassy area at the back… in fact it is more than that as there are two U-turns on a downhill slope that look like coiled spaghetti.
It was a new type of surface to me, sort of wood chippings coated in plastic chocolate stuff, so not at all sure how grippy it was…. hence it was good to have an adult to hit the first U-bend and see if downhill braking resulted in a crash landing.
Perhaps we should send our child welfare parents to test how fast they can go before they clatter onto the ground… only giving up the test once they hit 95 or 100mph (ie a nice margin or error).
With the touring over, and back in our corner, the challenge was to ride in a perfectly straight line without touching cones, picking either a wide pathway or a narrow one.
Jessica immediately picked not only to do the narrow line but to do it one-handed as well, so the bar was set higher than I had planned right from the off.
By now you’ll have gathered that I rather like having more parent participation - it all stems from the fact that the sack-race in the summer went down so well.
The latest version involved parents running a lap before tagging their child who then cycled a second lap to the finish line.
We had six riders at this stage and five parents.
The hunt for a missing parents was more than successful and next news we had seven parents on the start-line, not unduly newsworthy, apart from the fact that two of them were carrying a younger child….. it was the oddest thing I’ve seen in a while and I didn’t have the video running.
Whatever next? I think the kids would enjoy a wife-carrying first lap (or indeed the reverse as I imagine British Cycling would be keen on sex-equality).
Next session is not at Furzefield – more details later but here’s the outline.
date: Sunday 27 November
location: Fidelity International - Investment Management
Windmill Court, Millfield Lane, Lower Kingswood, Tadworth
sat nav tracker: KT20 6RP