On Sunday 3 May we hit the “full house” limit on Eventbrite for the second time running with riders here, there and everywhere.
On top of that Kim our secretary now has another 12 youngsters wishing to start pedalling with us….. wonderful to see this surge in popularity of cycling.
It was Sean’s team of coaches on duty: with Peter up the hill-top with the youngest riders, Sean down in the depths with the oldest ones and Doffy’s deputy (the British Cycling on-line coaching course not yet back up and running) in the middle… namely myself..... there is a report from Sean further on.
Off we went with the ‘last parking space’ challenge. Two teams trying to rack up the best score, individuals going head-to-head, each making a complete loop round two successive cones before stopping/parking up on a tight spot with only room for one bike.
After two runs everyone got the concept of the words ‘complete loop’ (phew) and things got more competitive…. but certainly one to do again.
Another team challenge was the slalom… in this case we divided riders into a girls’ team and a boy’s team. Each team had to weave through a line of nine cones, turn at the far end and then do the same coming back (ie more weaving).
The team’s time was based on when the last rider crossed the finish line.
The girls did really well, cutting their initial time of 49seconds on the first run through back to 44seconds, not once but twice.
But the boys…. well, the timekeeper did his best to be generous but really…. the first attempt ran onto the rocks when the leader started coming back up the line while his team were still coming towards him…. and after that the majority had a further brainstorm and twice they came back without weaving through any cones at all.
We’ll be kind and say the boys' times were 2minutes-plus.
Final race – middle group – girls, 5 laps on two levels
1 Olivia Jacks
2 Catherine Collins
3 Georgie Griffiths
Final race – middle group – boys, 5 laps on two levels
1 Oli Bradford
2 Thomas Adshead
3 Reece Flynn
John
Report from Sean
So the older riders had ordered a nice easy day, with some sun bathing and general milling around. This is of course exactly what they didn't end up getting...
Starting with a 5 lap, easy gear warm up race we quickly moved onto group pursuit races where we tried to match in ability, riders for the up coming pain fest which is now known as the 'Evil Hill Race'...
So.... the Evil Hill Race is indeed a new hard ride consisting of a pursuit set-up, but with one rider starting half way uphill and one rider starting facing downhill. Up or down decided by heads or tails. (Sorry Alex's Mum, I still have your coin!)
It actually worked and there were some very, very close fought battles.
All the riders rode exceptionally well, all making use of their coaching pointers, gearing, braking etc.
....noted.... a few new upcoming riders... Some really impressive hill climb riding worthy of local racing????
Thanks so much for the parents understanding as we ran over time by a long way and thankyou to Doffy, Julian and Jonathan for keeping the session on track!