Rolling, rolling, rolling…. that’s how it was at Canon in the car-parks on Sunday when our autumn term sessions got into motion.
With lots of new faces.
Benjamin Newey (4) and Poppy Bishop (3) were full of beans. Next to sign in was William Loader (5) and after that came dad Marcos with his two fresh faces, Avi (8) and Manish (6). Welcome to you all.
Everyone warmed up together on a square circuit. One dad responded to the call and joined in and so was immediately on hand to help out when one youngster shot sideways into the bushes.
Thank goodness for wobble-resistant grade bushes.
The other parents didn’t get let off lightly, mind, as they then had to run three laps before things moved on (decided by a majority vote of the kids)…top marks going to Gill, the mum who ran/jogged carefully with a tiny tot still in a carrier on her back.
(It was still there at the end, should you be wondering).
Sean Lamberth had the younger riders and I had the older ones.
They had to ride through four ‘streets’ with yellow cones on each side, keeping three-abreast. Between the blocks the exercise called for them to change places, so lots of communication was called for. With Ella and Joseph feeling a need to ride (slowly) with only one leg, the younger riders behind were promoted to riding in front of them.
The next challenge for the threes was to pass a bottle from one to the other, then to ride with one hand on the next person’s shoulder. Something to work on.
Slalom circuit – bike handling skills and speed.
26sec – Joseph Armstrong
28sec – Avi Castro
29sec – Alex Palmer
29sec – Pranjay Zharotia
33sec – Alistair Millar
36sec – Ella Dabrowski.
We had a few fast-start races where the finish line was only 20m from the start, so making for the need for rapid clipping in of pedals. To add to the muddle it was a ‘two-up’ style of event and riders could only start off once they had been tagged by a parent. Having parents in a different start order to the riders nicely added to the muddles.
Final race – handicap, five laps.
1 Pranjay
2 Joseph
3 Ella
Pranjay went off on the second whistle while Ella and Joseph were held back until the fourth whistle. With two laps to go, Pranjay was still ahead but Joseph was eating into his lead at every pass. He might well have run out of steam on the final lap but he didn’t and held on to get to the line first, but the gap was down to a couple of bike lengths. Great to watch. Well done everyone.
John
Autumn term events
September
24 Canon
Oct
1 - MTB-led ride with Alan
8 - Canon
22 - Canon
29 - MTB led ride with Alan.... to be confirmed
Nov
5 - Canon
19 - Canon
26 - MTB-led ride with Alan
Dec
3 - Canon
17 - Canon