Folks,

Just an update on a few things with the club for general knowledge and discussion

Junior Trax Off Road Cycle Skills Course - 6th Feb - Mar

This is an off road skills course being run in Lordship Rec every Saturday morning from 6th Feb to 6th March for 10 to 16 year olds. It is made possible by a grant from Play Sport london. Lucy, Mario and Oliver will be coaches on the courses working alongside Firecrest MTB.

After a detailed planning session on site we are all set to go and very psyched. Attention is now on publicising the course and spreading the word so we have emailed the Friends email list, met some local youth projects and got some posters up locally and generally started talking lots to local folks. NB the course is all abilities so we are working to communicate it to all groups to ensure it is as inclusive to disabled riders too.We've all been out there along with Shaz getting folks enthused. All going well.

The plan is to continue these sessions as an ongoing Saturday morning session. I will be training as a British Cycling Coach this year and so will be lending a hand (and sounds like lots of fun) and if you are keen to be a coach then please let us know your interest (we are looking at funding to help out).

The sessions are Saturday so don't be surprised if you start seeing the regular rides move to a Sunday (as the coaches want to get out and ride too;)

Feel free to spread the word.

Big Bad Bike Race - 13th March (tbc)

Bill Wright from Brtish cycling and the same loud-mouth lot from the club above have been working to plan a Bike Race in Lordship Rec on 13th March for under 16's. Well why not. Races are fun. It forms a nice culmination to the end of the skills course and will also be open to kids not on the course from local schools and community centres etc. We will have three races we are thinking. A time trial, a relay and a mass start. Our top coaches will be on hand to get folks warmed up and thinking technique as well as fun. Hopefully four races even..as we get the 16 plus club members and stewards to race too;)

We are currently planning the day structure and map of the course in detail but looking like a Dr Bike from 11am to get the bikes in order and then the racing goes from 1pm to 4pm. Loads of fun! We are looking for some stewards to help out and have fun with us on the day if you fancy getting involved in the madness.

BMX Dirt Track Repair Project

This project is to repair the existing BMX dirt track to give us an infrastructure to coach on as well as a place for all the public to use.It is split now into two phases:

Phase 1:

We intend to do some small maintenance (fix the starting ramp, fill in holes) just before the 6th Feb course. We will do this as council volunteers under their supervision and insurance.Probably day of 2nd Feb if anyone is around and not working and fancies lending a hand?

Phase 2:

We still need to do a bigger repair that requires funds and more autonomy.

a) Autonomy: So I am looking for our own insurance so we can work outside of council supervision at a more convenient time (i.e. weekends when the club members are mainly free). I am shopping around and working with Karl Bartlett form the IMBA to make this happen.  At the same time we will have a management contract with the council which we are looking to draw up in March.

3) We need equipment and materials and we have put in a funding request with Comic relief so will hear back mid Feb

Early March we will have all the inputs and probably review as a club in more detail. I am thinking though that the project going forward will be more focussed as a repair job with adults from club than a big publicised under 16 event we were thinking previously. One of the reasons for this is the two project above are satisfying our drive to recruit under 16's so less need (and less complexity.. we have a lot on;)

OK that's enough for now. We have Epping Ride next week and a pub/ club meeting to define the constitution and drink beer on 2nd Feb in the Islington Tap around 7.30pm. Hope to see you then :)

NB I will do these posts intermittently to give folks an update. Feel free to contact me directly

Thanks to all and a special thanks and acknowledgement to Mario, Lucy, Shazi and Oliver who have really worked hard and been brilliant in making all this happen.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed