From School Playing Field To Cyclo-Cross Races In One Easy Step

 

News Posted 31st October 2008

 

Cyclo-Cross is an ideal vehicle for young people to get into the British Cycling Competition Programme. It is safe, accessible and friendly and, if the potential competitor is under twelve years old, free! Yorkshire has a well organised and highly competitive Cyclo-Cross league that begins in late September and goes through to the New Year. Yorkshire Go-Ride Coach, former international rider and National Cyclo-Cross Champion, Chris Young explains how he went about attracting youngsters into the sport and providing organisers with the welcome headache of having so many under-12 riders that they have had to run two separate races to accommodate them all!

 

Following British Cycling successes in Beijing it has become a lot easier to attract schools into the Go-Ride programme and so Chris decided upon a targeted approach. As soon as the 2008/9 Cyclo-Cross calendar was published he began to research which primary schools were in the immediate vicinity of the event venues. Chris then approached the head teachers of these schools offering them two days coaching immediately prior to the nearby event and some guidance for youngsters if they turned up to race the following weekend. The coaching offered was both in school time and after hours. For most schools this “ticks all the boxes”; curriculum activity followed by after hours activity followed by a link to community activity, all supervised by a professional, fully qualified coach and at no cost to themselves with the added incentive that Chris was able to supply bikes and helmets for the coaching sessions.

 

The first suitable Cyclo-Cross race on the calendar was in the Seacroft Wheelers event in Templenewsam Park, Leeds. Chris targeted a couple of schools but things do not always go to plan, even when you do have such a super scheme, and one of the schools had to pull out at short notice. However, Templenewsam Halton Primary School in Leeds took up the challenge and 57 youngsters experienced two sessions of coaching during the week before the event. Ten of these rode in the under-12 race at Templenewsam on the following Sunday. Organiser, Steve Barnes, was overwhelmed by entries for the youngest category and had to split the field into two separate races.

 

The following week the Yorkshire Cyclo-Cross League event was staged at New College in Huddersfield sponsored by Try-Cycling, a local bike shop based in nearby Kirkburton. Chris targeted Reinwood Primary School, which is almost next to the College. On his first day at the school 90 pupils took part. This number was reduced to 80 on the second day – due largely to the inclement weather- but again 10 of those new riders then continued their involvement in the sport and attended a Cyclo-Cross Race on the following Sunday. Ivan Boyes, from local Go-Ride Club Huddersfield Star Wheelers was also there to hand out introductory leaflets for the club to boost their membership. Once again, the event organiser Andy Whitworth was forced to run separate under-10s and under-12s races due to the fact that 40 riders turned up for the under-12 category.

 

At the end of October the coordinated planning of Go-Ride Coach Chris Young has been highly successful. Chris has targeted two more races in West Yorkshire before the end of the season and if numbers continue to rise there should be a batch of aspiring racing cyclists lining up to join Go-Ride clubs in the area and participate in the White Rose Youth League throughout 2009.

 

Peter Root

Regional Manager - Yorkshire & North East

07879 426 064

peterroot@britishcycling.org.uk