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Interview: School of Racing

Posted: 7th June 2011
Interview and images: Andy Whitehouse
Related: Olympic Talent Programme Homepage

Nominated riders from across the West Midlands attended the Regional school of racing on June 2nd at Stourport Sports Club. Riders from clubs including Wolverhampton Wheelers, Halesowen A&CC, Lichfield CCC and Solihull CC amongst others were put through their paces by Olympic Talent Programme coach Tim Buckle who delivered expert training tips and lifestyle choices to the youngsters.

I managed to sit Tim down for a few minutes during a short interval and get the lowdown on the day.

Andy Whitehouse: How many training days are you promoting in the West Midlands in 2011?

Tim Buckle: This is the fourth one so far this year; it's part of a 12 month plan, there are roughly 14 sessions in total but they will cover mountain biking, track, and road racing, so each region will have a coach delivering 14 sessions during the year.

AW: How many does the day cater for?

TB: We have a maximum of 36 riders on a session to make it manageable, depending how prolific each region is we get on average 28 riders on each session. There are more populated areas where we see numbers maxing out and in some regions we see more then 36 want to ride and have 5 or 6 reserves.

AW: Are the riders invited to attend?

TB: No it's all done through nominations by the clubs that are youth orientated and youth racing orientated. There are clubs that have been identified as those who have youngsters racing nationally and regionally across the three discipline (as above). so it's the clubs' top youth riders who are progressing every month that are here.

AW: How is the day structured?

TB: It's quite a fixed format we deliver, the objective of the session are not just about riding your bike, it's also about producing the mature, independent athlete. We base the training around lessons in racing and the skills and the tactics around that; they aren't based around a physical workout. We run a two hour session in the morning, a small workshop during lunch and a two hour session in the afternoon which we split into micro sessions, then to finish the day we have a lifestyle workshop lasting around 45 minutes to an hour.

AW: What is the next step for the riders from these training days?

TB: There are a lot of objectives based around the day; it gives a bigger pool of bike riders the core skills on their bikes and lifestyle skills to go on and be the best bike riders they can be, which increases the success of our domestic racing. We are looking for riders to go on to the Talent Team and then on to ODP and hopefully onwards from there.

Related: Olympic Talent Programme Homepage