The club welcomed three new faces to the track last weekend with Lincoln Brennan and sisters Phoebe and Laura Butterworth dipping their toes into road cycling. New riders are always welcome to junior cycling and we hope that they enjoyed their time with us. We continue to be blessed with warm weather and had a total of 12 junior girls and boys navigating their way around closed circuit track.
Phoebe and Laura didn’t waste any time familiarising themselves with their surroundings, lining up quickly to take on the hotly contested 1 lap time trial. Once all riders were assembled into the right starting sequence (this seemed more difficult this time than usual!), timekeeper Richard Wilkinson set each rider off in 30 second intervals. Oliver Williams is starting to get a hang of his new road bike setting a new PB of 3:29, along with Bella Page (2:57), Bernie May (2:18) and Dempsey Burton (2:18). Nice work!
With retired super coach, Peter Wilkinson on hand to impart his wealth of knowledge, riders were split into two groups and Peter took the older riders around one half of the track to focus on a range of riding skills and techniques. The younger group were given the choice of skills to practice in their session and they decided on figure 8s, slalom and the ever popular ‘relay race’.
Once again, the final session of the day was the two handicapped races – a single lap for younger riders and 2 laps for the older riders.The single lap race was won by Oliver Williams, with newcomer Laura Butterworth coming in second and Tahlia Harper taking third place.
The start time of the second race was delayed briefly due to a noisy protest by young Richard May, claiming to have been given an unfair handicap and insisting that a smaller time penalty would be more appropriate – but the handicapper would have none of this, trusting his scientifically calculated times and turning a deaf ear to the drowning noise of young May. It was siblings Bella and Thomas Page who set off first and it appeared that it would be a battle of the Pages – who would claim bragging rights at home for the coming week?…only time would tell. Newcomer Lincoln set off next with Richard May, whose protesting could be heard all the way down the main straight and then Bernie May and Thomas Singleton set off just over a minute later. Dempsey was the last rider out of the blocks – 1m 40s behind the Pages. After the first lap, it was difficult to tell who would come out on top. Bella and Thomas were only metres apart and Thomas Singleton passed the mid way point with a very determined look on his face. The final lap did sort out who had the legs and it was reminiscent of a groundhog day with a much quieter Richard May crossing the line first with Bernie second and a very relieved Bella Page rounding out 3rd place.
Well done to all and many thanks to the club members and parents who came along to lend a hand on the day – it certainly makes the running of these sessions so more enjoyable for all.
Good luck to Thomas Page, Bella Page and Thomas Singleton who are all competing in the Kings Cliff triathlon this weekend. We hope you enjoy yourselves.
You may or may not be aware that Tamworth Cycling Club have invited our juniors down to Tamworth this Sunday for their final criterium event of the season. If you would like more information about this event, please contact Chris Stace or Luke O’Connor at the Tamworth Cycling Club on 0411 125 120.
For more information about cycling membership, click here: http://membership.cycling.org.au/Packages/Racing
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