On June 10th Sunday evening there was a club training session at Herne Hill Velodrome!
It was a training session for people who like velodrome or just wanted to try it out. It was a great show of enthusiasm from CCH cyclists with 25 or so riders turning up including a couple of parents too.
Sadly it started to rain before we got on the track so we all knew by the end of this we were all going to be soaked but at least we got to stay on and race!
Firstly we were split up into three groups. Two groups, which had people who had never been on a velodrome and had to do an induction course and one which had been on a velodrome before.
The group that had already done their induction before -Frank, Logan, Isaac, Alex and Louis - went around the velodrome doing lap changes and other team pursuit training with Gary while the induction course was on. This lasted for about an hour. At the same time, a group of about 12 of the younger riders did the induction training and some of the adults were also getting velodrome experience.
After that we were divided into four teams to do the Italian pursuit. The Italian pursuit is where there are two teams racing starting half a lap away from each other. In each team there was about five people so there was five laps, because the person on the front does one lap, the second does two, etc, and when it gets to the last person who has done five laps with the first back to where they started wins!
There were two heats. The first race was a very close finish but team two just made it to the finish before team one! The next race was team three and four. Team four got off to a good start but unluckily they didn’t keep their pace and got beaten by group three.
The two winning teams went through to the finals of the Italian pursuit. Both of the teams where doing exceptionally well but team three won! Team three was Justin, Harry, Kai, Louis and Eliot (Justin was the secret weapon) but everyone worked hard and the new riders did very well too!
By the end of all of it all everyone was drenched by the rain but soon we were all in our cars ready to leave! It was a great evenings cycling and everyone had fun and all the new CCH riders at the session received their induction certificate.
By Louis Byrne
A fine report young Louis, well done, a sports journalist in the making surely.
ReplyDeleteBig thanks also to the lead coach on the day, Velo Club Londres member and CCH associate; Iain Cook - great job.