Well, that was the year that was 2012. Sir David Brailsford steered Sir Bradley Wiggins (sounds good, eh?) with Team Sky to win the Tour de France and Team GB to dominate the Olympics!
Review of the year
Go Ride has again grown and had as successful a year as we could have hoped for, with 42 riders having attended 2 or more sessions! As at 31 October (our year end), we have run 19 sessions (2011: 8), including an organised ride at Fineshade Woods. In addition, we have hosted a Go Ride Games MTB race at Hinchingbrooke Park attended by 57 riders, and a come and try skills session in July at Hinchingbrooke Park, where we tested 60 riders in 3 hours in a race against the clock over various obstacles.
Go Ride interest has strengthened each year, with a marked increase each year after the summer. In 2011, there was a significant jump up following our 2011 move to Hinchingbrooke Park, then in 2012 again post summer, benefiting from the Olympic effect and the Tour de France. This year of course we held a well publicised MTB race and a number of people have joined from that. We have had to be careful with encouraging too many new joiners to date since we have been limited with only two coaches but I am pleased to say that Simon Pauley is well on his way now to completing his Level 2 Coaching award so we will now have 3 active Level 2 coaches in the new year.We have had great results in mountain bike racing this year; in the summer Lotty Wylde and Sophie Saberton took first and second place respectively for St Ives CC in the Mud Sweat and Gears MTB racing in the U12 girls category whilst in cyclocross, Sophie Saberton is doing well in the 2012/13 Eastern region cyclocross league with her sister Emma consistently finishing in the youth category. As a result, Emma was invited to represent the Eastern region in the inter area championships in November 2012 at Milton Keynes.
In September, St Ives CC Go Ride were invited to field a team in the Go Ride racing at the Norwich stage finish of the Tour of Britain. The team of Samantha Harding, Holly Hoy, Sophie Saberton and Lotty Wylde won silver competing against 5 other teams, a great result since we fielded the only all girl team. I think its fair to say that the parents were more impressed than the riders when they received their medals from Nigel Mansell as the riders weren’t aware of his success. In case you didn’t know, Nigel Mansell was attending as president of Team UK Youth, one of the teams competing. He has been supporting Team UK Youth for over 10 years and I am pleased that he has been recognised in the New Years Honours list with a CBE as a result.
In November 2012 (so technically the 2012/13 year I guess!), St Ives CC held its second annual cyclocross race at Grafham Water. A very well attended event, St Ives CC had 5 U12s and 8 youth riders competing on a challenging but enjoyable course. Most riders competing have said although extremely tiring, they will be doing it again!In August / September 2012, British Cycling ran a national competition amongst all the Go Ride Clubs to obtain the highest number of new members joining British Cycling. Following heavy promotion at our Go Ride Games race in August, St Ives won the competition. As a result, we received a number of Go Ride resources such as prizes (T shirts, caps, medals, etc) but more importantly for us a £300 bursary towards coach training. This will be a great boost towards growing coach numbers in 2013.
We also won a framed Team GB kit, signed by the female members of Team GB, even more appropriate since as a club we have more girls than boys. Unfortunately we don’t have a club house to display this in, but I will be bringing this inspirational award to various events throughout next year, in order to remind everyone what they can achieve if they work hard!
At the last session in December, we had 6 teams racing each other in a team pursuit, bottle pass and the pairs slalom. Team Cyclocross (Holly, Elizabeth, Alex, Sophie and Max) won all of their races against the other teams so got maximum available points. Following this, we held the inaugural St Ives CC awards, where we awarded medals and trophies in a number of categories. The winners are below.
1. Attendance: Trophy + T-shirt (Dom), Gold (Sophie), Silver (Sam), Bronze (Ryan), Runners up (Molly D, Beth, Florence)
2. Never gives up: Trophy + T-shirt (Emma), Gold (Zach), Silver (Beth), Bronze (Lauren), Runners up (Abigail K, Charlotte K)
3. Most enthusiastic: Trophy + T-shirt (Dan), Gold (Harriet), Silver (Megan), Bronze (Oliver), Runners up (Alex, Amber)
4. Most improved rider: Trophy + T-shirt (Molly W), Gold (Charlotte), Silver (Libby), Bronze (Anastasia), Runners up (Rhys, Poppy, Ben)
5. Racer of the year: Trophy + T-shirt (Sophie), Gold (Lotty), Silver (Holly), Bronze (Bea), Runners up (Max, Ralf, Harriet)
6. Riders rider: Trophy + T-shirt (Dom), Gold (Harriet), Silver (Emma); Bronze (CC), Runners up (Holly, Sophie)
7. Pringles award (for most convincing crash): Gold + T-shirt (Molly W), Silver (Alex)
Holly and Charlotte were also awarded a signed framed photo of James and myself, which I know they will treasure!! 😉
Thanks to all the parents involved for supplying food and helping which meant we didn’t have to charge and we were able to cover the room hire charge from our own funds.
We have only been able to achieve what we have this year thanks to the support of a number of people, in particular Rob Harding, Simon Pauley, Jim Saberton and Andy Wylde who have all turned up regularly to help with running the sessions, Malcolm Jacklin, a Go Ride coach at Fenland Clarion who has enabled us to continue running sessions when James or myself have been otherwise engaged (or in fact the numbers have been too great for us to manage!), all the marshals for their help at the Go Ride MTB event, the Committee for supporting our requests for cash to invest in equipment, and of course the members of St Ives CC, a part of whose subs have enabled us to invest in equipment.
On to the new year now and the first session will be on 19 January 2013, followed by 2 February 2013. Timings will remain as before, 10am to 11.30 am There is no session on 5 January as the schools are still off then. The remaining dates will be circulated in due course but generally will stay as the first and third Saturday of each month in term time.
To enable us to continue investing in Go Ride, the fees will increase from £2.50 to £3.00 per person per session from January. This is planned to go towards assistance with training of additional coaches and becoming self sufficient on covering the cost of new equipment.
And finally…
Just before Christmas (22 December) we took 10 riders to the Manchester velodrome. They all had a great time again and as I said previously, I think we may well even see a few St Ives shirts in track competitions later next year at this rate…
On behalf of James, Simon and myself, Happy New Year and we look forward to seeing many of you in January!
Mike
