This week we had 5 riders, three returning and two new. Everyone appeared to have a good time, as indicated by the fact that most of them didn’t want to get off the track at the end of the three hour session.
The smallest bike in use was 47 cm and all the smaller bikes were taken. As far as I can tell every rider from both weeks will be back - when they all pick the same week bikes are going to be scarce.
It’s not only the riders who are learning. We found that:
- Grabbing the rail to wait a while is a skill in itself. At the top of the banking, it can seem that there is no way to let go without too much acceleration. We’ll practice this at the low points with new riders.
- Riding cones is a good skill-builder, but it takes a lot of time.
- We did some timed 500m efforts so they can look back on these times when they get faster. We didn’t anticipate how competitive they would be with each other. We need to talk about sportsmanship and working together, as opposed to trying to “win” a workout.
- We need to formulate a policy about who (besides the “class”) rides on the track. More on this another time.
- Some bikes are still over geared. One rider stood for his entire 500m effort because he never got the cadence up - and this was one of the faster times. It looks like something between 63 and 68 inches is going to be best - probably toward the low end of that range.
Sunday October 10th is the second Sunday of the month, so we’ll be holding another Junior 10-14 track session.
If you haven’t attended a session, come on out and give it a try. Of course we hope to have everyone back from last time, as well.
Bicycle news: we had barely enough bikes last time, but things should be improving. I found some smaller bars for the smallest bike, Vance Sprock of Cupertino Bike Shop donated tubes to repair the flats on a couple of 650c wheels, and volunteers at last weekend’s work party checked over all the bikes. There is even a possibility that we will have some brand new bikes within a month or two.
Please see this previous post for more details.
These are from the 2002 Northern California Nevada Track Cycling Championships for juniors.
Davis, Jim, Daniel, and Matt warming up.
Northern California Nevada Championship Medal
Why post 2 year old photos? There’s a search engine out there which uses thumbnails of each web site to help you preview what you are getting. The sole reason for this post is to have some pictures up the next time they do an update.
Some of you may have noticed that the rider and result databases had search links from each name, but many of them gave no results.
Starting today, not every rider’s name will have a link, but all of the links will get results. This should save you (and the search engines out there) from a lot of dead end searches. If you think someone is on this site, but there is no link, you can use the search box on the right side of the page and enter a nickname or other variations.
I received an email from Tim Roach (more widely known as “Coach Roach”) with the following information. It sounds like a great opportunity for anyone living in L.A., or within reasonable travelling distance. Not the time limit for riders who have not already raced at the ADT center.
Jrs that raced at Jr Nationals will receive a FREE 10 session training card upon their first visit to the ADT. Any Jrs that did not ride at Jr Nationals are eligible for a FREE certification class at the end of which they will also receive the FREE training card. The class is a value of $62.00 and the training card is a $90.00 value. Beginning in November the one day certification course will no longer be offered. So please take advantage of this opportunity real soon.
The training at ADT has been incredible. This is by far the best training tool we have in the US for bicycle racing.
I have deleted the phone number, since anyone can see this. His email address is CRoach2Win at AOL.
