Tuesday 23 December 2008

Scottish Cycling Training Opportunities



Are you interested in training to become a cycling coach?

Scottish Cycling have just announced the dates of their coach education courses for 2009 and the good news is that there will be a Level 2 Certificate in Coaching Course in our region on the 17th and 18th January. It is anticipated that most of the cost of the course will be covered by a scholarship. This is the course as I took earlier this year and I think this represents a great chance for someone else to get involved in the club's activities. More details can be found on the Scottish Cycling web-site at,
and more details about Level 2 Coaching at,
http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/web/site/BC/coa/awards_overview_page.asp.

If you might be interested in attending this course, please get in touch with myself, Rik, or Keith Stocker of Scottish Cycling. Please don't let your level of experience of teaching, or cycling one way or another put you off considering the course.

Saturday 20 December 2008

Christmas Cracker Race Report

Hot off the press, here is a report from today's Christmas Cracker Cyclo Cross race. The Stepping Stanes club laid on a brilliant course with a mixture of tight, rooty single track, sudden tricky climbs, a quarry drop and plenty of fast fire road for overtaking.

The weather was cool and dry and the first race to set off was the under 10's with Drumlanrig represented by Jamie Willoughby. He got off to a blazing start gaining a few bikes length lead into the first corner. Jamie built on this lead through the race showing his strength to take a comfortable victory in the end.

The second start of the day was the under 12's and Drumlanrig rider, Rian Hill turned out a great performance in this race. Rian mixed it with the race leaders early on to eventually finish a strong fourth.

Finally, it was the turn of the under 16's with club rider Jack Taylor looking for the win on his festively festooned bike. Jack was at the front of the race for the first couple of laps with Scottish Talent Team riders Ross Green and Ryan Fenwick only to fall off the pace with two crashes on the single track to come home in third.

There's nothing on with the club from now until the new year, but then we will have a busy time coming ahead of us with coaching, races and our Family Evening / AGM. The next coaching session is at 10:00 on Saturday the 17th January at the Castle and the next race is due on the 7th February at Heathhall.

Wednesday 17 December 2008

Update on the Christmas Cracker

Just a brief word about the cyclo cross race this Saturday. There are still places available on the start line, so if you haven't posted in an entry form, it will still be possible to enter on the day. To save time, I suggest that you print off and complete one of the entry forms on the Stepping Stanes web-site, http://www.steppingstanes.co.uk/ (there is also a copy in this blog two posts down). Registration will be at The Pines Golf Centre, please be there at least 30 mins before your race time. To get there from the M74 North, take the A701 from Moffat, when you reach Dumfries by-pass turn left at the roundabout, you will see the Golf centre on the left, turn left at the next roundabout and immediately left into the entrance road.

Race times:- under 10 :- 11:00. under 12 :- 11:15. under 14 :- 11:30, under 16 12:00 Entrance on the day is £5.00.

As I mentioned earlier, I am planning to run a short session starting at 10am based around a pre-ride of the course. I hope that this will improve riders confidence in the race. If you are interested in this please e-mail me and come along a little before 10 to ensure that there is enough time to get bikes ready and run through the formalities before going out on the course.

Saturday 6 December 2008

Snow Ride at the Castle

When we turned up to do the pre-session inspection this morning, we were met by two inches of snow and sheets of black ice! Surely any riding would be unsafe and we would have to cancel the session - especially since we were due to coach descending! But no, we found the ground clear at the top of the first climb and "up first down", providing perfect conditions for the session with Carol and Jamie giving us some great new bike handling ideas to think about.


To cap what was turning out to be a brilliant session, Jamie put us through our paces on the grassy slopes of the skills loops with a descender race. As you can see from the picture there was plenty of snow here!

Thursday 4 December 2008

Christmas Cracker Cyclo Cross Race

Here are details of the Christmas Cracker Cyclo Cross Race to be held at Heathhall from 10am on Saturday 20th December. Note that Race HQ is the Pines Golf Centre.




Click on the images to view full screen.

Monday 1 December 2008

Coaching Session 10:00 - 11:30 Saturday 6th December

This week's session for will start at 10:00 on Saturday the 6th December. The theme for this session is descending and this will bring together many of the skills that have been revised up till now in this back to basics series. As with our last session, I am expecting to be assisted by guest coaches Carol and Jamie Cooper from Extreme Valley Riders as part of there preparation for Day 3 of their British Cycling coaching course.

Please see the Winter Activities Plan post in this blog for the latest version of our club activities plan for Winter 2008 (http://rootrats.blogspot.com/2008/12/winter-activities-plan.html ). This is a JPEG file so should be viewed at 100% to be legible. As well as giving you the dates and times of club sessions, our committee meetings and a Family Night that we are planning for February, there are the dates of a number of bike races. The races are being organised to encourage youngsters into the competitive side of cycling and will be similar to the very successful event that we arranged when the Tour of Britain came to Drumlanrig earlier this year. The first of these races is on the 20th December and this will take the place of the club session that was planned for that day. Please take a look at the Stepping Stanes web-site under Christmas Cracker for more details and event entry forms (http://www.steppingstanes.co.uk/).

Winter 2008/2009 Activities Plan

Drumlanrig Root Rats Winter Activities Plan 2008/2009 (updated 05/03/2009)










Spring 2009 Activities Plan

Drumlanrig Root Rats Spring 2009 Activities Plan
(N.B. Primary School Age Group Sessions with Rik start at 5:15 and finish at 6:30pm)






































































































Monday 17 November 2008

Wanted - Club Welfare Officer

We are looking for a volunteer to fill the post of Club Welfare Officer. The main role of the welfare officer is to provide a point of contact for club members to express any concerns relating to the welfare of the junior members at the club. A fuller explanation can be found below in an extract from the club constitution.

If you might be interested in helping in this way, please get in touch with Rik, or Ginny at the usual contact numbers. Alternatively, please feel free to speak with Jane, or myself at the end of one of the coaching sessions.


Club Welfare Officer Job Description Taken from the Club Constitution

Responsibility for:
  • Liaising with the British Cycling’s National Child Protection Officer (NCPO) on matters of Child Protection
  • Promoting British Cycling’s Child Protection and Good Practice Policy and Procedures in the club, including the distribution and display of leaflets and codes of conduct to members, parents and young cyclists
  • Advising the development of junior and youth activity within the club
  • Supporting the registration of all personnel involved within junior cycling
  • Receiving and passing on to the NCPO any concerns about the behaviour of members to other members and particularly those relating to the welfare of young cyclists

Training courses for this role can include: Good Practice & Child Protection workshop, NSPCC Child Protection Awareness Training Programme.

Saturday 15 November 2008

Coaching Session 10:00 - 11:30 Saturday 22nd November

This is a reminder that there will be a coaching session at Drumlanrig starting at 10am next Saturday, the 22nd November. This session is part of the autumn series of coaching where we are getting back to basics and revisiting the main biking skills. Having already covered gear selection and cornering, the plan for next week is to look at braking. The session will take us up into the woods and then down onto the grassy slopes of the skills loop. Please be especially careful to check your brakes before you come along. At the end of the session, there will be a fun cornering competition where we will try to negotiate increasingly tight turns.

For your information, over the next two sessions I am hoping to be assisted in the coaching by some trainee coaches from the Extreme Valley Riders cycling club. They were referred to me by Keith Stocker of Scottish Cycling and having just been on the British Cycling coaching course, are looking to gain some experience before their next assessment. Their club was set up at Newmilns in East Ayrshire to promote cycling amongst youngsters through freeride, BMX and downhill facilities that they have developed at the dry ski slope.

From this week on, details of coaching sessions will be displayed on the Drumlanrig Root Rats weblog. This can be found at http://rootrats.blogspot.com/ . The Blog will contain information about sessions and related events. Hopefully, riders will find it useful and interesting to have access to this information; no sign up is required to view the blog.

Finally, please remember that the weather is getting increasingly cold and please make every effort to come dressed for bad weather.

Coaching session dates for October to December 2008

Secondary school age group Go-Ride for the autumn term of 2008 will be run as follows
  • 25th October 10:00 to 11:30 - gear selection
  • 8th November 10:00 to 11:30 - cornering
  • 22nd November 10:00 to 11:30 - braking
  • 6th December 10:00 to 11:30 - descending
  • 20th December 10:00 to 11:30 - putting all together (more details to come)

The times given are session running time, so please aim to arrive at the Castle for 09:45 to allow enough time for bike unloading and so on. The fee for sessions is £2.50. New members are welcome at any time, please allow time to complete a parental consent form though.

These above dates have been chosen in order that our sessions compliment those arranged by the Stepping Stanes club, which is based at Heathhall, Mabie and Dalbeattie. This means that coaching sessions are available in the area pretty much every week throughout the winter. See the web link, http://www.steppingstanes.co.uk/ for more details of the Stepping Stanes sessions. A further advantage of planning these sessions around the Stepping Stanes dates is that we will continue to get a maximum level of support from Scottish Cycling.

Thursday 13 November 2008

Drumlanrig Root Rats Blog

Welcome to the Drumlanrig Root Rats Blog! The Drumlanrig Root Rats are the junior wing of Drumlanrig / Rik's Bike Shed Cycling Club, which is based at Drumlanrig Castle in Drumfriesshire. This blog has been set up to provide club members with up to date information on club activities and related events.