Cycling Update

Amy mentioned that I might do an update on the 'Golden Wheel' carnival in Wagga so here it is.

Toby did well in his first carnival, winning his 2 lap handicap race and placing well in all others, but it was probably the last race of the weekend that made his coach most pleased. It was the U13 6 lap scratch race, and he got the tactics right, getting himself in a perfect position and holding it. He was up against kids from Canberra and other NSW clubs (some of whom have been competing for years) and although he finished mid-field, he was only 10 meters from the guy who won - who, I discovered later is the current U13 state champion. Pretty good for a boy who's only just turned 11. Thus he has now been asked to "ride up", racing with the U15s late into a Wednesday evening (he sleeps very well on Wednesdays now).

Anywho, back to the Golden Wheel...

The day gets started

Some of the Juniors ham it up for the camera

Tobes and Lauren contesting their rightful place

The Golden Wheel race was remarkable - the speed of Jack (triple Australian track champion) was something to behold, and the commentator added beautifully to the atmosphere as Jack just blew the competition away in the final 250m. The senior races (especially the A grade races) were just amazing, and the juniors - actually everyone - loved watching them.

Rolling around

Jack takes off from scratch - some seriously nice gear there!

After it was all over it was back to training again - but the first night was a recovery night with a whole bunch of fun races like the Helmut race, which is where they start as per the picture below, go find their helmut (they always put Toby's miles away!), put it on and race a couple of laps.

We could have gone to Goulburn last weekend for another competition, however when it was time to register we had no idea that Toby would be riding so well, so hadn't considered it. As consolation, we now travel to Dubbo early March to compete in the NSW Championships as Toby has been selected. He's not expecting to win, but is keen to get the experience. Meanwhile we hit the road to clock up some kms.

Preparing for Road Season

So that's the update - makes for a happy boy and a proud dad. The best thing is that he loves it, and if I wasn't getting requests to go riding every 10mins, I might begin to question if it was worth all the time. But the requests come thick and fast and on Mon and Wed nights he doesn't want to leave the track! So take that Sony Playstation and iPod etc - fresh air, exercise and some good friends thrown in for good measure beats sitting in front of a screen any day.