Newsletter - March

Hello!

Welcome to the Spring newsletter. I hope that pre-season is in full swing and the biking miles are beginning to tick over.

I’ve put together a few notes for the last 3 months and there’s plenty going on in the region and nationally amongst Scottish Cycling. Keep up to date regionally and nationally through our Facebook andregional webpages

I’ve set up a form for general feedback, it can also be accessed through the regional documents and downloads webpage @ Scottish Cycling North. Please leave some comments on anything that you think needs looked at, or leave some general feedback.

If there is anything that you would like to add to the newsletter then please let me know through the contact details below.

Email: james.bracher@scottishcycling.org.uk

Regional Youth Training Squads

We’re keen to establish a squad of regional youth riders for Road and Mountain Bike. Team managers for each discipline have come forward to help develop and deliver a plan of training and competing for this year and moving into next. 

For road and track riders this will mean aiming for a team to enter the Youth Champs in September.

If you know of any riders or coach/volunteers that would be keen to get involved with these sessions then please get in touch. All welcome.

R.A.C.E. Downhill – A selection of juvenile, youth and junior riders have been invited to a training session coached by Ben Cathro, supported by Kenta Gallagher and Barry Edmondson. These sessions are to develop the skills of riders who are currently showing strong potential in Downhill racing. We hope to establish these as regular sessions.

There will be RACE XC sessions for this season, keep your eyes peeled, check the facebook pages and get involved!

Youth Tour of Scotland – The North didn’t quite get enough riders to enter a team to the YToS this year, however, good luck to Alisdair Munro who was picked up by another team.

The riders who did express an interest will be asked to get involved in the youth squads for the remainder of the season. We hope this will generate interest for riders to come forward for the YToS next season. Get the word out! 

Club Development

There’s tons of top tips and handy hints for clubs on the Sport Scotland club development website. Not only are these pages good for club development information, but have a look through the other pages to find tips on facilities funding and coach education.

Events Calendar and Commissaires

The events calendar is filling up and there’s a vibrant mix of races to compete! Once again we find that the region is short of Commissaire’s to officiate at races. This will likely lead to the untimely cancellation of some events and a few disappointed racers. We are looking for all clubs to have a trained commissaire in their ranks as this will greatly contribute to cycling in the region. We are looking for clubs to establish this as a general rule of thumb.

If you might be interested in training to become a race commissaire if so follow this link

Event Organisers

To make things easier for event organisers I have sent out a questionnaire to commissaire’s in the region asking for their availability, the results have been collated and put onto a google document which I will update with any changes. You can access an up to date list to see who is available before contacting them.

There was event organizer conference hosted by Scottish Cycling in February. The training was well received by those who attended and provided lots of top tips and handy hints. You can access some of the information from the session on the Event Organiser Conferencepage of the Scottish Cycling website.

There are some handy guides for event organizing with templates to make the admin side of things a bit less of a burden:

Facilities Developmemt

I have met with the team from High Life Highland who will be delivering the regional sporting facility – a velodrome at Bught Park. They’re keen to deliver the best project possible and are in regular communications with Hi-Velo, the trust who have been campaigning for a velodrome and multi-discipline bike hub for several years. 

The guys running Hi-velo are putting in some serious graft to ensure there is specialist input into the velodrome and that the requirements of the biking community are met, across all disciplines.

The continued support of Hi-Velo, through club and individual membership is a welcome and necessary part of the trust, who are always on the look-out for new members and more support.

If you think your club would like to support the development of such a great facility in Highland and be a part of making the region a strong prospect for all biking disciplines in the future, then have a look at the Hi-Velo web page, get involved with their fund-raising bike events and see how you can support the trust.

All the best for the season, have fun and keep cranking!

Cheers,

James

Scottish Cycling Newsletter

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