Home and Away With the Wheelers Youths

Post date: Apr 19, 2015 9:14:11 PM

(By Philip Wade)

There follows an episode of Home and Away - an Irish version, brought to you by the youths section of Lakeside Wheelers!...

The Home Team

The home team continued the Saturday spin this week with David Fox and Dave Byrne leading them out. They persisted with the tried and tested Belvedere Loop doing efforts up the road, multiple sprints which are invaluable for race conditioning . They also took in the sharp hill just off Lynn road up to the Rochfortbridge road. As midlanders we must continue to test ourselves on hills as we race against those from Donegal and Wicklow!

The Saturday spin for next week is a trip to the Sundrive Track in Crumlin where we will have the kids introduced to cycling on the track using a fixed gear bike. While the track is an outdoor track and longer than the indoor velodrome it does have a 22 degree bank on it and plenty of opportunity to learn the skills of track racing.

The Away Team

We hit the road again this weekend to attend the Two-Day three-stage Rás Na nÓg race in Bellewstown, Co. Meath, with our new chief mechanic Jerry Waugh - he’s not just the club secretary . Getting serious compliments, Aaron said his gears were never better! We took 6 of our youths to race, 3 girls and 3 boys , Mullingar certainly leading the charge on gender equality.

Two of our team were selected to race for the Leinster youth squad , Caoimhe in the Under 12 team and Conor in the Under 14 team. The country’s finest turned out this weekend from Donegal to Cork with over 150 youth riders covering the three main categories of Under 12, Under 14 and Under 16. Our team flew the Lakeside Flag well with good performances in all three categories . Caoimhe took the 1st unplaced girl in the Under 12s on stage three and also the Under 12 Leinster team prize. Conor and Aaron put in solid performances in the Under 14s across three stages and finishing in the main bunch sprint on stage 3. While Conor was not feeling 100% he gave the weekend racing great commitment, Naomi completed two of the stages and retired early today after a crash held up the race. Seán Kennedy took in his first major races this weekend and was our only man in the Under 16 race, coming in the top half of a field of more than eighty riders who were out to make an impression on the youth Olympic committee this weekend. Looking forward to seeing Seán progress through the season as a first year Under 16 rider.

All in all our team is getting stronger and more experienced as the season gets into full swing, learning how to ride in very large and very fast bunches . We have now have completed eight races so far this season and we are only in mid April .

Also this week , for the first time the youths took part in the Lakeside Wheelers League Time Trial. It was a fantastic evening with the guys joining in the race and with some of the times posted by the youths I think the Seniors will have to step up their training . Special thanks to Eamonn Hogan and Derek Sheeran for making it possible and Dave Byrne for timing it. They loved it and will be back for more...