Orwell Youths Update 30th August

Stephen Ryan wraps up the Orwell Youth’s Summer Activities…

Orwell Youths Update 30th August

Everyone’s a winner ! We closed out the 2015/16 Youth Season last night with over 40 signed on @ Corkagh Park and no-one went home hungry. Many may not have slept from the sugar rush so getting up for school today may have been challenging. This is the last weekly e-mail for a few weeks so please read down to the end to find out about what is coming up and how to stay in touch.

But first the roundup

We currently have 3 youths on the DL – Dylan, Uisneach and Andrew all having taken spills recently – we wish them well and a speedy recovery.

For those able to get out on Sunday we had 8 out on a spin – one that many adults would have been happy to do so well. See route. Dave kept us away from the traffic as we made our way across to Firhouse and Bohrenabreena. Having suffered going up Gunny Hill 2 weeks ago we now got to go down it. At pace. Turning up Bohernabreena towards Ballinascorny the little ring was called for, a left turn at the golf course and we were alone in the world with the Dodder and reservoir falling away below us on the left. The more experienced among us thought

And before too long we arrived at the decision point and as Dave explained that the option was a gentle spin up two sides of a triangle or the hardest stretch of road in the county, we each made our selection. Not everyone has strava running but you can see below that David took the KOM honours of those who did

We pressed on to the top before taking a well-earned break; Here a passing walker snapped the full group casually hanging around, Sam, Dave, Stephen, Ruairi, Dmitri, Ivan, RonanO, DavidF, Cian, Emmett, Tadhg & Killian.

Not a bit of it – look at the work that went into setting that up, helmets and glasses off, beards trimmed, hair brushed, bikes dumped

We arrived back at Joe’s on the dot of 12:30 and all thankful for having been a part of a great spin.

A little over 24 hours later we were back at Corkagh for the last night of Monday Night Racing. Getting this series up and running was one of Dave’s goals for the year and the crowds that have turned out over the summer have shown he has succeeded famously. We have had an average of over 40 for each week in August. As word got out that they were on we were seeing new people come along each week. Last night we had an U10 handicap followed by a Win and Out race – no –one went home empty handed. In the shot below people are eyeing up the prize table to see what their target is

The Orwells I can see are from left Martyn , Dmitri, Conor, Eoin, Andrew, Ivan, Ruairi, Dylan, Tadhg, RonanO, Lorcan, Sam

And this will give you a flavour of the parents and family members who came along to watch – had a cup of coffee in one hand while taking this so it’s a little shaky. Thanks Martyn, Mark, Eoin, Gillian, Mary & Catherine for giving a helping hand last night. Apologies if I missed anyone.

What happens next?

We are taking September off to recharge the batteries , let the children get back in the school routine and plan for next year. While there are no official spins planned we would of course encourage the youths to keep cycling during September . There are also two track events on which some of our members will be talking part in September 17th – Leinster Track Championship September 18th – Orwell Club Championships – and provided we get five participants there will be Youths awards and entry into the Orwell roll of honour. If there are less than 5 there will still be plenty of racing for them just no capital C Championship medal.

During September Dave , Jen and myself will be meeting up to review this year and plan next year – feel free to let us have your comments as to what did or did not work this year for the Youths. There will also be a meeting at some point for the older cyclists to talk about goals for next year, training programmes and spins. We will be in touch.

Looking at the diary October 2nd looks to be an obvious date to start back and it will be in Corkagh Park @ 10:00. Again, we will be in touch nearer the time to confirm.

I know there are a few people on the list whose children we haven’t seen for a while. If you would like to be removed please let me know.

Please do feel free to share this mail with your child however as it is addressed to adults, if you are a child and are getting it directly please tell me. Some of the email addresses don’t give much away.

There are a variety of places where you can get information about the club, be that the homepage, the Facebook page and twitter feed.

The youths section has its own page and if there is anything you think we are missing from it please let me know. There was also an excel calendar. Full results of the Monday Night Races are at http://www.orwellwheelers.org/forum/youth/5669-monday-night-youth-racing-is-back

Most of the forum is readable by anybody but can only be posted to by members . To get a login you need an email address and contact brianmc[at] gmail.com.

And of course Jen (genevieve_sheridan [at] yahoo.com), Dave (orwelladmin [at] gmail.com) or myself (stephen [at] ryanit.ie) can be contacted if you have any questions.

All the best and looking forward to seeing the group again in a few weeks’ time.