Opportunities aplenty for budding young cycle fans

If you’re a regular reader of this column, you’ll know I’m a passionate advocate for getting young people active and involved in sporting competition. The reasons for this are obvious, but I also believe getting them involved in sport at an early age goes far beyond mere health benefits.

It teaches them about respect, determination, commitment and hard work alongside many other valuable traits that will stand them in good stead as they mature into adults.

Both my kids participate in lots of sports and, thankfully, they also enjoy the odd bike ride or race on occasion too.

If you are a parent who wants to get your children involved in cycle sport where do you start?

It can seem bewildering with lots of different disciplines, but British Cycling have worked really hard at grass-roots participation in cycling and cycle sport and it has paid off, with hundreds of volunteers across Scotland giving up their time for youth cycle sport.

Volunteers are usually linked to a club and around Courier Country we have several, including Discovery in Dundee and the Tay Titans in Perth, as well as several in Angus, Fife and Stirlingshire.

Getting your children involved in these clubs is the best, first step to getting them involved in cycle sport. The clubs offer coaching, race opportunities, group-led rides and the parents and coaches will have a wealth of information to answer any questions.

As one parent told me recently at the velodrome in Glasgow: “The best source of information for what to do at a race is another parent. You can guarantee they have had the same questions before and been there, seen it and done it.”

In the clubs you can also be assured of lots of old kit being sold and swapped through the age groups as riders grow, meaning you don’t have to fork out a pile of cash for clothing and equipment.

Andy Murray recently criticised the Lawn Tennis Association for a failure to capitalise on his success and he said participation levels are dropping.

Compare that to cycling where there are a myriad of opportunities for young people wanting to get involved.

We have tracks at Caird Park in Dundee and the Emirates Arena in Glasgow, mountain bike parks at Kinnoull Hill, Templeton Woods, Comrie Croft, Lochore Meadows and Middleden in Kirkcaldy and there is the new closedroad cycle park at Lochgelly in Fife.

As one colleague said to me recently: “I wish we’d had all these opportunities when I was a kid starting out on a bike.”

Our young people have successful British professionals to look up to, as well as lots of their peers riding bikes. Long gone are the days when I was the only kid at my school with a racing bike – lined up against all the Grifters and Choppers, I was seen as weird for wanting to join a cycling club. At my kids’ school, they have a European Youth Mountain Bike Champion in Charlie Aldridge to look up to.

Lots of the races have youth and senior races running on the same day. My daughter Maisie’s words still haunt me from my last Cyclo-cross race. As I rode, lungs bursting, past Maisie who was spectating, she called out to me in a withering tone: “Come on Dad! We know you’re trying your best.”

Perhaps cycle racing is best left to the young.

Join the Blazing Saddles Strava Club at: www.strava.com/clubs/ BlazingSaddlesWeekendCourier