2015 was an important year for Sotonia’s Youth Group. After many years with few juniors in the Club, big leaps forward have been made in coaching and under-16 participation. Our coaches Phil Connell and Jez Hart achieved their Level 2 British Cycling coaching badges for the club in February. They have since coached around 25 youngsters aged between 5 and 16 to develop the core bike skills (on and off-road) for safe and fast bike riding, aimed at getting them to try racing. We are very proud to say that a dozen of our juniors have raced criteriums and cyclocross in their first year with us – thank you to all our juniors for their enthusiasm and support this year!

family_fun_ride_Xmas_2015

Family fun rides

The Family Fun Rides also continued in 2015 once a month throughout the spring and summer with good turnouts for all the rides held on trails in the New Forest. The Christmas fun ride last week in particular had a fantastic turnout – attracting over 50 riders! We look forward to more family rides in 2016 from Easter onwards.

2016 plans

In 2016 we’d like to grow our Youth Group further and hopefully get more potential coaches and family ride helpers involved, so if you think you can help and would like to know more, please feel free to get in touch! With the cyclocross season drawing to a close in February, we will be moving our coaching focus back to the road for the spring from March and hope to move our road sessions to a larger venue with a view to go-ride racing so watch this space! 🙂