Miles Covered During Winter Break

As Cycling Southland sits in the middle of our Winter break between racing seasons it was good to deliver the Southland Secondary Schools Road Championships yesterday at Teretonga. After the record numbers which turned up at our Mountain-bike cousin’s Mid-Winter Enduro on Saturday, Sandy Point was the place to be this weekend.

Even though the weather gods weren’t kind it was good to see the best talent from Dunedin south on the bike and giving it heaps. There were a few tired legs backing up from Enduro, but after it all Southland Girls High School prized the Schools Trophy away from James Hargest College who have had a mortgage on it in recent years. It was a great team effort by Dave Beadle’s charges, especially given they can only enter half the races.

Even though the locals dominated, Otago’s Lachie McGregor and Dunstan’s Tom Vessey both starred and showed they will be strong contenders when the South Island championships are held at Ruapuna in a couple of weeks time.

It wasn’t only the bike riders who covered some miles this week. Cycling Southland President Steve Canny and I travelled to Wellington mid-week to visit the team from SPARC ahead of our hosting of the 2012 World Junior Track Cycling Championships. It brought home the magnitude of what hosting a World Championship means. It is an incredible opportunity for the sport, the ILT Velodrome and our region and we are committed to ensuring we make the most of this opportunity. Next month we will again be promoting Southland on the world stage at the 2011 Champs in Moscow, ensuring that the best in the world will descend on our fine province next year.

Track cycling is one of our highest profile Olympic medal chances next year. The ILT Velodrome will play a key part in New Zealand’s build-up with the Oceania and New Zealand Championships to be held in Invercargill over the next nine months. From there a full squad wearing the black skin-suit will battle for gold around London’s new £93M velodrome and then, just a few short weeks after what we hope will be a significant medal haul, little old Invercargill hosts the Junior Worlds. It makes our rare opportunity even more mouth-watering.

New Zealand is fast-becoming a world championship venue of note. Following this year’s Rugby World Cup, comes our Junior Worlds, the World Triathlon Champs later next year and the World BMX Championships indoors in Vector Arena in 2013. SPARC’s expertise in event planning combined with the experience Cycling Southland has built up over recent years in event delivery give us a huge amount of confidence that the 2012 Junior Worlds will be one of the best ever.

Our trip to Wellington also provided a great chance to do some unplanned inter-sport networking. After the ash-cloud turned our plane around to Christchurch, Steve and I shared a rental car home with Southland Cricket’s Kevin Cooper and his wife, proving every cloud has a silver lining - even ash clouds.

Lifetime of Service Recognised

This weekend saw a southern contingent attend the national BikeNZ Road and Track Annual General Meeting in Auckland.

Although an AGM has many people running (or should I say biking) in the other direction, this weekend represented an opportunity to discuss the key issues facing the sport on a national and local level with representatives from BikeNZ and delegates from cycling centres around the country. As with all get-togethers of this nature, it also provided a forum to share ideas, explore solutions to challenges and continue friendships formed over many years or create new ones.

It also provides the chance to recognise the contribution made to the sport of cycling this year.

On Saturday night our own Graham Sycamore was bestowed the honour of winning the Malayan Cup for 2011. The man we all know as Syccie has contributed a life-time to the sport and Cycling Southland is delighted to see over 50 years of service recognised with the sport’s most prestigious award.

What made the night even more special was that Warwick Dalton was on-hand to make the presentation. Dalton, who often went head-to-head with Graham at Kew Bowl back in the 60s won the Malayan Cup along with his New Zealand team mates in 1957, ironically the very year Syccie took up bike riding.

Very few can tell a story as good as Dalton does and he still looks like he’d be able to handle himself in a sprint finish. He fondly recalled his most recent world championship victory, won in Sydney a few short years ago, which went to a judges’ decision following a protest by one of his beaten competitors. The Chief Judge promptly reported “there was nothing to see,” and Dalton duly won his Masters World title. The judge’s name? G Sycamore, New Zealand.

In true Syccie style the win left him speechless ... yes, of course I’m joking. Once the initial surprise at his name being read out had worn off, he recalled a few of the many highlights of a glittering career. And he was as humble as ever, paying special tribute to those who serve the sport throughout the country and singling out his wife Bernie who Graham confirmed does three-quarters of his work for him.

Every cycling club needs a Graham Sycamore. But only one has one. I’m very thankful it is us.

We also were delighted a host of other Cycling Southland members were recognised at the Volunteer Awards. Local legend Tony Ineson was a finalist in the Lifetime Official category (for ten or more years service) while our Senior Road Convenor Waine Harding featured in the list of finalists for the Newcomer category. The Faces of Cycling awards recognised those who are role models for the sport, both on the bike and as ambassadors. Sequoia Cooper, Gabby Vermunt and our Development Officer Matt Archibald were all nominated.

Nights like this provide another reminder of how fortunate Cycling Southland is to have people of this calibre in our organisation. I thank them all.

Kids These Days Don't Know How Lucky They Are

I thought it would at least another 15 years before I started to say things like, “I remember back when I was at school.”

My glorious days at Wendon Primary School in the 80s were filled with Bull-rush (I still have nightmares about trying to stop Sean Hurley in full flight), rugby (no rippa or touch – only full contact tackle), force-back and, in summer, tip-and-run cricket. To keep on-side with Stu Riordan, I should also point out it provided an excellent educational grounding as well.

Kids these days (another phrase I thought was a decade or two away) have so many options – sporting, culturally and academically. I’m not about to descend into a misty-eyed reminisce about how much better it was in the good ol’ days, tempting as that may be. Instead, I’ll focus on what Cycling Southland is doing to add to these options. We have been part of two initiatives which we’ve kicked off over the last couple of months which I’m really excited about.

The first is a “learn-to-bike” programme which is being delivered with assistance from our mates at Sport Southland via KiwiSport. Along with the Southland Mountain-bike and BMX clubs and Police, we are piloting an eight week programme across seven schools and the results and feedback has been outstanding. Children who have never pedalled a bike in their lives are riding unassisted within the very first session. The beaming faces are truly something very special. Our ultimate aim, once we successfully pilot the programme and tweak it as we go, is to see this rolled out across all of Southland. It’s a great first taste of our sport for local school children and just like swimming, running, jumping and throwing, it is a fundamental skill that we believe all Southland children should master. Plus we might uncover a few new Tom Scullys or Eddie Dawkins in the process.

Secondly, we have successfully added cycling to the NCEA curriculum. Every Year 12 Physical Education class is able to do a “performance” standard and earn credits towards NCEA Level Two. A performance standard is slightly different to other assessments in that students are graded against a national standard of excellence. With a world-class facility at our disposal, a standard based on times recorded at the last five National Age Group Track Championships has been developed, and now cycling is accredited with NZQA as a performance standard.

That means students can attend six weeks of coached sessions during school time at the ILT Velodrome, culminating in a trials day from which students can choose either sprint (500 metre time trials), Endurance (2km Pursuit) or, if they are really keen, both to test their skills, speed and fitness.

Already five schools are visiting us each week and we’d welcome more.

And finally, we start a new series of Ladies Nights for women beginner cyclists next week. We’re hosting three fun and information-filled sessions starting on June 12th. To find out more phone Cycling Southland or visit cyclingsouth.org.nz.