I’m sure you all know that I enjoy a bit of cycling, so I thought I would share some information about the progress made by the cycle club I front; Hadleigh Cycling Club.
When I moved to Hadleigh a few years back I ended up having to cycle to work in Ipswich and so thought I’d try joining a local club. There was a club just being set up by a young man called Simon who worked for Babergh as a sports officer. He started a junior club on a Wednesday evening with half a dozen kids teaching them basic bike skills. I contacted Simon and mentioned I was also a coach with Sudbury club and did he want any help. We kind of hit it off and I started dedicating more time to Hadleigh and the newly forming club, ultimately taking on the role of club chairman.
Move forward to present day and as a club we now have four full time British Cycling qualified coaches, with Simon and I talking our cross country specific level 2 coaching next month. We have over 60 club members including around 20 regular juniors at our Wednesday sessions. Most of our more abled riders take part in some form of racing and so we now have a dedicated race team division.
It is not all about the children though, we also have a growing adult section and Hadleigh Cycling Club is working hard for all cyclists. In fact we are planning our first big event in September; The Gayford Flyer, which will be a sportive based upon the record holding aviator and Hadleigh resident, Oswald Gayford.
We were also privileged to work with Suffolk County Council on their road safety campaign. 2015 is Suffolk’s year of cycling and so they are supporting the clubs efforts and we help out with providing cyclists and safety campaign material, the first of which being about sharing the road.