In the last five months the campaign has visited ten schools, driven several thousand miles around the UK and the Calypso MTB Anywhere has coached around 3500 kids (aged 11-16 yrs) during its launch phase. So far only a few minor falls off the bikes, no broken Saracen bikes (very sturdy), many youthful, happy faces among the kids and even happier teachers (we take over their PE lessons for a day).
o
We’ve discovered that the girls do better once they’ve got past the hair extensions/helmet problem – they listen to the coaches and progress faster and further than all the boys. They also tend to beat the boys on the pump track when we hold races girls.v.boys at each session. Boys don’t listen, they rush off, showing off and while they naturally posess the skills on bikes, they don’t tend to progress like the girls do in the sessions.
We’ve discovered that the girls do better once they’ve got past the hair extensions/helmet problem – they listen to the coaches and progress faster and further than all the boys. They also tend to beat the boys on the pump track when we hold races girls.v.boys at each session. Boys don’t listen, they rush off, showing off and while they naturally posess the skills on bikes, they don’t tend to progress like the girls do in the sessions.
o
The OnePlanet Adventure Llandegla coaching team (6 of us at each event) are brilliant, Neil Donoghue is the media star, PJ keeps order, Emma is great with the girls, Jim and Rees are cool dudes.
o
The Shoretrax track has done us proud and the team can erect and dismantle it in around 20 minutes (the record is 19mins)!
The MTB Skills App has seen nearly 30,000 downloads in its first month. The videos on Youtube have had 75,000 views.
