Edinburgh Schools Mountain bike Competition 2014

Guide

1. What is it all about?

The Edinburgh schools mountain bike competition is a grass roots mountain bike event for Edinburgh school children.  It is a fun, local and accessible mountain bike experience to serve as an introduction to the sport of mountain biking.

It will allow and incentivise school aged children to get involved with the sport whilst developing a new range of skills.  The inclusive nature of the race will focus on a range of mountain bike skills such as balance, coordination and bike handling skills rather just being the fastest.  Although we have that too!

All the races are suitable for a hard-tail mountain bike and are suitable for riders with a reasonable level of skill.  However, in order to fully enjoy these races we strongly encourage some practice before hand (see sections below for advice)!

1. When and Where?

The inaugural event is at Liberton high school, Edinburgh on Sunday June 15^th. 

The event is being organised by Scottish Cycling, Active Schools (Edinburgh) and Liberton high school.  The event is sponsored by Edinburgh Council and the Activcity program. 

1. Who is it for?

The competition is open to school children from all city of Edinburgh schools.  There are 4 competition categories;

Under 12             born in 2002, 2003

Under 14             born in 2001, 2002

Under 16             born in 1999, 2000

Under 18             born in 1996, 1997

1. What equipment is required?

• You need a mountain bike which is in safe working order
• All bikes must have plugs in the end of the handlebars (“bar ends”)
• All riders must wear a hard shell cycle helmet, which is correctly fitted and in good “working order”.
• Full finger gloves are recommended.

1. What is the format of the competition?

The competition comprises of 3 disciplines - downhill, Skills and cross country (XC) sprint.

The 3 events combined will make up the overall individual and school team prize.  Therefore all riders must compete in all disciplines to get a final score. 

1. How to enter the event?

All riders must enter the event online via British Cycling website. Riders do not need to be members to do this but riders must register with British Cycling and add some details before being able to enter.  This is very easy and will only take about 10 minutes!  Due to the support of Edinburgh council the entry fee has been heavily subsidised to only £3.00 per rider.

1. Prizes

Bronze silver and gold medals will be awarded to 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place in each age category.   

 

Event Details

Provisional Timetable

Riders must arrive by 9.00am at the latest!

         

9.00am

Sign on opens (sports hall HQ)

   

9.45am

Rider briefing (HQ)

   

10.00am

course practice

   

10.30am

Downhill and skills competition starts

12.30pm

Lunch (must bring own)

   

1.30pm

U12 XC race

   

2.00pm

U14 XC race

   

2.30pm

U16 XC race

   

3.00pm

U18 XC race

   

3.30pm

Prize giving

   

4.00pm

Pick up and home time

   

Sign on and event HQ

The event HQ is the sports centre at Liberton high. This is where the riders will sign on, receive the rider briefing, eat lunch and do the prize presentations.   The sports hall will be used to keep the riders personal bags.

A guide to Mountain bike events

Click on the links for some inspiring and education videos

MTB World Cup 2014 Teaser

Downhill

Downhill is an individual race against the clock in which the rider negotiates a downhill course. The participant must demonstrate courage as well as sharp technical and piloting skills in order to deal with tree roots, banked sections, bumps, jumps and other natural obstacles along the way. Speeds are high and the best downhill rides are brave and skilful.  Downhill is the fastest and extreme mountain bike discipline.

Skills or Trials

Trials is one of the most exciting and spectacular cycling disciplines. Unlike other types of cycling disciplines, Trials is a sport where the main factors are the stability, balance and the control of the bike.

The objective of the skills competition is to complete sections without setting foot on the ground or any part of the bicycle (only the wheels) touching the ground as this incurs penalties. After negotiating a series of sections, the rider who has the fewest penalty points is declared the winner.  Some sections can also be timed but the majority of the competition is based on skill and not speed.

The skills competition will have 6 different stations to test the skills of the riders.  In some cases stations will have 3 different levels of difficulty from easy to hard.  Others are timed.

The skills competition will comprise of the following Skills

● Planks

● Slalom

● Squares

● Wheel Lift

● Technical Hill climb

● Bottle pick up

Please see the following video from out performance MTB coach explain how to do the skills

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YL_F0YCStNg&feature=youtu.be

Cross Country (XC) Sprint

The first mountain bike competitions were held in California (USA) in the early eighties. Since then the discipline has grown very fast, in all aspects. Cross-country races are held over undulating circuits with technical descents, forest roads, rocky paths and obstacles.  XC races are tests of endurance, the best riders in the world are some of the fittest athletes in any sport.  Increasingly XC races are tests of speed and skill as well as endurance.

Rules and Scoring

For the individual age group the competition will be scored as follows - The winner of each event will get 1 point, second 2 points, and third 3 points and so on and so forth.  The winner is the rider with the lowest points over the three events.  1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place medals will be awarded for this competition.

For the school competition the competition will be scored as followed – Using the overall individual results riders will score points which will be added together to create a total school score.  The highest score is the school that wins. A school championship trophy will be awarded for this competition.  The school Trophy will be an annual trophy and be returned the following year.

                Overall School championship Scoring Table

Position

Points

Position

Points

 1st

40

11th

10

2nd

34

12th

9

3rd

30

13th

8

4th

26

14th

7

5th

23

15th

6

6th

20

16th

5

7th

18

17th

4

8th

16

18th

3

9th

14

19th

2

10th

12

20th

1

Sports development sections

What’s the end goal?

The schools competition event will hopefully create excitement and help increase the desire for cycling within the school network.   It is our aim that the appeal of the event combined with the high profile cycling will encourage and incentivise schools and active schools coordinators to create more opportunities for cycling ideally through after-schools cycling clubs.  The aim of after school clubs would be to provide children with the opportunity to regularly participate in organised cycle sport at their school while linking to community clubs to join up the pathway.

As the school club model develops we would aim to;

Develop more skilled coaches in the school networks

Continually develop a better and higher standard of school cycle sport

Create a competitive school cycling calendar with regional and national events in multiple disciplines

Info for Riders

The competition is open to riders from Edinburgh schools Riders must bring their own bike, helmet and gloves Riders must bring their own food and drink for the day Riders must not have any British Cycling ranking points For details and information on the events including some great tips and videos please see the about section!