A day of learning how to get fast... and ready to race a BMX as a 5 year old!!!
Preparing for a BMX race with coaching from Smileys Flight Club's leader Martin 'Smiley' Brown. Harley doesn't race his BMX very often so his 'race tactics' are a bit lacking... so Smiley (Martin) worked his magic on every aspect of a BMX race!!
This video documents a 2 hour long session where a mix of near beginner riders (Harley) rode alongside World level athletes (and an actual BMX racing World Champion, James Clitheroe!!) followed by thr actual expert BMX race at the end!
Smiley gets all of the riders to start off with a few pump laps, a warm up and stretches before putting them into ability level groups. The groupings mean that Smiley can give each group an area to focus on that is within their ability - challenging everyone just the right amount to make plenty of progress.
Harleys start gates have certainly improved a lot recently - but watching Smiley help Harley with each of the coaching points changed his gate technique more in this session than ever before. Listen carefully to each tip and try it for yourself.
The next big area being worked on for Harley was his cornering... he uses a strange line that sees him lose all of his speed and take a much longer journey to the finish line. Smiley stayed so patient with him even though he kept going back to his abstract line choices 🤣
And finally Harleys final weakness - challenging him to maintain his pumping technique and keeping the effort level high all the way to the finish... as Harley isn't the most competitive kid in the world he is more than happy coasting everything past the first straight of the track... no matter where he is or isn't coming in a race! 🫣🤣
RACE DAY!!!
Oh what a disaster we had in the lead up. 1.... we totally forgot that we'd booked a skatepark session all the way in Mansfield 8-10pm the night before a race at the National Cycle Centre in Manchester... with sign on at 8am!!!!
We said to ourselves - we will leave by 9pm. Harley was having so much fun we forgot the time and left nearer 10pm... then got caught in a storm and high winds that closed off some roads to high sided vehicles. Like our campervan.
We arrived at the BMX track 12.30AM (half past midnight) and Harley was up almost all night with growing pains then didnt want his breakfast... we were sure ready to call it a day of watching. Harley was adamant he'd be ok.. so we gave him a chance to try. He did his best - making it two 2nd places and a 3rd in his motos and coming 5th overall in thr A final! PROUD!!!
Now to go back to coach smiley some time this week and practice them corners more 😜
Watch this space... will Harley learn how to race?
#bmxracing #racebike #bmx #coaching