Youth Riding

We have a growing number of youth/junior members and we actively encourage our younger riders to join in all of our competitive, non-competitive and social activities. This includes:

• Road racing
• Hill climbing
• Time trialling
• Track cycling (Newport velodrome)
• Short and long distance non competitive weekend rides
• Mountain biking
• Circuit racing (Castle Combe race circuit)
• Bike handling skills courses

Youth members are actively involved in the planning, organising and running of the above events as well as the club’s social calendar. Participating in this aspect of club activities requires our younger members to demonstrate many other skills as well being proficient on two wheels!

Easy Ride

The Easy Ride series suits riders of all ages. These rides are ridden at the pace of the slowest rider, which enables our more experienced riders to offer support and development for the younger members. As the confidence and ability of our young riders improves they are encouraged to try our longer leisure rides or for those capable of doing so the quick paced chain-gang rides.

YOUTH TIME TRIALS

During the summer we have run a series of Youth Time Trials which are held at the traffic-free Castle Combe race circuit.

The Castle Combe circuit is also used for varied cycling experiences for children, learning bike handling skills under qualified instructors in the British Cycling Go-Ride scheme, also circuit racing and time trialling in a safe environment.

CLUBMARK

In 2008, the club was awarded Clubmark Status by the British Cycling Federation. The award is a high quality mark identifying those clubs with junior sections that have worked hard to ensure that their club is safe, well structured and well managed.

Go-Ride

Go-Ride is a cycling programme run by the governing body of the sport, British Cycling. A national network of Go-Ride cycling clubs all have trained British Cycling coaches who run a wide range of cycling activities for under-18s of all abilities.

Chippenham Wheelers is registered Go-Ride club. Cycling activities include a variety of fun games, which teach cycling skills and which can be done on any bike. All are intended to take place on traffic free facilities, for Chippenham Wheelers the venue is Castle Combe race circuit.

Parents can be safe in the knowledge that their children are involved in a healthy, beneficial, sporting and recreational activity organised by a child-friendly club that is affiliated to British Cycling. All Go-Ride clubs have a child welfare officer and appropriately trained and insured British Cycling coaches who have attended good practice and child-protection workshops.

Chippenham Wheelers have run a summer series of Go-Ride activities at Castle Combe on Thursday evenings since 2005 which coincide with the summer series of circuit races. This series was last run as a five-evening activity in 2019. The programme has not run in 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Many children have been encouraged to try the Castle Combe Summer Series youth races which take place immediately after the Go-Ride sessions.