Late March once again saw Sutton Grammar School’s Sports Ground invaded by groups of excited children from local primary schools, eagerly looking forward to taking part in the fifth Sutton Primary Schools Cycling Championships.

Their schools had already benefited from special selection sessions run by British Cycling’s Go-Ride coaches working with instructors from the London Borough of Sutton’s Cycle Training Unit.

The various elements of the Championships test a range of abilities: agility, control and road safety, stamina, speed and tactics, and Monday’s Finals were designed to be more difficult than the Heats.

The Skills / Road Safety element is organised by the London Borough of Sutton Cycle Training Unit. The riders manoeuvre round obstacles to demonstrate control, much as in Level 1 Bikeability, and are also tested on their knowledge of road safety and the Highway Code. The element has its own special trophy, the Moore Trophy, won by Brookfield Primary School for the second year running.

A more testing Cross Country Mountainbike course had been devised for the Finals - longer and harder, with more single track and an uphill finish. The event was still closely fought right to the end, but was won on the last climb.

The last event was a Keirin Elimination Race, or Keirin Devil. In a Keirin, riders follow a pacer - usually on a motorbike, but in this case a Go-Ride coach on a mountainbike - who eventually pulls out leaving the riders to finish; and in a Devil (devil take the hindmost) the last rider(s) over the line in designated laps are eliminated until three remain for the final lap. All the riders grasped the tactics - to race just hard enough not to cross the line last, until (of course) the final lap.

In addition to the Sutton Primary Schools Cycling Championship Trophy, the winning team from Foresters Primary School received a voucher from Smarter Travel Sutton for 30 children to try track riding at the famous Herne Hill velodrome, used in the 1948 Olympics, and Go-Ride cycling jerseys from British Cycling. Brookfield also won the special Moore Trophy for Skills & Road Safety.

1st Foresters Primary School, Team 2 2nd Stanley Park Junior School, Team 1 3rd Brookfield Primary School, Team 1 Winner of Moore Trophy for Skills & Road Safety Brookfield Primary School, Team 1 Participating schools were : Abbey Primary, All Saints Benhilton CofE Primary, Barrow Hedges Primary, Brookfield Primary, Camden Juniors, Cheam Common Juniors, Devonshire Primary, Dorchester Primary, Foresters Primary, Homefield School, Laleham Lea, Nonsuch Primary, St Dunstan’s Cheam C of E Primary, Stanley Park Juniors, Tweeddale Primary, and Westbourne Primary.