Throughout Term 2 at Seymour College our secondary students in our HPV team have been preparing and engaging themselves in a series of tests in order to select teams for the RACV Energy Breakthrough.
In 2014, our Year 7-9’s are entering 2 Tryathlon teams consisting of 8 keen riders and 2 pit crew and our Year 10-12 students have entered two Hybrid teams. In order to select our teams each rider went through a series of test. Both boys and girls were required to complete a timed mountain bike ride at the local Go-Kart track. Boys completed 10 laps each and being timed for every 5 laps completed and girls completing 8 laps and timed for every 4. Students were also timed and tested riding HPV’s and also completing a short presentation which was prepared and they were required to practice and present to 2 senior staff members.
Towards the end of Term 2 teams will be announced allowing riders to train and work with their new team-mates in preparation for the RACV Energy Breakthrough in November.
Primary
Our riders in our primary levels have been training at school on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 3.30 to 5.30pm. Students have training on asphalt outside our classrooms. We currently have 8 HPV’s that we use for training. All of these bikes we have raced at some point across a variety of events.
Recently we have introduced specialised riding shoes for students to wear when riding and we have put a bike on roller allowing students to test their top and average speeds they can performance without wind resistance and only 1/3 tyre resistance. This was a real boost to everyone’s confidence as we all managed top speeds of over 50kph. One student even topped the 100kph mark!
At Seymour College we have also had had extra training consisting of:Skipping, step ups, windmills, hoop jump, hurdles, wall-squats, lunges and running. We have currently been having rides at 10 minutes long with the focus on safety, handling, steering, overtaking and pit changing.
Now that we are at the end of Term 2 we are controlling our trikes in a more efficient manner. We have also been able to ride one our old bikes to feel the difference between an enclosed and non enclosed bike.
Progress is being made on our new shape for 2014 with the plug (what our shape will look like) almost complete. We hope that this will make our machines more efficient by creating less wind resistance.
We will select our teams for the Energy Breakthrough after having trained at the Go-kart track, towards the end of August.
