Rachel did her first race today. U10 cyclocross - she finished 9th and loved it.
She wants to do it again, but she'll have to wait a couple of weeks before there's another one in a sensible travelling range. We might even get to ride together in the park a bit first!
She was on her Islabike Beinn 20 - most of the tiny kids were on Cnocs, but the older ones were on Luaths and assorted other drop bar bikes. The ones at the front were super fast and super competitive. She'll need to grow a bit before she can fit on any of the 24" bikes, and I can't see her getting that competitive, so we'll see how much she loves it before she gets a chance to upgrade!
One thing that is going to prove tricky is that there don't seem to be any clubs around Oxford that do club riding for U16s. Most of the Oxford clubs are road-centric, and so understandably they shy away from having youngsters on their rides. There are clubs with active kids groups in Reading, Swindon, MK, and Hillingdon, and all are about 1 hours drive from where we live. I think that's quite a lot when she is exploring what she likes doing - is that unreasonable? Clearly I can ride with her, but she doesn't really like taking "instruction" from me (DAHIKT), and the social aspect is something that she would be missing...