Thanks Terry, Dylan turns 16 in December and along with one other rider has been identified by the U19 coaches looking at 2011 and 2012 Junior Worlds. He rode 11.3 for 200m just .08 off Webster's record. We were going to have a crack at it but by the final night he was running short on energy but MSC's Team Sprint perked him up and he was on for the Points Race. He was top 10 in every event last year bar (no surprise the 515m scr and road Time Trial). We did start planning the champs in the winter last year but had lots of short term goals along the way inc Road Nats, Festival of Cycling, final round of the Canterbury Summer Series , MSC Track and Crits, Invercargill Carnival and MSC Champs to ensure he had something in right in front of him. Now it's on to TeA , U17 Camp, CRI and Club Nats . If he can turn speed back into endurance hopefully he will get some International experience at Canberra and this will allow him to progress towards the Oceania Games, Youth Olympics and next years Track Nationals. That's the plan at least .

Congrats for your work with Connor, was very aggressive and with time and coaching will be a contender in the U17s next year I am picking!

gydey wrote:Congratulations to all the riders...winners and losers. There were some outstanding efforts and none more so that Dylan Kennetts domination of the U17 events albeit, I think he has another year in this grade.

I guess the challenge now to Dylan and his support team is to continue to develop and go even faster next year, with a view to Junior Worlds in 2012 and 2013.

Dont get me wrong and fire off Craig... U 17 has seen a few dominant riders over the years, that have struggled in the higher grades..and we know who they are Hamish :-).. and Dylans IP times are world class for a U17 rider (didnt see the sprint qualifying time..so cant say)..so Hamish now will have to plan how to keep the young guy 100% committed as he basically has won everything in U17, so motivation may become difficult. I had a good friend who totally dominated this grade in my era...won every NZ U17 title both road and track..and never made it as a senior at the highest level... so lets hope the young lad can now go on with the job and become a star in the U19 and elite ranks in years to come

Well done Dylan, and Hamish

Hi Gydey, Craig here. I understand what you say here and in a way I do respect some of what you think with you actually being a cycling coach but sometimes commonsense can be used even by the parents of riders and by the riders themselves. Dylan had only been riding for 3 months at last year's track nats and I told him that on what I saw him do there that he could come back this year and win gold medals, especially the 2km pursuit. I actually said that if he wanted it badly enough that he would clean up. One thing we realised though was to get onto a good coach so I watched this site for a while and decided that this fella Fergie will do us. He clearly had the technical knowledge that Dylan needed to succeed. And basically from the day Fergie took Dylan on, he hasn't looked back.

Just on the comment that so many top under 17s haven't gone on with the job. To me it's just an old cliche as far as Dylan is concerned. Two big things in Dylan's favour. He's not from a cycling family or background and he only took up riding 16 months ago. He's not living a parent's dream who was a bike racer and he hasn't had the guts raced out of him from a young age. He's on the up.

Your comment about Dylan maybe struggling to be motivated after what he did last week is obviously based on you not knowing him too. Surely winning 5 Golds last week and being invited to a training camp with the NZ under19s track team plus the fact that Invercargill will have the junior world champs when he's a second year 19 would be motivation enough?

Hey Gydey, don't take this as telling you off. It's just my opinion. And Thank You for your positive comments about Dylan and his world class performances. It's appreciated. We'll have to see how he handles the road racing in the next few months but right now at this time he's a top class trackie and I prefer track racing over road racing myself. At least you don't have to as a parent sit at the finish line of a road race and watch your kid go past a couple of times in an hour and then hope that he'll be one of the leaders around that last corner of the race. Track racing absolutely kills road racing for spectating. Yeah there's more money on the road but that's a long way off and too far off to worry about right now. Also NZ has got a track development program so there'll be support there.

Cheers

It's an interesting observation about racing families. Often catch up with Shane Smith. His Father was a National Coach and the NZ team was often in town training and as a young rider he joined them for some rides at a young age. He was NZ road champ for Novices (U17) as a 1st year in a race described by Graeme Hunn (as the most dominated till Josh Atkins two years ago). His success didn't carry on into Senior Racing.

I have picked up an U15 rider and while I coach her I refuse to train her. She does some limited drills and can "ride" when she wants to. She won three U15 medals last week and I'm sure with training she would have challenged Sophie McMurdo but I would have grave concerns about her making it to U19 where the results start to mean something.

WRT Dylan I'm stoked that Craig has not yet given me any concerns about Dylan's coaching with the exception of his cycling affecting his school work. That's 100% fair enough, haven't got the call from Riis or Sutton just yet

Over all the track craft of the juniors this year was very good, crash corner had two slides ( i think). A reflection on the skills being passed on to all juniors by all coaches.
The well trained and dedicated riders set and surpassed their goals!
To the ones still in invers, the hard work continues as more goals are set and more HARD work is done (even for bodies drained after a full programme of racing.

We as a track community now have to keep the momentum up, and keep attracting new talent,attract school roadies over to track, teach them what benefits there are from fixed wheel, what they can gain on the road from track cadence work!

This country has real talent, we just need to keep them interested and having fun, even through the spew days, the pain, the off days, the woppings etc

For my guys who medalled every day was a spew day. Will Bowman and Tayla Harrison were getting pretty intimate with the bins at Denton on a regular basis. Good way to know you have totally overloaded the rider because they can't push till puking if they have.

Crikey Fergie Looking at that photo there I never realised how short you are

I think its called rider/parent burn out

Hi Craig/ Ferg

I apologise re motivation...I thought he had another year in U17..I was wrong. I am sure he will have heaps of motivation moving towards U 19. I will be interested at watching hi sprogress and whether you set him as a sprinter, or track endurance.

Can I ask his max power?

As he moves into U19 we will do some testing to help us decide whether to go down the path of Sprinter, Omnium, Pursuiter or Mass Start rider. We haven't done any lab testing yet. Next big test is TeA Tour and Rotorua Camp where they will learn from Jono Hailstone about lab testing and what the numbers actually mean.

Hi Gydey

His birthday's december 8th so a few weeks later and he would have been a first year 17. My bad timing I guess. Ahh well he's had to toughen up more because of it. I doubt that he would have been as good had he been a year down as it would be easier. Riding his guts out chasing the likes of Alex Frame has made him really.

Like Hamish says, he's had no testing yet so it will be interesting to find out his peak power and all that stuff.

Colin Ryan when I asked him last year when Dylan was starting off said he was a sprinter and kilo man. Have to see how he handles going up to bigger gears too don't we?

MV, Hash and Fraser Mc all had late birthdays as well...didnt hurt their progress either :-)Could you imagine if MV was riding junior this year..hahaha

Some kids you can tell which pathway to follow..others you cant... like Shane Smith, Melrose,Bullen and Dylan as they are so multi talented.. however when you look at the the test numbers it gives you an indication of which way to go... although with young guys they are still probably only at 300w @AT as they havent yet developed their aerobic capacity...but clearly max power numbers and as importantly time to peak power will tell you whether sprinting is a realistic option. I had a guy I coached who could and probably still can hit peak power in under 1 sec on the wingate bike...however his max power is under 1600w and suffice to say..whilst that is fantastic power for a endurance track rider...it doesnt cut the mustard on the world sprint stage these days...

All good.....

We will test him at the end of the year but with a view that he will still be growing and any subsequent improvements may just be from muscle development. Had a 16 year old who improved 100watts at AnThreshold from age 15. If I was a lesser coach I would have not mentioned that this was probably 80-90% due to growth and maturation. The Bike NZ camp in Rotorua will be good as riders will get the chance to see a graded exercise test and learn what the numbers mean and how to relate them to their age, height, frontal area, riding position, choice of equipment etc. Rather than just trying to hold 400watts for 50mins because that's what MV or Gordy can do.

On Facebook there seems to be a few riders beating themselves up over Track Nats. One week guys! Life ain't over and certainly from DKs perspective we don't think his Olympic and Professional stardom is assured, it just raises the ante for a lot of hard and smart work to come.

Congratulations to Otagos dynamic duo Brad Evans and Alysha Keith. Fab effort at last weeks Track Nats.Both these riders had top results in every event they rode.
Evans u19 Men 1st 3000ip, 2nd points ,2nd Kilo , 2nd team sprint (comp team) 3rd 4000tp comp team, 4th Scratch
Keith u17 girls Nz record 2000ip, 1st 2000ip, 1st Scratch, 2nd 500tt, 3rd points
Well done

I saw Alysha Keith race last year...she was very impressive, and again saw her at the Track Carnival in ChCh in January...she had developed further... I hope she sticks at the sport..we lose too many young talented women cyclists.