British Cycling's Go-Ride programme is designed to get more young people more active, more often in cycling and this includes volunteering. The success of cycling programmes relies on volunteers to ensure that the equipment, course and activities are safe, fun and challenging for the varying degrees of ability found among young people. 

A group of Mountbatten students took part in the British Cycling Assistant Organisers training course, a one day course providing the year 10 students with an understanding of how to organise an event. The training was made up a series of activities enabling the students to gain a broader knowledge of what is required to run a bike race, this includes; Roles required for an event, Equipment for a race, Design of a course, Risk Assessment of venue, Lap scoring, Time keeping.

One of the key developments in Go-Ride is the engagement of Young Volunteers via programmes such as "Step Into Sport" where habits and skills can be learnt by young people that will benefit their lives, careers and the sport for many years to come. The latest young people to get involved in volunteering were the pupils of Mountbatten School in Hampshire.

The year 10 students designed a safe, fun and challenging course for a different cycling discipline for each of the 5 days in the British Cycling Festival of Cycling. There was many tasks that had to completed on "race day" as well. Vital tasks such as allocating teams, recording times, commissairing the races and ensuring that the logistics of each race ran smoothly. An interesting aspect of the festival was that the participants were made up of year 7, 8 and 9 pupils from the same school adding extra peer pressure to the demands that the festival was placing on the young volunteers skills.

The racing itself was fast and furious with the volunteers creating an exciting race series. Track racing on the Monday followed by Mountain Biking, Road Racing, Time trialling and BMX racing on the proceeding days. The races tested different skills and strengths of the young racers with each different discipline giving different young people a chance to shine. For example young people racing for Germany triumphed in the Off-Road racing using their technical ability while France utilised their endurance and dominated the Road racing. Spain, a consistent team placing highly each day showed excellent all round skills.

The team of young volunteers had to use imagination, research and application skills to create the courses because many were new to cycling, and communication, teamwork and organisational attributes to carry out their plans each and every day. The peers taking part in the races put some social pressure on the young volunteers, and the weather tested their ability to adapt and change their plans because the rain required an alteration to the course.

The young volunteers developed and utilised all their skills learnt on the Assistant Organisers training course which will now enable them to be more active often in cycling, while gaining a qualification and skills portfolio that will be able to be carried forward into a career or further education.

To find out more please contact the Development Team at British Cycling at development@britishcycling.org.uk  or 0161 274 2069