Hello

Me

Hello.

I’ve decide that as part of my maturation as a rider and athlete I’m going to start writing a blog all about the sport that takes up a large part of my life – cycling.

So first of all I guess I should write a bit about myself, and so that’s what this blog post is.

My name is Amelie Wayte, or ‘Amo’ for short, I’m 17 and am approaching the end of year 12 at Anthony Gell School.

I am also currently in my first year as a junior rider on the road and track. I ride for a mixed boys and girls cycling team called Cycling Performance Squad (CPS). This year has been the first year for CPS and it currently consists of 3 junior girls, 3 youth (U16) girls and 5 junior boys.

I have really enjoyed riding with this team for the year, I’ve made some great friends and memories with the people I have met, whilst training hard and making progressions as a rider at the same time.

CPS has regular weekend camps every month, these will usually consist of road sessions and track sessions but will sometimes be just one or the other.

Before going any further let’s do a quick recce of memory lane…

So little me started cycling from about the age of 6, my earliest riding didn’t exactly promise a successful future in cycling, in fact my first memory of riding a bike is of little me at a local club coaching session down at the park where I fell in the big pond and mum had to dive in and rescue both me and the bike, whoops.

After I had established the difference between cycling and swimming I became very eager in becoming more involved in the former. So I did. As a youngster I started dragging mum or dad out of bed early on a Saturday morning to attend the local club coaching down at the park.

Moving on a few years and I started cyclocross as a first year U12, it was love at first race as I instantly fell under the spell of this ridiculous discipline of cycling.

I still love cyclocross and race it through the winter, I race both in my local league and the national trophy series all around the country.

Last year I was invited to join the Apprentice scheme with British Cycling. This is the second tier of the Olympic pathway in British Cycling after RSR’s (regional school of Racing) of which I have attended countless over the years. Upon receiving the invitation I was very excited and immediately started practicing my olympic winning celebrations in my head. The year I spent as an apprentice rider I made massive improvements and started to believe that actually, I could be quite good at this cycling thing. I immensely enjoyed my year on the programme and approached it with 110% enthusiasm. Being an apprentice rider and doing my GCSE’s at the same time was a test for me and wasn’t at all easy but I made it through alive to junior racing and A levels.

At the end of the apprentice year I was invited to ‘confirmation camp’, this is where the top few riders from the apprentice scheme (and a few from outside it) are invited to come and display their riding to the Junior Academy coach as well as undergoing testing. At the end of this camp 3-4 riders are selected to move onto the Junior Academy (the third tier in the olympic pathway).

As you have probably already deduced, I wasn’t selected and while disappointment crashed down at the time looking back now I realise that actually, I’m glad that I wasn’t selected, hindsight is a wonderful thing after all. I have enjoyed my year on CPS more than I believe I would’ve on Junior Academy and I have met some people I never would’ve met, shouldn’t enjoyment be the reason we participate in sport after all?

And so that brings us to here. I look forward to what remains of my road and track season for 2019 and begin to think about my second year as a junior in cyclocross, starting in September.

I hope you enjoyed my first ever blog post and will read the ones to come.

Amo 🙂