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Video: Cyclo-cross for the under-sixes

Fast fun for baby bike-riders

It's fast, it's frantic, it's fiercely competitive, it's… under-six cyclo-cross.

Short circuits and a safe environment means cyclo-cross is accessible by riders of all ages, as this handlebar camera clip shows. Take a journey inside the Cycling Ulster under-six cyclo-cross/mountain bike race in Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park last Sunday.

It looks like these youngsters are having lots of fun belting round the course on their diddy bikes. 

Which reminds us, we're in the midst of rolling out a series of reviews of kids bikes, look out for them Saturday mornings, or check the collection here.

John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.

He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.

Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.

John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.

He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.

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3 comments

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bikebot | 9 years ago
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Needs more mud!

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Chris James | 9 years ago
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My youngest started cyclocross racing at 5, in fact he finished 5th boy in the under 8 section of the Yorkshire under 12 championships, whist still aged 5.

The kids love it, and if they fall off then at least they tend not to hurt themselves too badly. Smashes at closed circuit races involve more blood!

The other nice thing about cross is that the kids are always involved in the race. Unless you have actually won it can be difficult to know where you finish anyway, whereas it is obvious if you get dropped on a circuit race.

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Ordinary Cyclin... | 9 years ago
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My seven year old is trying her first cyclocross race tomorrow. She's super excited! Can't wait to how much she enjoys it (hopefully!).

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