Cycling Whole Life Coaching for @Risk African Kids

Junior cycling 

In the third term of 2024 we’ve had a significant growth in new young riders joining the program. These includes a lot of female riders. This growth is mostly due to one of our champion female volunteers who has a very big passion for the younger children and to motivate the girls to participate in the sport. Many of our female riders are also encouraged to train harder and push their own limits and to grow in the potential they have. Passionate volunteers make a world's difference and we honour them. 

Wet-wet winter 

This past winter season was a record-breaking season for rainfall figures as well as for low temperatures.It was the wettest and coldest winter ever recorded in the Western Cape. This caused regular flooding and difficult training conditions. There we also many severe windstorms associated with these conditions and more trees and other structures were damaged than probably in the past three years combined. Cycling trails were closed for big portions of the season and our training schedules were often disrupted. We are all very pleased with spring's arrival and anticipatemany more opportunities and favorable conditions for training. 

Events/races 

After many disappointingpostponements and cancelations of the local school's mountain biking league events, due to the bad weather and trail conditions, we finally partook in the last event of the league on the 14th of September. This event took place at BloemendalWine Estate near Durbanville. Seventeen children from our team participatedon the day. For many of the children it was their first cycling race, and they were filled with excitement to be there. The children achievedquite impressive results, as six of the team members ended up in the top fifty percent of their age group. 

Mentoring and cycling lessons 

We’ve been working through the Lead-Today book in our mentoring sessions. We’ve also done weekly reflection on the Counterculture series and training they received at our youth events. From the Lead-Today book we focused on the topics and character traits of: Influence, Vision and Integrity. We’ve been empowering our riders through these topics to understand their critical importance in life to shape the success of their future and how it remains relevant right through their whole life. Weekly tapicreflections on the Counterculture series included:True Friendships, a True vs FalseView of Success, Humility and Selflessness.  

Through the abovementoring sessions, riders were equipped with inner skills to empower them with a platform to harness and leverage their talents on an outer level towards better success in all other areas of life, including cycling. Our model aims to develop the five key areas of every person's development, being social, emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical. Our mentoring sessionsincludea fitness component, before moving on to the main topic. Each topic is aimed to motivate the individuals and the collective team to improve their sport performance, academics, behavior, discipline and interpersonal relationships. 

Success Story 

We are celebrating with great excitement one of our senior riders who was successfully accepted into a full bursary scholarship program throughEndurocad at Stellenbosch Highschool.The program is a very well-run academy, started and lead by ex-Olympic and world champion athletes. This is a dream come true for our young rider and it opens up a world of opportunities to maximize his talents.  

Thank you for supporting our work to make these stories a reality. Keep using your power to empower.