Club of Year award for Falkirk’s junior cyclists

At the annual Scottish Cycling Awards on Saturday, March 7 at Stirling Court Hotel, the cycling group was announced as the Scottish Cycling Club of the Year, beating off competition from across Scotland.

The club held its first sessions in April 2016 after it was recognised that there was a lack of provision for youth cycle coaching in the Falkirk area so a small group of committed volunteers came together to establish the first ever club catering for purely young people.

Initially there were around 10 riders in attendance weekly, however this quickly grew, as the club benefitted from the surge of interest in cycling following the 2016 Olympics, and ran a range of initiatives such as Summer Cycling Camps and Come and Try sessions to boost membership numbers.

The club bases their sessions at different locations in the Falkirk area, such as Kinneil Estate, Canada Wood, The Helix and Larbert High School, to enable it to best deliver coaching for different cycling disciplines. and cater for individual needs.

Last year though was the year of recognition and Falkirk Junior Bike Club really stepped up and pushed the boundaries of what a traditional cycling club does. The club increased levels of participation and have encouraged and supported more members to compete on their bikes.

They have promoted and encouraged their members to see cycling as more than just sport.

They have set up and developed an exemplar structure around the running of the club.

With now over 150 regular members attending club sessions, over 60 members regularly competing at local, regional and national competitions, the club also set up and ran their first open competition with over 200 entries in May last year, and followed this up in January with the biggest non-national series Cyclocross event of the season hosted at Kinneil Estate.

Now, as Scottish Cycling club of the year, FJBC continues to go from strength to strength, and despite the current challenges that COVID-19 presents - will continue to plan to reach new heights in 2020.