Cyclespeedway

[richspeedway]

I was flicking through the sky sports channels and it showed the British Final at Coventry and it looked pretty good. Just wondered if anyone had any more info on Cycle Speedway at all.

[gemini]

You can find out all about Cycle Speedway here www.cyclespeedway.co.uk/html/introduction.html

Yes, it is a good sport and quite a lot of speedway riders first start out by this method before progressing to the motorised version. There are also a few cycle speedway riders on the forum so I am sure they will have something to add.

[richspeedway]

cheers thanks for that Gemini. Yeah it looked really good as like said was only flicking through channels and only saw track first and thought was motorised speedway till i saw the bikes.

[Nevs]

Never seen cycle speedway on TV before!!!!

Shame we no longer have Sky.

Its a great sport.

I rode (wouldnt say raced exactly as I was carp) from 76 to 82.

Both my kids have ridden-Craig still does but Gemma retired aged 6 after a rather heavy ploughed field of a track at Newport Grand Prix in the rain.(I guess they were trying to copy The Newport Speedway track specifications as closely as they could)

Exeter only now run mainly for kids aged 3 or 4 up to 18 and cannot put together an adult team just yet(majority of the potential 1-7 team are in the 12-16 age bracket-although the older lads are almost at the stage whereby they can be competitive in a senior league again.Personally I think we are a season away from that just yet.)

The best rider at our club by far is young Thomas Reed who has just won the under 12s national championship-He sure as hell gives the bigger boys a run for their money and will I reckon be world champion one day if he continues his interest and commitment.

Will be interesting to see if we take the plunge at this years AGM to go for it or give the lads another year before we enter the adult leagues.


It really isa great sport to get involved with-with people prepared to lend bikes and equipment etc and is a real family affair following the kids all around the Country following Grand prixs on a rehional basis and The National if you are prepared to travel further afield.

One young lad at Exeter has an illness that means he has behavour problems-as soon as he got into cycle speedway he was a changed kid and lives eats and breathes it.

Evereyone is made to feel very welcome at all clubs-regardless of ability.

One word of warning Rich-You may find Matt Davis tries to convince you he is the main attraction and top rider at Horspath-If so he is slightly exaggerating as he fell off a uni cycle and couldnt ride last year.-But he does have potential to be fair ;D ;D

Oh by the way-same as in Speedway-Poole seem to have good facilities and are often talked about in the south-nothing new there


The sport does tend to be more regionalised than speedway obviously due to travel costs etc.

There is also a yahoo cyclespeedway group at sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/cyclespeedway/

[richspeedway]

Cheers Nevs for that and I will note about Matt Davis too haha. I guess it would be better as it be a lot cheaper sport to run as you do not have to buy engines etc. I saw there are a couple of teams near by so I may when the season starts see if can get down and check it out as it does look real good and the atmosphere like our speedway. Guess a bonus is aswell that people do not moan about the noise!!

[Nevs]

It can be as cheap or as expensive as you want.

With most kids you just buy a bike from the recycling centre for £3-strip everything off-the brakes gears etc,then buy a front cog and a pair of cycle speedway handle bars-dont even need to do that at the beginning-but once it gets serious if you want to then you are talking lightweight frames etc.

www.archie-wilkinson.co.uk/bikes.html

It can be as cheap or as expensive as you want it to be.

The lad that had Craigs bike before him and let him have it for as long as he wants free of charge paid £600 to have one handmade to his own spec -but then again he was riding for England.

[hazzman]

By the way, Leicester are the best team of Cycle Speedway.

Who won the Championship this year?

[Nevs]

If I have got it right it was Terry Norman with regards to British champion.

Triple world champion and 5 times British champion Dave Hemsley has decided to retire after 23 years in the sport.

Lets hope he will stay involved for all kids same as some move on into speedway like Lee Smethills and Mike Coles etc etc etc.

(Funny little story here)-Mini nevs last season wouldtend to go across after school to watch the riders arriving for the speedway-and he knew Lee to a degree-however on this day when Lee was riding against Exeter Craigs proper bike was broke-so he took his cycle speedway bike instead-Started talking to Lee and even though we had had had it changed colour to green Lee said straight away I know that bike-Its Andrew Yards-who he was always in great competition with cycle speedway wise.


Craig said yeay-then came home and said Lee recognised the bike cos it has crap handlebars -got to get a new set ;D

There is an excellant Spokesman magazine that is sent out to members of Cycle speedway-The online version is here


www.bcf.uk.com/disciplines/speedway/Spokesman.htm ;D ;D ;D

[Trackman]

richspeedway said:

Cheers Nevs for that and I will note about Matt Davis too haha.

G/Day richspeedway
Re: www.horspathhammers.co.uk/
Regards.
PS.
MD's "Photo of the week" is always a LOL!

[richspeedway]

Cheers trackman good photo of the week!!

[euanhouzamie]

Did you know that the Clerk of Course at Weymouth is no other than Former British and World Champion Martyn Hepworth. Rumour has it Wessexboy and Wildcat Willie also peddled a bit as well