Winter Intro

Well, here goes, first post.

After some discussion earlier today with Stuart Balfour (yes, THE Stuart Balfour) whilst watching a local cyclocross race, it was decided that a blog would be helpful to promote my cycling and give an insight into the life of a young aspiring cyclist. I brushed the idea off, blogs are pointless aren't they? Well, here I am...

I have ridden from an early age, racing on the mountain bike as an under 10 and on the road as an under 12. I could whine forever about my early years but the main factors in me starting racing were my Dad, Edinburgh RC youth section sorting out training sessions and helping take me to races and Peebles CC for putting on small dirt crit races for riders as young as under 8.

Quickly my riding progressed and as my racing calender increased I started getting better results. Around 12, I started proper "training". Since then I would hope to think I have had a successful few years riding as a youth travelling the length and breadth of the UK with medals in Scottish Road, Mountain and Cyclocross championships. The standout results for me thus far must be winning a stage of an international youth road race in Ireland last season (2011) and winning the Strathpuffer 24hr Mountain Bike race as a team of four (all riders under 15) competing against 60+ teams of 4. Another highlight of my time on the bike was being selected for the Scotland South mountain bike team at this year's British Inter Regional Mountain Bike Championships, where although my form was definitely on a downward slope, I feel I helped contribute to our 3rd place overall in the team's classification.

Rugby has also been a large aspect of my life up until now, with many clashes between the two sports resulting in performance in both lacking at times. As a result this winter I have decided to focus solely on road and track cycling in an effort to try and become one of the top youth road riders in Britain. I really believe this is achievable and, once I recover from this small stomach bug, am ready to buckle down and get some proper hard winter training in.

Lastly a huge thanks to everyone that had made my progression in the sport so far possible, to all the coaches and parents at ERC, to my parents for driving me up and down the country and buying me bikes, to Andy at the bicycleworks who does wonders fixing my bikes and to the Magowan/Balfour/Borthwick Lamont/Forsyth (probably more, sorry if I forgot anyone) families for putting up with me on long car journeys ferrying me to and from races.

Muchos thanks for reading, over and out.