Dirt School: The Derek Laughland Memorial Award Returns for 2020!
We’re proud to announce our continued involvement with the Derek Laughland Memorial Award for a third year, taking another two young passionate riders under our wing and providing them with £500 worth of Dirt School vouchers to be used for technical coaching sessions. New for this year, we’re also offering a prize for a selected cycling club – a full days coaching with Dirt School for 12 young riders – allowing even more youngsters to reap the benefits of this generous prize.
The Derek Laughland Memorial Award was set up after the tragic passing of a much-loved husband and father, due to a brain haemorrhage at the Scottish Enduro Series in October 2017. His family took comfort in the fact Derek was doing what he loved, and the Derek Laughland Memorial Award was born.
Derek absolutely loved riding and racing his bike and was much loved within the mountain bike community and enduro scene always being seen with a smile on his face. The Derek Laughland Memorial prize does an excellent job of capturing Derek’s legacy.
If you’re a young rider aged under 18 or representing a group of under 18s through a cycling club and would like to apply for the award this year, we’re now taking applications. Please answer the following questions through our comments section at the bottom of this page to be in for a chance of being selected by the Laughland family…
Young Male and Female Rider (under 18)
- Your age, location and length of time riding
- What do you love about riding your bike?
- How will the Derek Laughland Memorial Award benefit you?
You must have permission from your parent/guardian to enter.
Cycling Clubs
- Please give us a little bit of background info on your club
- How will the Derek Laughland Memorial Award benefit the young riders in your club?
Applications close at 6pm on Monday 12th October, with winners being announced at 6pm on Wednesday 14th October. Once a winner has been selected applications will be published publicly to share everyone’s inspiration and love for riding bikes.
Good luck!
Hello my name is Tom I’m 17 and from Manchester and I’ve been shredding bikes for almost 3 years now. Ever since I got my first mountain bike
What I love about mountain biking is that even round where I live with little to any hills all it take is me my brother a shovel and some imagination and we have ourselves hours of fun I also love where it can take you like especially over quarantine I’ve located loads of spots in and around Manchester within cycling distance to progress my riding and get hurt a lot of the time
Although I’m trying my best there’s only so much I can do round me and ever since my dad took me up to glentress this time last year I’ve always felt I’m missing something. the progress I got out of the berm baby berm and watching you guys on the insta I can feel myself smashing berms and sending gaps up in Scotland. What I hope to get out of the Derek Laughland Memorial Award is some proper help on my riding position and just get some of the experience that other people my age got from there parents and so sometimes I can ride and show them something that they don’t know . What I will get most out of this is the ability to grow my riding In an environment that can provide for this
Many thanks for taking the time to read this
Tom Roche
1) Ben Allan age 14, live in Cardrona and been riding since age 4
2) Why I love riding my bike?
Big days out on the hills with friends, finding and riding new trails, exploring new places on my bike. Racing and trying different bike disciplines – winning, losing and just taking part.
3) Would love to carry on learning new skills from amazing coaches, getting faster and more confident ready for when race season begins again. This would be a great opportunity to have coaching and to pass on new skills and tips to my friends.
My name is Ben Gibson I’m 15 and I live in Hamilton,Scotland and I’ve been riding my bike as long as I can remember. This dirt school opportunity will help take my riding to the next level and I’ve got no where to go other than to race so this would be another opportunity to progress
Hi I am Jamie, I am 12 years old and I love mountain biking. I live near Selkirk in a small village called Ettrickbridge. Riding my bike makes me feel free and i forget about everything and just enjoy the moment. I love the feeling of hurtling down a trail and weaving through the trees after a long climb up the hill. Every time I ride my bike I try something new that I haven’t done before and keep working on it until I get it right. I have been riding bikes every now and then since i can remember but I only got into mountain biking about 18 months ago. Through Lockdown I managed to ride my bike every single day. I also made lots of jumps and features out of pallets and anything else I could find. When I get home from home from school i go straight up to the woods with a shovel and work on a trail that I am building. The Derek Laughland award would really help me progress my riding and learn new skills like riding faster and doing cool tricks on jumps. My goal is to get better at jumping and learn some tricks.
Age: 8 years old
Location: Falkirk
Time riding: 6 years
I love riding my bike, I ride every day with my dad and little brother and race mtb and CX before the Coronovirus happened. I am a member of Falkirk Juniour Bike Club and I have won the club championship im my age group for 2019 and 2020. The club is amazing with over 150 members age 5 to 16 years old. I help to demonstrate for the coaches during the FUNdementals sessions every Saturday morning before my Essential sessions.
We do mountain biking, cyclocross, bmx and road cycling and have some amazing young coaches. I would love to win this award for the club as I love riding natural trails like the ones at North Third in Stirling and the rooty stuff at Kinneil where we have our club sessions on Saturdays but would like to become better at steeper stuff and so would some of my friends from bike club. The young coaches could also learn some skills to pass onto the members of the club during our sessions.
The bike club has helped me with my confidence as I am quiet at school and we raise lots of money for local charities like the Falkirk Foodbank and Strathcarron Hospice, we also won Scottish Cycling Club of the year. The club has kept us busy with biking games and challenges throughout lockdown and gave us all a passport to follow while we were off school and the club had to stop the sessions. I can’t wait to race again and want to do the Scottish races I can next year.
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