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!
West Lothian Clarion Youth Section
The club was set up just over 10 years ago and we have approximately 100 riders aged 5yrs – 17yrs who attend weekly coaching sessions. Throughout the year we deliver 3 separate coaching blocks focusing on the disciplines of road, cyclocross and mountain biking. We have also recently established a ‘performance group’ for some of our 14 – 17 yr old riders to provide more targeted coaching and encourage them to remain engaged in our weekly sessions. In the past riders of this age have left the club as other distractions within the local community i.e. underage drinking and antisocial behaviour, becomes more attractive than riding a bike. Covid resulting in us having to pause all of our club activities and it has been great to get our riders back to coaching sessions as restrictions have eased. At the start of lock down we had just started our MTB coaching sessions to coincide with the Scottish Cross Country MTB Series, We got one coaching session and one race before everything stopped. Potentially the biggest impact of this was on our performance group as a number of them had just recorded some of their best results (one second and a third in U14 and U16 respectively as well as several other strong placings) at the first round of the SXC and have now had to deal with 6 months without regular coaching and racing as well as the other pressures placed on young people due to lockdown. Some of these riders were also looking to enter their first enduros this year as this style of riding and the social scene around it is becoming more attractive to them. A number of them were also looking at entering an enduro as an opportunity to push their riding skills and ability. Having access to a Dirt School coaching session would be really beneficial for then not only in terms of improving their riding skills but also in terms of helping keep their motivation levels high and inspiring them to focus on attending regular coaching sessions and returning to racing once the restrictions around Covid allows.
If we are successful in being awarded this coaching session it would also be a great positive news story to share with our younger riders in the club many who are coached by riders in the performance group – we are amongst the first Clubs in Scotland to have youth coaches trained and delivering cycling development. This will lead to dissemination of learning from this session with Dirtschool to the other 90 riders in the Club. Talk about impact!
Thank you for your consideration.
Hello, my name is Lewis Phillips and I’m 16 years old, from a small village in Dumfries and galloway. I’ve been riding bikes from a very young age but only got properly hooked on mountain biking when I was 11, I soon became an avid rider around the 7stanes routes, sending my sketchy Lapierre raid down red and black routes. All of this came to a stop when I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was 13, I started to get back riding but found it hard to manage in the beginning but it came to me that I should really push myself to get the message across that diabetics can be elite sports people and months of training I was ready to race in my first SXC season, it went way better than I expected and managed to get 4th at Scottish champs and get 13th overall (bearing in mind I had done the season on a 160 enduro bike). I have since then been to many races and pushed myself, picking up injuries on the way but never giving up and that’s what bring me here looking to get that extra bit of progress to get me to the next stage of showing people what diabetics can do and getting my message across there. This award would make a huge difference in my riding abilities, as my family have ever really had the money to get that extra bit of training or to get to bigger races. It would be an honour to work with you amazing people to help get the edge over my opponents in the years to come. I have never been in a club due to living in the middle of nowhere but I hope one day to be part of something bigger. Thank you.
Kind Regards
Lewis Phillips
I am a MTB leader for Middleden Mountain Bike Club Kirkcaldy and our club was ignited in a deprived area where kids were not getting opportunities to learn safely and enjoy biking. I see this opportunity of 1 days coaching advantageous and would really help some of our members to the next level. With the drive to get more females onto the MTB circuit I see this as a platform to showcase the sport. Thanks Paul.
I love the freedom and the adrenalin rush that I get when I decend down the trails and see this opportunity to learn so much more will help me become a more confident rounded rider.
I am 15 years old and live in Central Scotland in a town called Dunblane, right around the corner from where the Laughlands lived. I have always enjoyed riding bikes but seriously started riding at the beginning of 2018, and since then I have progressed massively. I love riding my bike as it takes me to many places I have never seen, and it helps you forget about everything going on in life and make the most of the time enjoying Scotland’s outdoors. The award will help me massively by giving me coaching lessons to improve on what I need to work on, and to experience new things. It will help me improve as a rider, allowing me to get better as I begin doing races and progress.
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