my lads local beaver troop have asked me, as the token cyclist, to do a presentation to them on the Tour de France, I thought a brief overview of the history, the different colour jerseys etc and then try and think of an activity for them. So, any suggestions as to what to put in it, or activities they could do, bearing in mind they’re all between 6 and 9 years old!

Anyone been to <some place 130 miles away>? Takes a long time to drive there hours doens’t it? Imagine cycling it. Then imagine riding all the way on your bike, and doing the same almost every day for 3 weeks. The total distance is from here to bonkersville

😯

The story of the TdF is fairly epic – early stages are bonkers. The race was conceived to be so hard only one person would finish.

You could show pictures of crazy TdF artwork people make in fields and stuff, then get them to make their own..?

Introduce them to drugs?

How and why PEDs replaced alcohol.

No seriously, have some fun with jerseys and bikes.

Who wants some EPO???

but yeah, I had to write up similar for our website, surprising and pleasing how many hits it gets and how much time people spend reading it. Main thing I’d say is read up more than you present. You will get questions.

Show them ‘Pantani, accidental death of a cyclist’. Tells them everything they need to know 😈

Bikes, jerseys, legendary riders. Simples. Not L***e though.

Jersey’s, explain the different competitions.
Lanterne Rouge, how it used to be beneficial to come last.
Why some people can be successful although they’ll never win a stage.
Domestiques
Bikes
Speeds
Distance
Altitude gains, mountains
How a team works, riding for a single goal.
The different types of stage, sprint, transitional, mountain, ITT and TTT.
Cobbles!
Calories burnt measured in sausages.
Rivalries
Smallest winning margin.

Give them the numbers, relate them to something they can comprehend.

Uncle homered is your website available? Sounds like I could plagiarise a lot of that?

well unless phil and paul have been talking rubbish all these years then its all about a suitcase of courage to do a job of work being a mountainbiker makes you a good descender.

I like your suggestion about the calories and sausages to muppetwrangler, I’ll take a load in and get them to cook them off!

print out the stage profiles for Yorkshire, get them to work out the altitude gain for the stages in two groups,

then back calculate using Naismiths rule to see how long they would would estimate it should take on foot or bike

If nothing else you can state your favourite all time cyclist as Raymond Poulidor – dropping his nickname near the end should be perfect for a bunch of kids that age

Or you could take TdF style food, give them a load of energy gels 🙂

There is a good message about teamwork in there though, and how to play to your strengths.

Got a turbo trainer? Pop a low saddle on it and teach them how gears/cadence/power output works. Then roll out the real figures for Cav during a sprint or a climber going up the Alp D’Huez.

Double post.

Just tell them to Google it.

I thought about the turbo trainer and popping my lads bike on it and borrowing a mates cadence sensor, but I suspect a 20″ wheel will be too small to fit on.

le tour explained in animation.

Cheers Marty, that’s my job done!!

Beavers lasts an hour so you’ve 40 mins tops to fill.
Keep it simple & animate & make a big play of any facts. They love facts, especially gory ones.
Take a road bike in for them to look at, touch etc.

There’s a Beavers cycling badge just been introduced, you could talk them in to doing that also. I ran ours over 2 nights, four bases – safety, how gears work (bike on a stand), pumping up innertubes to find a puncture in water & some signs they would see in a cycle path. Night 2 we walked the bikes to the local park for a short run.

The team work element is a good one, the work is shared and so is the prize money. The concept of getting one person to the end to reward the team.

There was a 100 years of the tour documentary that had a lot of pics of people racing up and down gravel roads years ago. Should make them think a bit.
Some quick google facts

The 2005 Tour had the fastest average speed at 41.5 km per hour (25.8 mph), which is nearly double the slowest year, which was 1919 at 24.1 km per hour (15 mph).

Tour de France riders have a gentlemen’s agreement that allows riders to take what’s called “pauses pipi” – or quick potty breaks – without trying to make up time on each other. And breaks are needed; a day’s race often lasts more than five hours. – See more at: http://www.readersdigest.com.au/24-facts-tour-de-france#sthash.R6E76ROv.dpuf

maybe not this one though

Pamela Anderson

We knew the riders who took part in the Tour de France were dedicated, but the Italian sprinter, Mario Cipollini, took his dedication to a new level when he taped a picture of Pamela Anderson to his handlebars. Mario thought that glimpsing the Baywatch star during his ride might boost his testosterone levels, thus giving him an advantage over his competition.

These are brilliant guys, cycling badge is a great shout takisawa, I’ve only got 15-20 mins to do fortunately, cheers folks!

Keep it very simple and exciting.

Beautiful mountain road pictures. The speed the riders can get upto and the distances covered.

Give these in exmples of how fast a car goes- distance to scotland from them etc.

Dont go into nerd detail. You want to trick them into becoming cyclists.

Anyone have tge footage of contador (?) In the yellow jersey descending at speed to recatch the pelaton post puncture? That would be great.

Ps. Beaver patrol? 😆

6-9 is actually quite a big age range in terms of ability to sit and listen. Add to that they will have been in school all day forced to do ‘boring stuff’. They go to beavers with the preconceived idea that they’ll get to be hyper with their mates. A nerdy bloke pitching up and trying to tell them too many facts will do their nut in and you only need to loose a quarter of them before you will have lost the lot.

Think about what you want to tell them, then lob out all the dry facts, then half the rest and you have a chance.

A pimp carbon road bike they can fawn all over (have a clunker bike to compare the weight to)
Some silly lycra to laugh at
The fact that your feet are in silly carbon shoes and attached to your pedals will freak them out
Maybe a bit of gnarly footage of a high speed descent
Distances is worthwhile only if you can compare to something very local – kids of that age have an incredibly limited understanding of distances outside of their immediate experience.
Could you ‘play’ at being a peleton? Simulate a Cav leadout train for example.
A great big pile of food to represent how many calories a rider will use in 3 weeks.

Trying to explain the points system for the KoM will loose them – red spotted jersey for best climber will suffice even if you want to go into that much detail.

Good luck.

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE97iUvSHk0#t=152[/video]

Mention the caravan and the gummi bears float that throws loads of sweets to the crowd.

Jerseys, teams and team work. They’ll get the ‘it’s a long way’, and ‘it’s a race bit’ quickly. 6-8 year olds are pretty sharp in my experience so don’t talk down, and leave plenty of time for questions and interruptions.

That footage is brilliant klunk , I’ve often thought they should have go pro footage from within the peloton!

Uncle homered is your website available? Sounds like I could plagiarise a lot of that?

http://www.visitharrogate.co.uk/events/tour-de-france-2014/a-beginners-guide

I may also nick the animated video