IF you could select a fitting theme song to blast out at the Bathurst Velodrome this summer, the Tones And I tune 'The Kids Are Coming' would be hard to look past.
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It is because the Bathurst Cycling Club's contingent of junior riders are shining against their senior rivals.
The club's A grade Track Scratch Championship crown was taken out by 15-year-old Luke Tuckwell, while fellow teen Dan Googe claimed the A grade Track Sprint title.
Kalinda Robinson was second in the A grade sprint club championship battle last Friday night and backed that up by claiming the honours in the opening round of the B grade Track Criterium Series on Sunday.
Her younger sister Ebony Robinson won the C grade sprint then criterium, beating home a field which included her father Mick.
"I had the misfortune of racing against Ebony [on Sunday] ... certainly my kids have left me behind long ago. It's a great sport from that point of view that you can race across generations," he laughed.
"The juniors in the club are probably setting the benchmarks across all of the grades in senior racing. From the under 15 riders through to the under 19s, we've got junior riders in every grade from A grade down to C and D grade who are all doing really well.
"That comes from they're all products of our junior program. In the under 13 program where their gearing is restricted they learn to spin their legs very fast, so when they step up to the adult grades, they can actually spin their legs a lot faster than the adults can, particularly the adults who came to racing as adults.
"As they grow and mature they can still maintain that speed in their legs and have the power which then follows.
"That's really evident in kids like Dan Googe, Kalinda, Tyler Puzicha, Luke Tuckwell, Cadel Lovett, he can spin all day long, and Ebony is the next in that line of juniors who are just popping up into the seniors."
While there is an intimidation factor for many junior sporting talents when they get the chance to test themselves against seniors, Robinson said that is not the case with the cycling young guns.
Rather than being daunted by lining up against riders older than themselves, they relish the opportunity.
"They actually really look forward to racing the adults. Because our young juniors don't race at the same time on the track as the adults, the under 13s, and in winter time their racing is up at Sulman Park, they are kind of hidden from the adults," Robinson said.
"When these juniors jump up to the under 15 level they'll shock some of the adults because the juniors bring with them a much higher skill level because of the focus on skills and bike handling in juniors.
"The only thing they lack when they come up is the brute strength which they make up for with their ability to spin their legs.
"They also relish the variety of racing when you step up too because, particularly on the track, there's a huge number of different events."
