Old Harbour riders to compete in 125-mile New York cycling event

Both Dixon, 17 and Robinson, 16, are members of the Elevation Cycling Club headquartered in Bodles, Old Harbour. The teenage prodigies will take on the 125-mile flat course alongside hundreds of riders, starting from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park to Montauk Lighthouse.

Dixon is the reigning national junior champion, while Robinson recently won the junior division of a development circuit race at the Portmore town centre hosted by the Elevation Cycling Club.

Speaking to Old Harbour News hours before their departure, Dixon said: “I just want to say thanks to everyone who have helped me reached where I am right now and everyone who is pushing me to go further. I really appreciate this opportunity to go and compete in another country and I am really excited to train in a different environment and learn from others who are more experienced than me.”

“I am very excited to get such a big opportunity to participate in the Major Taylor Iron Riders in New York,” added Robinson, a resident of Shaper Lane. “It is my first time participating and I am so excited to represent my club and my country”

Neither riders are expected to challenge for top honours, but the experience garnered will be invaluable, according to club coach Orwyn Richmond.

“I am very pleased to know that as coach, having seen these riders climb the hills of Old Harbour, run the plains of Clarendon, race in the events that we would have had locally, they would have made their mark to the point that they are now welcome internationally and to not only represent the Elevation Cycling Club but Old Harbour and even Jamaica,” Richmond said.

“So I’m wishing them all the best and hope that they can show all of the training and all of the efforts that they would have put in for this international [event].

“For the Elevation Cycling Club this event represents that we are no longer just a local club but we are regional to be invited to this event.”

The Major Taylor Iron Riders is a multi-level cycling club founded in 2006 and was named in honour of Marshall ‘Major’ Taylor, the first African American cycling champion and the 1899 US Army 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps known as the ‘Iron Riders’.