There was no soft pedalling in a Moray park, when families flocked to a biking festival inspired by a Paralympic gold medalist.
Outfit Moray, which was part of Elgin Youth Cafe’s Inspiration that began on Saturday, joined forces with the charity to put on a day of cycling fun at Cooper Park in Elgin.
The whole event was inspired by a talk from 2016 Paralympics double gold medal winner Steve Bate who was given the honour of opening up the Inspiration Week with a speech on Saturday night.
A blind athlete, Mr Bate was successful in the men’s para-cycling in Rio and was the first of many guest speakers the young organisers of Inspiration Week are bringing to the region.
Donna Breen, a youth worker at Elgin Youth Cafe, was proud of the effort the youngsters had put into creating the festival.
She said: “We have an exciting programme of events taking place over the next week and we are delighted at how it has gone so far.
“Steve Bate helped to launch it last night and we had over 50 people in the room, which is fantastic.
“We had young people, people of all ages, we had families and it was a really inspirational talk and the feedback we got last night was just fantastic.
“I think the young people who have organised this are the highlights of the week as they have pulled this all together brilliantly.”
Cyclists of all ages and abilities gathered in Cooper Park to take part in obstacle courses, try out different bikes and also head out on a family bike ride to Lossiemouth and back.
The Inspiration Week is on until Saturday, 20 October, with numerous events planned at the cafe, including talks by MND fundraiser Lucy Lintott and Commonwealth Games hammer thrower Mark Dry.
It culminates in an embrace diversity parade where young people will march through the town celebrating the Year of Young People.
One of the organisers, Aidan Henderson, 15, was pleased at how the packed programme has been pulled together.
He said: “It feels really good to see it all come to fruition as we have worked so hard on it and its good to see people enjoying themselves.”