Suffering across the finish line...

Last Friday week was my second visit out to RAW Track racing at Dunc Gray Velodrome in Bankstown. I opted to race Novice again as it had been a month since my first visit, so I figured I should refresh my learning of the ropes before stepping up to Div. 5.

There were 8 of us novices this time around, making for a different experience from the first time when it was just myself and Kylee. As before, the races were all handicapped to even out the differences in standards.

I had some good results, finishing 4th twice before winning the final race (see photo). I went off 4th rider with another 4 chasing behind me for an 8-lap race. I caught the guys in front of me after 4 laps, but the guys chasing me still had a bit of work to do. I knew that the guy immediately behind me was a similar standard to me, perhaps slightly faster, so, instead of going around the guys I’d caught I opted to sit-in, make the other guy work to catch us and then hope to out-sprint him at the finish.

As Hannibal says in the A-Team, I love it when a plan comes together! The Sydney Uni rider caught us with about a lap and a half to go and chose to sit on for a bit. I bided my time, periodically checking over my shoulder, until, with half a lap to go I went for it, sprinting as hard as I could around Royds in front of me into the final bend and hoping it was enough to get the win. As it turned out, it was! The Sydney Uni guy congratulated me afterwards, confirming that he had been lining me up but that I had accelerated too quickly for him and he couldn’t close the gap. Always good to hear :)

This Friday sees me move up to Div. 5 sporting a new 14-tooth cog at the rear for a bit of extra top speed. Should be fun.

Last night I headed out to Dunc Gray Velodrome, built for the Sydney Olympics, to try racong on the velodrome for the first time. I have to admit that I was a bit nervous for a number of reasons;

• I’d never ridden a track bike before, and since they have no brakes slowing down could be a problem if there’s a crash or something
• they also have a fixed hub, so you can’t freewheel and if you stop pedalling, well the pedals keep going around taking your legs with them and you get bumped out of the saddle
• the corners at each end of the lap are banked at 45° (see photo!) so I wasn’t sure how to ride them properly, or how fast you need to go so you don’t slide off!

I arrived with about half an hour of the warm-up to go, registered, paid and showed my Cycling Australia race licence, picked up my race number and signed on in the Novice category. I figured I’d just get on the bike and get out there. In all my years on a bike, whether commuting, road riding or MTBing, I’ve only crashed once, and that was while doing jumps on the MTB, so I figured I should be OK.

After a couple of laps around the skirt (the flat bit just on the inside of the track proper) I bit the bullet and went up on to the boards, accelerating hard to carry a bit of speed into the first turn. It was a little nerve-wracking at first as my natural instinct was to turn the bike but that just felt like the bike was going to fall off the slope, so in the end I just relaxed and let the bike do what it wanted and all was well. The secret is not to actively turn the bike but to let speed, the banking and the laws of physics guide you around the turn. After a few laps I was fine, though I still wasn’t comfortable riding close to other riders, a hangover of not having any brakes!

The first race was a 6-lapper (each lap is 250m) and there was only myself and a friend Kylee in the novices. Two more experienced riders went out with us to get us up to speed and get us swapping off turns at the front, then with 500m to go they pull out and it’s mano-a-mano between myself and Kylee. I knew that I could punch out more power than Kylee, but she was fitter than I was, so I just stayed behind her until 100m to go and put the hammer down around the last bend. First race, first win!

The second race was a 4-lap handicap, and this time they gave Kylee a 40m head start. I caught her with about a lap to go and came around her again on the last bend for the win.

The final race was an 8-lap handicap and this time we each had a more experienced rider to pace us for the first four laps and then we were on our own. Kylee was given a 125m head start this time and I had to chase her down. My chaperone was Gary Mandy, who I found out later, rode for Zimbabwe in the 1988 Olympics, so he quickly got me up to speed and while we were catching Kylee slowly but surely, my lack of fitness was making itself felt and my legs were already toast just following Gary! He swung off and while I continued to catch Kylee I just wasn’t fit enough to close the full gap and she won by about 40m.

All in all a bloody good night’s racing! Next time I’ll move up to Division 5 where there are a lot more people, as I’m comfortable enough riding the banking now and need to get used to having other people near me whilst riding at pace. Unfortunately I will no longer have a weight & power advantage, so there won’t be any more wins for a while!

Tomorrow I’m making my track debut! As another part of keeping my cycling going over the winter (or restarting it at least), I’ve decided to give track racing a go. There’s a race series called RAW (Race All Winter) which started in June, runs every Friday night through winter, and is held at Dunc Gray Velodrome, built specially for the Sydney Olympics. No slumming it for me. We’re talking world-class facilities!

A few triathlon friends had been talking about it last year, saying how enjoyable it is and I’d been thinking about giving it a go this year. Two weeks ago I bit the bullet and bought myself a Felt TK3 track bike.

A Felt TK3…

Now the astute amongst you will no doubt have noticed that there’s no brakes. That’s not such a big deal as it’s a 250m track, there are no obstacles and everyone can only go in one direction. If someone in front of you crashes it usually happens so quick that even if you had brakes you wouldn’t be able to stop anyway. The best you can hope for is that you can swerve around them.

There are also no gears. That’s standard fare for track bikes. You can change gears, but only be manually removing one cog/chainring and replacing it with a different one, before the race starts. Once you’re moving your top speed is determined solely by how fast you can turn your legs. Top track cyclists can hit 160rpm+ whereas I struggle with about 110rpm!

So, tomorrow night’s my debut. I’ve never ridden a track bike, and never been on a velodrome, though I did head out to the first RAW night a few weeks ago to take photos and to see what it was all about. I basically sign on as a novice and they tell me everything I need to know. There’ll be other novices to race against and you can stay in the novice grade until you’re comfortable on track, at which point you can step up to Div 5. Div 1 sees a few Masters World Champions mixing it up with Australia’s stars of the future preparing for the Junior World Championships in Moscow this August. Should be fun!