Velodrome Visit
Newport Wales
Between the 3 of us, we have always wanted a go round the velodrome and actually after watching Rio 2016 we were inspired to book a trip and it was great to be able to share the day with members. It was few hours drive but well worth the trip. The wall of the velodrome was daunting at first, but only took us 20 minutes to overcome it which boiled down to the great coaches at Newport.
The Drills and Races
- Learning to ride fixed wheel bike, in a nutshell you cannot stop pedalling, and when you are clipped in this can be a little daunting to start off with.
- Understanding the Cote d’Azur (the white part on the track)
- Then being comfortable going round on the track and venturing onto the black line, the black line being the fastest part of the track, at one point you could here Paul shout “I’m catching you” repeatedly in a high pitched voice as he was bearing down on the group worrying about riding to slowly on the bank.
- We then did a few laps of this and being encouraged to stay with in a bikes length of each other with the aim of getting gradually faster and riding higher up the backing above each line, now it was starting to get really interesting (code for scary!)
- Once we nailed that it was taking turns on the front. At regular intervals and listening out for whistle the front person would pull away from the group and then catch the tail end.
- Recovery
- 500m standing starts - we all had to put down a time individually, at this is where it got uber competitive as you can imagine, the photo tells you the results, if you want to see the splits and some videos you can few them on our Facebook page. Cue sore loser pose Paul.
- Lumps and bumps - experienced team member Anne Dwyer lead us around the track within a bike length of each other and snaked up and down the track and banking. All we had to do was keep the gap at 1 bike and follow the bike in front (harder than it looks, but looks cool)
- Aussie pursuit - From the previous results to groups were formed into to races - The rules are simple, as soon as you get caught you are out. The last one riding is the champion.
- Group 1 saw Anne, Gary, Stacy, Mike and Spencer - Gary held victory after a good 6-7 laps
- Group 2 saw Paul, Joey, Simon and Ed a good 9-10 laps with Simon trying hang on, Paul eventually came out on top, no surprise there.
- What a great day and an amazing experience we as a club will definitely do this again, so watch this space for another lung busting date in the 2017 calendar.
To find out more about track cycling visit British Cycling Track web page here