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Everyone go look up how close the closest velodrome is, and see if you'll be able to take a track class some day. Here's a slightly edited trip report from when I went 2 years ago: ============================= Went to the Try the Track event at the outdoor velodrome in Londonderry, NH. Even though I've had that custom Cheeto fixie for a long time, this is the first time the stars have aligned for me to get on track. My bike's HTA is 74, so pretty stable but could probably be more stable. 25mm tires was more than enough comfort despite there being quite a few seams on the concrete. The first part of training was track protocol -- starting on the rail, calling "stay," the sprinter's lane. The instruction was a tad bit casual, and I got upset by the few experienced riders who were chatting during lessons and ignoring the basic drills. I guess I'm coming from a kickboxing background, where you do not gently caress around with instruction for safety. For senior people to be doing that and distracting complete noobs was a real turn-off. We went through a shoulder bump drill (just stay shoulder to shoulder or shoulder to ribs with a partner while lapping) and a look back drill. The paceline drill was cake, though the gentle banking on the 333m track mean that there wasn't that cool sudden slowdown from moving up. Bump drill pic:  Then we did a "mini keirin drill" where 3 riders go out, the first one setting pace for the first lap, and the 2 followers can start to race at the start of the second lap. In theory, the leadout should really pick up speed on the 2nd lap so that the followers can stay back in the draft and time when they pop out. Because of the big mix of experience and fitness, a lot of the racing jumped the leadout as soon as the 2nd lap started. When I was leading out, I gave a good boost on the 2nd lap, but got passed right away. Against one guy, he tried to slowly ramp up speed, so I stayed glued and made a move coming out of the last turn. Lost by maybe 6" at the line. Against the other rider, he flew away before I could latch on. He was one of a handful of people with their own bike, and his gearing was pretty high, which was hard to deal with. In the middle of this drill, one woman (who had raced track once before) set a fast pace and kept it through the finish. Her chaser poured it on through the last turn and burned tons of energy drifting out to mid-track, but just managed to squeak by at the line. Unfortunately, the first woman moved off the sprinter's lane after the finish while the chaser slid down toward her. They tangled bars and crashed. One broke a helmet and the other looked like she'd broken or at least dislocated her wrist. That incident got me and everyone else a lot more alert and serious about staying in your lane. In the afternoon, we did the mock races. The coach split us into two groups of performance. I was in the lower one. Some just-graduated Harvard men's crew team members were at the event, and despite very little riding experience (they did have shoes from doing spin bikes as part of their workouts), they were of course aerobic monsters. I mean this in the most hateful, jealous way, but they were so fuckin sexy. Just picture minor height and hair color variations on Sunshine from Remember the Titans. Anyways, these guys and all the experienced riders were in A, and our B group was mostly intermediate roadies. First race format was 2 lap scratch. Once again, I missed the lead group and ate wind for the last half lap. 2nd format was a 14 lap elimination, elimination every other lap. I had more success here, as the cool off and rerampup pacing following each elimination sprint gave me some downtime to recharge. In kickboxing, you have 1min between rounds to breathe hard and get your heart rate down, so I could work through that cycle pretty naturally. Made the first 2 eliminations no problem. Pic of me (red shouldered Belgian jersey) going into a 4-wide elimination:  In this moment, I'm thinking that it'd be unsporting at this level of event to box the other Belgian jersey rider out. After the moment of this pic, I latch onto the outside line for a bit to give him room to move up if he wanted. Then I wanted to make sure I wasn't eliminated and dropped back into that open lane. Other Belgian was generally a very conservative and steady rider, so I think that's why he wasn't more aggressive about breaking out. With my lane clear, I drilled it to the line. I wobbled a bit but stayed in my lane and didn't bump any shoulders, and came through first. Had no idea who got eliminated. Next lap around, I'm at the head of the line and all psyched to pull for my teammate. I was looking to the coaches at the finish line to find out who got eliminated. They were motioning and saying "yellow jersey" since we didn't have numbers on. Two of us had on Belgian flag style jerseys, red, yellow, black. I try to point to myself to see if they wanted me off:  I thought I got a positive response, so elected to pull up at the next turn, assuming the sprint I made last lap must have been dangerous. Didn't want to risk not following orders. Some of the crowd was confused by my exit. Turns the coaches meant the other Belgian jersey (I think he did end up stuck in the back), so I just screwed myself out of some seat time. Note how I'm cheating on the hoods for the easy lap. 3rd format was a 20 lap points race. Theme of the day -- missed the lead group flying off and couldn't reel them in. Lapped naked for 15 laps and finished half a lap behind the winners. One of the collegiate racers from my cycling club was in the lead group the whole way. Somewhere in her ride, she was 1s off the QOM 1-lap record. All the rental bikes were 48x17, and so was mine -- 74.5". I'm pretty comfortable spinning but in good riding shape, so without drafting, I had trouble keeping pace -- all spin. I'd like to come back and try a different gear ratio. My frame doesn't have dimpled chainstays, so I'm tapping out at 49t up front. I have a couple of options:  Not sure how well I can test ride 49x15 or 49x16 out on the road. Octopus Magic posted:Man, I remember going up there 10+ years ago. It's good to see it back going... The acceleration was great but even at my cadence limit, I don't think the air drag was close to being a wall. Do track riders worry about extra cog wear on smaller cogs? Looks like you can get down to 12t. bicievino posted:I've never seen anyone wear out a cog, but there is some inclination towards mechanical efficiency of larger cogs (no idea how real that is - something about greater friction loss because the chain is making a tighter turn?). That and the ever-increasing gear ratios that folks run has world-level people running insane-sized chainrings - the biggest I've ever seen is a 64. Very. The coach noted that the track was built decreasing radius for turn 4, with a pretty pronounced apex. I'd run a couple of fast laps before he mentioned that, and was definitely going wide well above the midpoint of the track instead of working harder to dig and stay in the lane. After seeing a few of the fast guys stick it, that gave me more confidence to keep drafting and really turn to keep down after the apex. The biggest thing coming from road is that you're usually freewheeling and leaning and making adjustments with body English, but that technique all goes out the window if you have to pedal through the turn. As expected, having good pedaling form pays dividends in controlling the bike.
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Jul 25, 2020 20:32
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 17:37 |
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I had a dream that I entered a cross race and won the novice class. I've never done any cycling competition of any sort. The course was grassy with a bunch of 1ft drops and one pretty steep runup. The drops were extremely fun and they didn't jounce nearly as much as they would irl. I couldn't get my cadence over 40 for some reason, which was distressing but somehow not affecting my speed. My backup bike was a duplicate of the bike I was using (my gravel bike that I obviously have just one of). I think the race was a typical 40min long, but I rode at most 3 laps of a few min each, but still managed to lap people? Couldn''t have been more than 20 people out there, and the whole time I was thinking, crazy to be near people with covid going on. So yeah, I'm a confirmed legend in my own mind.
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Aug 4, 2020 17:54
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If track cycling were suddenly modified so that tracks were ridden clockwise instead of counterclockwise, how much shakeup would there be in performance? How much muscle memory helps cyclists lean left and move up and down a left-sloping banking?
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Oct 8, 2020 00:21
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Let's say most tracks were capable of being run both ways. Would you rather have a version of the sport where riding both ways was possible? Like either the direction was announced well ahead of race day, or determined by coin flip?
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Oct 8, 2020 01:03
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My man over here with the modesty football tights.
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May 9, 2021 08:23
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TobinHatesYou posted:occasionally picking up people who used me as a draft, but they weren't able to share the workload. I dropped them all  quote:I need to learn how to descend the really loose gravel bits. How much do you think could be helped from a different tread, and would that cancel out in the asphalt parts?
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May 24, 2021 02:36
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I don't think there's anything like seeing the road plunge down into a valley ahead of you and not having any cars going either way.
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May 30, 2021 18:41
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The Pina is the most organic looking frame for a reason.
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Sep 15, 2021 17:29
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Literally Lewis Hamilton posted:I check my Garmin and there’s a course point for a gas station. I asked my buddy if this place was added because it’s 24 hours, and he said confirmed it was. I’ve never been happier than in that moment, it was like Christmas. We start talking about getting hot dogs, loaded with relish, maybe a slice of pizza? Definitely some coffee. It keeps us occupied for the 5 miles or so to the gas station. It’s open. There’s no hot food, but there is hot coffee, and a big bag of cheetohs with my name on them. I eat the entire thing and pound a coffee in the parking lot. Live by the trash, die by the trash.
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Sep 21, 2021 21:49
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> but I continued my approach of planning to just mark the folks in my field Do you just have to remember jersey/helmet combinations of the riders you care about? I have no idea if the races are chaotic enough that you can't spot the numbers.
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Sep 24, 2021 12:06
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Is that chain off the ring in prep for washing?
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Oct 17, 2021 02:13
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Are the stairs a permanent feature that get packed up and rebuilt for races?
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Oct 21, 2021 05:45
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Having now done a dive into the numbers, the work I've done to improve my position is definitely working - compared to the last time I did this course on a TT bike (my penultimate race pre crash), on the flat bits I was going faster for less watts into a bigger head wind at higher air pressure. Lost all my time on the 1km at 4% climb due to being a bit more chunky than I was. Maybe the fat gives you a better Cd.
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Apr 14, 2022 23:47
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Did you use the same setup for the two gravel races? What tires?
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May 29, 2022 04:31
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e.pilot posted:New TT bike absolutely rips compared to TTrash. Was the rest of equipment/conditions same enough to let you estimate time saved over the 40k?
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Jun 19, 2022 00:25
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 17:37 |
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Did you hop at all or did the approach angle just work out?
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May 27, 2023 23:18
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