Team GB dominated the track cycling at the Olympics, as they did the World Championships earlier this year and we won Gold in the Team Sprint event with Chris Hoy, Jamie Staff and Jason Kenny stuffing the French by a full half-second.
So – what’s track racing all about?
Image via Wikipedia
First you need a track – a velodrome. These vary in length, the shorter the length the steeper the banking on the curves – reaching up to 50 degrees on a 250m track. The surface on an indoor track will be ultra-smooth wood – which is great but a spill can result in splinters flying when pedals dig in, which can be lethal.
The bikes are minimal, to say the least. Only one single fixed gear, and no brakes, ultra steep angles to reduce flex and wheelbase so maximum power is transmitted through the back wheel, these are very much the greyhound of bikes. There are nuances of design, depending on the event being raced.
There’s been a lot of technical development for Team GB with reports of the “million pound bike” in the press and indeed every advantage is looked for to win. Materials and design in all areas – tyres that last just long enough for a race, just like motorbike racing.
The events
The Sprint
Probably the most confusing for the uninitiated is the sprint, where at time the competitors quite literally come to a stand still, balancing on the bike, performing a track stand. The reason for this is to gain a tactic advantage; it’s often easier to overtake your competitor as you slip stream them, rather than leading from the front. So you stop, hoping that the competitor will not stop as quickly, thus taking the lead, or will crack first and initiate the sprint. You can’t go backwards.
Then you sprint – going for broke, first over the line wins – very fast, very powerful, totally draining. As you swoop down from the top of the banked curve it feels like you’re being slingshot out of a gun! The distance for a sprint is 1000m but only the last 200m is actually timed, so there’s plenty of time for all these tactical manouvres to take place.
The Pursuit
Bradly Wiggins is a master at the individual pursuit event. The riders, either a team or an individual, start opposite each other and try to catch each other. Simple as that. TV coverage is often done on a split screen so you can see how each team is doing compared to the other. Distance is 5km and if a competitor or competitive team is caught, the race is deemed to have been won, but often the time difference is second or fractions of a second.
The Madison
Now this is hugely entertaining, hugely dangerous, hugely confusing; best thought of as “team tag” racing. The aim is to gain laps and points, points being awarded in the sprints which take place every 10 laps, if you manage to gain a lap then this will ensure victory.
The “tag’ elements comes from it being a team event, with one member of the pair (each team being a pair) actually racing, whilst the other circles around the track resting. At a given moment the resting rider will speed up, the racing rider will grab his partner’s hand and “slingshot” him up to speed to take over his racing slot. With up to 12 teams and 24 riders on the track, all going at different speeds there’s plenty of opportunity for crashes, but very few happen such is the skill of the rides – remember there are no brakes on these bikes!
Devil take the hindmost
An elimination race where the last rider over the line in a group race has to drop out, reducing the filed and thus increasing the intensity of the competition.
Kilometre time trial
A time trial over a 1000m
Motor-paced racing
A group race where the riders are paced for part of the race distance by motorbikes called Derny’s – this is to ensure speeds are very high, up to 45mph lap after lap. It helps to have a rotund Derny rider as this increases the size of your wind break! The Derny rider actually has a lot of tactical responsibility for the race.
The Keirin, in the Olympics and for which we should win gold, is similar to the full on Derny race, but the Derny’s drop out once the riders are up to speed.
All of this is great fun to either do or to watch. The track I used to ride on was at Herne Hill and the big meets there used to command attendances of 10′s of thousands! When I rode it was a bit tatty, a large diameter track with fairly gentle banking, and tarmac’d rather than wooden, being outdoors, but good fun none the less and great to be so close to the racing stars of the day – feet away as they’d belt around the track!
Neil
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