Velodrome cycling-who has done it?

[nuliajuk]

I raced in a track league for about 6 seasons back in the 80s and 90s, both sanctioned events and weekly league racing. It isn't really hard to learn, and the reason there aren't any brakes is precisely because you have a fixed gear - you slow yourself down by applying pressure on the pedal as it comes up on the back of the stroke. You really don't want to have someone slamming on a brake in front of you when you're on the steepest part of the banking because such a drastic loss of momentum can cause you to slide down the banking.

The hardest thing to learn is riding slowly in the match sprints - the more momentum you have, the more perpendicular you are to the banking (think of swinging pendulum around in a circle, the faster you swing it, the more horizontal it becomes.) Hitting a pedal on the banking is a concern when riding very slowly.

Track cycling is actually a lot of fun, and for people who work for a living, perhaps more accessible than road racing. The distances are shorter, so the training is short, fast, and furious with a lot of interval work, rather than very long road rides out on the highway all the time. Track bikes are dead simple, so the equipment required is not super expensive, either. Especially now that "fixies" are in every urban bike shop. I could only dream of having that much track equipment available to me back when I was racing!