Visit to the Velodrome

This was my very first visit to the velodrome and it was pretty exciting, definitely worth a blog post.  It was my friend Steve who had spotted the opportunity a few months ago, so all was set for us to go and meet up with our mutual friends Andrew and Harry.  I reckon I was the only one of the four of us who’d never been to this kind of event or even seen it on TV.  I was quite excited but also feeling blooming’ awful, more about that below.

Andrew and Harry travelled together, I went with Steve in his car to the Lee Valley Velopark (part of the London Olympic 2012 legacy).  Steve had booked parking on someone’s driveway about 15 minutes walk from the stadium.  As we walked closer our anticipation grew, especially as we started to get glimpses of the velodrome itself in a slightly eerie light as the sun dipped below the horizon.  “Steve, just hold on a second.  Doesn’t the velodrome look brilliant in this light?  Gotta see if I can get a photo of it” and so I took the above photo with my iPhone.

Once through the usual lax security, we slowly made our way towards our seats.  The place was packed, all adding to the exciting atmosphere.  Bikes were wizzing around, people were whistling, cheering and clapping.  Between races the lights went down with the track illuminated by some deep blue night lighting and with projected #sixdaylondon logos swirling around.

The Sixday series

Turns out this is a truly international event.  Not just in London or even European but I mean world wide.  The series includes similar events in Berlin, Copenhagen, Melbourne, Manchester and with the finals in Brisbane, Australia.

The races

I quickly learned there’s more to this riding round in circles at an event like this.  While there were a number of time trials and chases, there’s a couple of races which stood out.

We saw the Madison, named after Madison Square Gardens in New York.  There are two cyclists in each team and they take it in turn to be racing, in a tag kind of way.  The cyclist who’s not racing continues to cycle around the track a little slower and out of the way of those racing against each other.  When they come to switch over, at an incredibly high speed, the outgoing cyclist holds his hand out to grab his incoming team mate.  Then in a kind of slingshot move the incoming cyclist is flung forward.  All very exciting.  Once or twice I even thought we were going to see a crash with a tiny wobble while this was happening; plenty of thrills and fortunately no spills.

The Derny races were almost comical.  When a couple of Derny bikes came onto the track, I thought it was almost a joke, a kind of warm up act for something bigger.  So you know, Derny bikes are like old fashioned mopeds. They have slightly different sized wheels, they look rather quaint, very rudimentary with a tiny engine and a petrol tank bolted onto the handlebars.  The rider, typically an older, rather plump looking bloke would sit low down in a rather upright position with his legs awkwardly doing a bit of peddling.  Although these things didn’t look as if they were made for speed, they could easily hit 50+mph.

So that’s the Derny bike explained and now to the Derny race.  There were eight Derny bikes and eight cyclists and they were matched by a random draw.  The Derny bikes started around the track and then the cyclists were off after them.  Once the cyclist had latched onto his Derny, he could benefit from the slipstream effect and go even faster.  I’m still not quite sure how the communication works between the Derny and his cyclist in terms of going faster or slower but clearly it works somehow or other.

Wow!

Wow that was fun.  Incredible to see those speeds hitting around 50mph.  Quite a mixture of riders with some looking quite heavily built with huge muscles alongside learner, lighter riders who equally held their own.

The bikes themselves are obviously track bikes; single fixed gear, tight geometry, no brakes.

In a slightly tongue-in-cheak way I asked Andrew if my steel framed touring bike would do the job.  I even suggested I could take the mudguards and pannier rack off.  He gave me one of “those” looks and suggested I wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the track, regardless of the bike.  So that was that!

Steve already knew…

….I was not feeling 100%.  I was wearing my Craft thermal top (normally reserved for freezing conditions), a shirt, a wooly jumper (sorry to vegan friends and readers), a gilet, a fleece and a bobble hat.  I was still cold, almost shivering.  Steve kindly turned up the temperature in the car but I didn’t want it to get too hot in case it made him drowsy.  Apart from feeling cold, I was starting to get a cough.

Turns out these symptoms are for a UTI, a urinary tract infection.  This was confirmed by a dipstick test at the Doctors and thus a course of antibiotics.  I ought to have gone to the Doctor earlier but you know how it goes, you think you can weather these things through.  I simply can’t afford to have an infection reach my kidneys.  Even though the antibiotics are starting to work, I still feel cold and awful.

So huge thanks

To Steve for coming up with the idea and organising it, driving me there and for being such a great friend.  Thanks to Andrew and Harry who patiently explained the different races and put up with me coughing and spluttering next to them.

Although on one level it was simply four friends going to a cycling event and perhaps no big deal, I do value them beyond that.  Their camaraderie, our shared beliefs, values, the years we’ve known each other, our love of cycling and sense of doing these things.  Thanks guys!

Link to the Six Day website – here