Vive le Vélodrome!
Vive le Vélodrome!
Track cycling races are very exciting. The live audience can get so close they can feel the rush of air as the riders whiz past at speeds of up to 70kph. Many professional riders ride on the track to keep their fitness at high levels going into the Spring Classics. As a cycling fan at the trackside, it’s hugely entertaining to watch the different events. Even better: try riding on the track yourself, if you dare.
Track cycling history
Track racing on bicycles began in 1870 and became huge just before the Second World War. In the US, there were the highly popular six-day races held in Madison Square Gardens in New York. These gave their name to one event still ridden today: The Madison (koppelkoers in Dutch). Author Ernest Hemingway was know for spending whole six-day events writing trackside, as well as enjoying a drink or two.
One American rider who made the vélodrome his own in the early days of track racing was Marshall Walter ‘Major’ Taylor. Taylor, a sprinter, was an important figure in sport in general. He was the first-ever African American to win a world championship in cycling, in 1899. Marshall suffered from racial discrimination throughout his career, but was nevertheless very successful on the track. He won races in Madison Square Gardens in front of up to 60,000 people. He raced in Europe in 1901 and won 42 of the 57 races he entered. He remains a giant of the sport.
Track cycling today
Racing on the track is popular in Europe today, mainly in Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK. Australia and New Zealand, as well as China and Japan, also have a rich track racing tradition. Most tracks these days measure 250m long and are made from strips of wood. They have two straights and two banked turns. In the Low Countries the track in known as the piste, and the riders pistiers. There are always two types of riders which attend track races, the skinnier riders, and the riders with legs like tree trunks. These different physiques reflect the two bike racing disciplines which take place on the track: endurance and sprint. German rider Robert Förstemann has the most famous sprinter’s legs in the business at the moment. They have earned him the nickname: Quadzilla. Most sprints on the track take eight to 10 laps in total, and often reach their climax in the final and blisteringly fast lap. These riders will not enter the endurance events.
Successful Dutch professional Niki Terpstra always rides on the track in winter. He is often seen in the six-day events and is an endurance guy. The winners of six-day events are duos. Two riders form a team and rack up points throughout the events, which are ridden over six days (well, nights actually) with final races often ending after midnight.
Track cycling bikes
Some call it the purest form of cycling. The bikes on the track have a fixed gear: that means you cannot backpedal, as the gear is ‘fixed’. Despite the arrival of carbon fibre and highly aerodynamic track bikes, the modern track cycling drive train is not much different to in Major Taylor’s day: a big chain ring on the front, a small one on the back, and a chain linking them together. The bikes also have no brakes. Why? Because it’s in everyone’s interest on the track that nobody brakes suddenly, causing a crash. It’s possible to adjust your speed in two different ways on the track, without brakes – but more of that later.
Track bikes are more difficult to ride than conventional bikes – for obvious reasons – and this is perhaps partly why they were adopted by the bicycle courier scene, who created ‘fixies’. ‘Fixie’ refers to the fixed gear. Fixies often have at least one brake fitted for use on the road, but out on the track, no one has brakes. Sprinter’s bikes have huge gears, while endurance riders often ride with a relatively normal gear (for example, 52 teeth on the front cog and 14 teeth on the rear). The purity of track cycling comes partly from the fact that track cyclists have no gears and so to go faster they must simply pedal faster. This necessitates excellent ‘souplesse’, or the ability to ride very efficiently at high cadence. Souplesse is seen as the mark of a stylish cyclist.
Track cycling: The Derny
The derny is a small motorcycle (90cc) used in track cycling for motor-pacing. A derny team consists of a derny ‘pilot’ and the bicycle rider. Up to six teams ride against each other in these events (which often form part of a six-day race’s programme). Success in this event rests not only on good legs, but on clear communication between pilot and rider.
Regular visitors to track events cannot easily forget the large amounts of blue smoke which permeate the track during derny races. On the one hand this creates a very special and nostalgic atmosphere. On the other, we can understand why these days electric dernies are being introduced.
Try track cycling yourself
Most tracks offer introductory courses to newbies and we definitely recommend trying that if you’ve never ridden on a track before. You can usually hire a bike trackside too. Cycling on a racing track on a fixed gear bike with no brakes is a scary thing to do the first time you do it. This is only partly because of the special type of bike. Note: you will always be riding in an anticlockwise direction. Why is it scary? The banking on the track feels much (much) steeper and higher than it looks on pictures, and you have to ride around the banking at above 30kph to negotiate it successfully. One of the first things you are taught, after basic fixie riding skills, is to hit the banking at high speed and keep going, while keeping your line of travel relative to other riders.
Keeping your line is very important and there are always three lines painted on the track for you to orientate yourself with: the black, the red and the blue. The blue band at the bottom of the track is called the ‘Côte d’Azur’ and is used to enter and leave the track. So how do you slow down? Either reduce the pedalling pressure on your feet, or alternatively steer slightly to the right. The track is angled upwards so if you feel yourself heading into the back wheel of the guy in front, you steer ever so slightly to the right, and your route around the track will take a little bit longer, thus slowing you down relative to the rider in front. Want to go faster? Steer to the left. There are a large number of things to watch out for when riding on the track, but also fewer more satisfying ways to get a large amount of adrenalin in your system. And once you’ve got the hang of it, there’s nothing more satisfying on a racing bike than charging down from high up on the banking to sprint like a maniac on the black line.
Track cycling races are very exciting. The live audience can get so close they can feel the rush of air as the riders whiz past at speeds of up to 70kph. Many professional riders ride on the track to keep their fitness at high levels going into the Spring Classics. As a cycling fan at the trackside, it’s hugely entertaining to watch the different events. Even better: try riding on the track yourself, if you dare.