Back to the track

As I said in my previous post...i have taken up track bike riding class. Thank you all for your concern about my physical well being...what I have to say from my observation so far...once you get the hang of riding a fixie it isn't that much more dangerous than riding on the road...by that I mean riding a track bike on a track...verdict is still out in my mind how I feel about riding a fixed gear on the road...but that is another topic. Sure riding without brakes sounds pretty dangerous. I agree...but being in a situation where NO ONE has brakes...there are no cars and it is pretty 'controlled' as far as there is proper etiquette the whole no brake thing actually isn't that bad. No one can randomly slow down like on the road when someone has a brake. The only thing you have to be concerned about is quick movement to the up side of the track. That is where the danger is because it is pretty easy to have someone who is not paying attention swing up-track and potentially cause a crash. Without breaks it becomes impossible to randomly slow down so basically the person behind you won't bunch up too, too much if you slow down. But that being said, I still do have some moderate level of concern about not having breaks as much as everyone else. But it really isn't as scary as I imagined it...so maybe that is what I mean by less 'dangerous'...maybe just less scary.

Now that being said there was a little interesting situation I came into tonight. We were working on pace lines, riding in the pole lane (or the sprinters lane at the bottom of the track). The people in front of me had sorta randomly slowed down(as much as you can on a track bike) and were starting to bunch a little. The way to deal with the situation is to go a little 'up track' from them by fanning out, grab a bit of wind to slow you down and try to ease off the pressure on the pedals...but not to back pedal if possible and when the speed evens out, get back into the pace line. So they are bunching, I go a little up track and the guy behind me somehow thinks that I am pulling OUT...which if you pull OUT now you have to go UP track and then have to grab the end of the line. So he has closed this gap where I had been...and now I cannot get back 'in' where I was. I have been effectively 'pushed' out of the pace line. We are not going very fast so I feel lame at this point because when you pull OUT it is because you are TIRED...i was far from tired at this point. But whatever. I now have to cruise to the back and hang on back there. Granted it was our first go around at the whole pace line situation, but of course I had to be the first one to be 'pushed' out. We all are still learning, so no big deal.

One thing I am learning is that if I get someone who can hold a really smooth line I am MUCH more comfortable holding a close distance to them than to someone who is squirrel-ly in their pedaling and hence their rear tire goes all over the show. I just hope I am holding my line ok...although i'm sure I'm not exactly the smoothest rider either...but trying to keep the pedal strokes even and smooth.

I am about 200% more comfortable on the bike this week. This week I just had to remind myself: DON'T STOP PEDALING and REMEMBER NO BREAKS. Instead of last week where it was at the front of the my mind the whole class. I let it rip a little bit more as we started doing paceline 'burn outs'...where we would practice a paceline, get some experience of pulling at the front and pulling out to the back...but after awhile the guy in charge would tell us to pick up the pace until basically everyone but the last 4-6 people were left in the pace line. If the pace gets too high and you can't close a gap...you have to pull out so that the people behind you can keep with the paceline.

In some ways its kinda fun because if a gap starts to form between the person in front of you and the person they are behind you get to start yelling: CLOSE THE GAP!!...until they close it or they pull out. I kept ended up behind the same guy on many of these drills and he would just wait forever on closing the gap...I know he was trying, but he just wasn't closing it and finally he would pull UP and OUT...but then there was this HUGE gap I now had to close. I did alright closing the gap, but unfortunately that ends up wasting a lot of energy early on so that when the pace got higher I burned out quicker. No matter...still fun.

Eventually the paceline would get to a speed where I couldn't keep up and I'd have to pull out....sometimes I'd do pretty decently and hang for awhile...so I felt pretty good in the fact I am probably in the middle of the 'pack' as far as strength of holding with the group. A couple of times when I came off the track I was shaking pretty hard so I knew at least I had given it a pretty hard go.

I am enjoying learning the new skill set. I'm having fun and meeting new people which is always good. Who knows...maybe I will become that 'track bike girl'....although i still like my breaks.