New to track racing

Who are 'they'..?

Difficult to answer without knowing where you are planning on racing...

You'll need to differentiate between outdoor and indoor tracks. Outdoor tracks will tend to run more events in the spring/summer when the weather is better and the evenings are lighter - and aside from a few showcase events or local/regional champs, most will be midweek.

Indoor can effectively be anytime, but events still tend to follow the same pattern.

There's fewer weekend races, as mentioned. Unless you're prepared to travel further afield, don't expect to be doing much regular weekend track racing at any time of the year.

Hi Andy,

The reason they're not showing up is you're out of season – it's only midweek winter track leagues at the moment, and they're only at the indoor velodromes. The season is the same as the road season and goes from April-October.

Herne Hill hosts an open meet the first Saturday of every month from April till September, and Full Gas promoted four or five opens at Lee Valley this year. There are two or three at Reading (though they tend to have a derny race element to them), and Bournemouth does two or three – Newport is rarer. Palmer Park still hasn't reopened. There's also Welwyn, but I've not ventured up there yet. There's also the Good Friday meet Lee Valley, but you'll need some decent A-cat results to your name and indoor race experience before they'll even consider you – it's heavy duty stuff, you'd be racing against the big boys…

One thing though, opens are a bit of a step up, and I wouldn't recommend doing one without experience. Crit racing will have given you some decent spatial awareness, but there is a different etiquette for racing on the track. Don't pass on the inside, for example, unless there's a ginormous gap. If you do shout inside and go for it, the rider in front of you is totally within their rights to shut the door on you. Also, you're going to have to know how to maintain a steady pace on the different parts of the banking, how to slow down gently without kicking back, how to take a pull on the front without causing a concertina effect behind you, how to dive back into the bunch from the top of the banking safely… Jeez, I could go on…

Just try heading down for either a Wednesday track league or Monday night race training at Herne Hill a couple of times, and if you're comfortable doing that (and the coaches don't yell at you…) sign up for some opens. Also, if week nights really are completely out for you, there's the intermediates session at HH which runs from 10-12pm on a Saturday, which would at least be a decent place to start, but not as good as actual race experience.

You'll probably be up to speed in a couple of sessions, it's just that an open meet isn't the place to be learning!

Just realised I've not given you the absolute standard advice everyone gives a new trackie: go fast, turn left

One of the problems with the track accreditation is the perceived view that this is a ticket to race. Even with road race / criterium / time trial / chaingang experience, riding a fixed gear bike at over 44kph (av. speed of a C cat endurance race) in a bunch on an indoor track takes practice. Passing your driving test does not make you a racing driver, it just means you have met the minimum standard to drive on the road. Same with track racing. Post accreditation should be all about riding SQTs, learning to ride with fast moving, fast changing riders. Time and again I see inexprerienced but strong riders taking part in SQTs who are hell bent on going faster than everyone else regardless of their ability to ride safely. (Probably the same ones who cause crashes in 3/4 crits.)