My lovely wife bought me a velodrome experience booked for end of the month and frankly I’m a bit terrified. I’ve done lots of types of riding in the past but never on the track. My outside experiences of riding a fixie have been limited and scared the bejesus out of me but hoping it’s a bit better in a velodrome.

Any tips to get track ready in 3 wks?

Is amazing. The instructors are brilliant. You will love it.

What he said

sounds like you’re in the right place. Far better than some gung-ho attitude. Be open minded, listen to the coaches, do as you’re told, and be amazed how tiring riding around on the flat for 45 minutes can be.

Don’t stop pedalling…

at least that’s all that went through my head for a hour.

interspersed with ‘**** that’s a long way down’

Once you get your head around it, it’s tremendous fun.

You’ll be fine, I did it with a group just before covid kicked off.

It wasn’t long before we were belting round trying to get high on the banking, to be honest the hardest bit was slowing down and stopping at the rail!

PS It’s knackering 🙂

Listen to the coaches, they’re excellent. You’ll get more out of it than those who think they know it all and just wobble off up the banking.

The rail at the bottom of the track has a gate controlled by a slider on the top rail.
Try not to come to a stop with your hand on the latch and fall through the gate like Del Boy falling through the bar hatch.
Don’t ask how I know…..

Take lots of water.

Keep pedalling!

Enjoy yourself, it’s ace.

be amazed how tiring riding around on the flat for 45 minutes can be

Is not what I wanted to hear; she got me the full 3hour experience because more equals better! She’s trying to kill me off I think. Luckily I’m super fit right now & haven’t gained 2-stone since Covid……

Don’t stop pedalling, which is a lot harder than it sounds when your balls have gone to sleep because the hire bike’s saddle is badly adjusted. Standing up to get the blood flowing is ok but it’s almost impossible not to then try to coast when you sit back down 🙂

Real tip though, when riding close to someone’s wheel and you start to get too close don’t brake (with your legs) just move outwards slightly, a few inches, you’ll slow in the wind a bit and of course on the corners you’ll drop back automatically.

And don’t try and slow too fast with your legs after leaving the track, because this constitutes eccentric muscle extension and will give you the worst DOMS of your life.

Is not what I wanted to hear; she got me the full 3hour experience because more equals better!

You won’t be riding for 3hrs. Velodrome riding is all about games and challenges etc not endless circles, so you’ll stop to set up the next activity.

Also, the height is nothing. In terms of altitude it’s no worse than looking down some drop in the woods and technically far easier because you don’t have to ride down it just literally sit and pedal forwards.

Enjoy it! As others have said, the track coaches are brilliant. I would love to be able to do more on the track. It’s a bit addictive.

All good tips above I have two important ones. That come from experience:
1) Do not go up the banking until your are told to, if you go too slowly and go up there, its bloody steep and you can slide off, easy to get badly hurt.
2) In the same vein, if someone else who is on there with you goes up before they should, try and avoid them because when they come clattering down they will take you out also.
(2a if you can, avoid going on the velodrome with pillocks)

It’s good fun, you pick it up quickly. Listen to the coaches. Do t pretend to be Chris Hoy.

Also you won’t be riding the whole 3hrs, you’ll do 15 mins then a break, then a different exercise.

Look ahead, not down. Let your eyes follow the painted lines and you’ll automatically ride that way. Look before you move – don’t swing up the track without looking over your shoulder. That’ll be drilled into you at the start along with the instruction to keep pedalling!

Relax and enjoy it. 🙂

Don’t stop pedalling.

When you’ve been pottering around doing the exercises for 20 minutes and then the instructor says ‘now you can go as fast as you like’ you have about 2 laps before you think your legs will fall off.

It’s brilliant fun, but it hurts.

Which track?

I never got beyond Level 3 accreditation, but have done loads of beginners sessions at Derby with my old FLAB riding group.

Listen to the coaches. They know how to turn scared newbies into surprisingly happy riders.

They’ll build it up slowly, starting, stopping and pedalling on the flat to gradually getting you up the banking.

They’ll also start you spread out for safety and get you riding closer when they think you are ready – it’s not in their interests or yours to have crashes and injuries.

Try and relax and enjoy it, and keep pedalling. It’s a beautifully pure way of pedalling.

At the worst, you’ll try it, tick it off your bucket list and not do it again.

don’t swing up the track without looking over your shoulder.

Yes, I found that intuitive because I drive, it’s just like being on a motorway.

Devil-take-the-hindmost with a bunch of cat 2 and above roadie clubmates all newish to track cycling but ultra competitive with a point to prove at the tight little track at Calshot. 1- you think you can ride the corners until you ride it flat chat and it spits you out and 2- I have never bolloxed myself cardiavascally quite so badly in all my days.

Apart from that it was ace fun. A little while later I took a bunch of kids back to Calshot for a week long multi-activity holiday and they just threw me the keys to the velodrome to go play whenever I was free – My lottery house might have a velodrome in the shed for rainy days.

Be like Wout 🤣

Even at Newport which is standard Olympic style you really do pull a lot of Gs when flat out in the corners. It’s a bit of a surprise first time.

You’ll have a moment where you’ve got the hang of it and are whooshing round near the top of the banking. Closely followed by your legs falling off and you realise you’re whooshing along near the top of the banking. It’s ace.

we did a 2 hour session as a club at Newport, the coaches were excellent (and quite direct in their style too, I didn’t mind given the danger but I think one person on my course thought as a paying customer they should have received a fully deferential treatment. Be prepared for that if you’re sensitive!)

IDK what your session will entail but this is what we did.

We were split into a group of newbies and a group of more experienced riders who’d done it before, so 2 groups of 8, doing 15 minute rotations.

R1 – we got a briefing on how the bikes work, safety, etc. while the other group did something

R2 – we were allowed on the blue inner and then lowest black and red lines to get used to constant pedalling and a feeling of how to start, stop, speed up and slow down, keeping pace on the banking, etc.

R3 – we sat in the middle and recovered and talked about what was to come next while they did something (same for our off sessions from here on)

R4 – we got going in a steady pace line on the red line, and on the whistle the front rider drops to the black and tries to get round to join the back of the line. You get the benefit of the shorter distance (not that much, discussion here https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/velodrome-distance-around-blue-line/) but counter that, no draft. The first time is relatively easy, but still work – second time was harder, some of us got a third go which was distinctly proper feeling, especially when your clubmates from the inside start providing ‘motivation’. Do you give full beans and try to get back into the slipstream quickly, or measure it to work your way steadily…… It was taking typically 2-4 laps to get back on depending on your strategy.

R5 – lie on floor, recovering

R6 – all circulating halfways between red and blue line but with about 1,5 bike length between us. On the whistle the back rider goes up the track and then zigzags through the field to the front. Sounds terrifying on paper, and a couple said they weren’t confident to do it but the reality is that with us all moving at the same speed, it’s only the speed difference that matters so it was like weaving through cones at about walking pace. Then we closed the gaps and circulated on the red line taking turns to swing off the front up the banking and then drop back into line again at the back like a proper pace line. By this time a couple of less confident and weaker riders had dropped out so the rest of us actually got some proper pace going, and also got our looking and calling out working.

R7 – really lie down and recover

R8 – individual 500m time trial. One at a time you start from the cote d’azur, lap and a half to get moving and on the back straight of second lap speed up and move up to the top of the banking so as you come down the home straight you move down to use the height and hit the S/F line just above the black line. And then – well, in my mind it was a question of whether I have a 500m sprint in me at this stage. So I didn’t go max on my first flying lap; close to but not full…… and then as I rounded the second curve towards the end of L1 I felt ‘OK’ and so for L2 I went absolute screaming max effort. And by the time I was entering the final curve 200m later was utterly hanging, genuinely. That was ridiculous hard and how riders do that for 3.5 laps going long in the Keirin, no wonder they have mattresses and vom buckets on hand for their training efforts. As I circulated after the finish (DON’T STOP PEDALLING NOW!!!) I was properly seeing stars. And I came second (out of our group of 8)

So as I say, about 45 mins of proper riding, and broken by the end of it.

(from what I remember our 500m times were around the high 30’s mark, high 40’s of kph (36s = 50kph). The WR is 24.758 – Chris Hoy – and the world hour record is about 16.4s per lap average so 32.8s per 500m. And then do 110 of them)

That’s my place, and I’m firmly in it.

That’s my place, and I’m firmly in it.

I used to ride and race track regularly (Manchester) and my best solo time around the black line was almost identical to what Chris Hoy could do at the very top of the track. Which is easily 60m more distance. Also, I’d be flat out while CH would just be winding up for his actual proper effort, not even going full gas.

Kind of the equivalent of me starting at the 100m line and being beaten to the finish by Usain Bolt who’d started at the 200m line. 😳

Oh, an actual proper tip. Take a water bottle, you will need to drink a lot and you obviously can’t drink while riding!

It’s great fun !

Try and ride relaxed, keep focussed on rider in front for any erratic moves, never half wheel underneath, always be ready to go high to avoid hazards. Oh, and always look over your right shoulder before moving up !

I coach youths on the track, they love it and after a couple of sessions post accreditation they usually find it second nature.

I did it a few years ago with a group of mountain bike leaders. I found it a bit duller than it could have been. The instructor kept us on a pretty tight leash, built us up really slowly. He did this by standing in the middle of the straight and you had to move out to pass him then drop back down. He then gradually worked his way up the track so you were passing higher and higher but this all took an age. When he did let up a bit he still wasn’t keen on any kind of overtaking. I don’t if he was expecting some kind of wacky racing scenario due to our backgrounds but it wasn’t going to happen on his watch. I’d rather mess about on a pumptrack.

Which is easily 60m more distance.

You’d be surprised actually. As per the thread I linked earlier the size of the velodrome has no effect on the extra distance as long as the lines are the same distance above the black.

The track is two straights plus two semicircles. The straights are the same on blue, red or black, so in the end we only have a circle to consider.

Circumference is pi x diameter. If the diam of the black line is D, then C(black) = pi * D

Blue line is 2.5m above the black. Hence diam of blue is D+5 and C(blue) = pi * (D+5)

pi * D is the same in all cases and hence the difference is only pi * 5 = 15.5m give or take.

Oddly*, if the track is a perfect circle, or a very long lozenge, or even if it’s a 250m or 500m or 125m even the M25; it makes no difference at all to the distance differential (of course giving up 15m in a race around a 125m track is different to 15m headstart around the M25)

* not odd, it’s maths. But it seems odd.

To your example, a 60+ metre lap distance difference from top to bottom of the track would indicate a track that is 60/pi different in diameter = 9.5m wide track. I just looked at the Manchester track in pics to extrapolate from the blue line = 2.5m, and I reckon 7-8m.

TL;DR – you’re not as slow as you think 😉

I’ve done sessions at the Calshot one a few times and it varied depending on the size of the group and instructor, with one session being more group structured and the other being a bit more gung-ho.
To be honest, the initial excitement comes from the pure novelty of riding as high up the bank as possible – but once you move onto ‘proper’ riding you do much less of that as the higher you go, the slower you go.
Watching the group pass beneath you as you slowly lose speed on a 45degree bank is a bit of an eye opener.

If you’ve never ridden fixed, just practice riding but not stopping pedalling, if you get used, even just a little, to constantly turning the pedals, that may help getting in the fixed mindset a bit.

Really though, there’s no need to overthink it, worry or prepare much. Each time I’ve been with a group of novices, of mixed abilities, there’s never been any problem.
It is ridiculously good fun.

Main thing I learnt is to pedal hard through the corners, otherwise I could feel myself losing traction/speed and end up drifting down to the bottom. Was a great laugh with some mates, listen to instructor and you’ll have a good time!

which track are you going to btw?

Awesome advice and stories thank you everyone.

1. Keep pedalling
2. Listen to the coaches
3. It’ll hurt like hell
4. It’s fun as f…

Sessions at Newport so sounds like I’m going to have a great time.

Main thing I learnt is to pedal hard through the corners, otherwise I could feel myself losing traction/speed and end up drifting down to the bottom. Was a great laugh with some mates, listen to instructor and you’ll have a good time!

my first time, first session, group was going so slowly and nervously that you felt you were about to slip down the slope on the corners (and this is only riding around between red and black). Chances are, we were actually nowhere near the loss of traction point but it felt sketchy.

Once we as a group sped up, it felt much better. Get going at a proper speed and you feel the G forces skicking you to the track. Its quite a feeling.

Certainly take lots of drink, food, carb drinks etc for 3 hours. I’ve done a fair bit, plus chasing a derney round – that was amazing, but it was hang on in the slipstream otherwise you were toast.

Always pedal into the bends, don’t ease up. Do watch out for those not getting the ride into the bends, they will fall off, so stay away. They should get you doing a fair few things. Team pursuit is fun, but not when the other team crash – rider’s fault, he was on the tops in a bend then moved hands down and lost it. He had a few riders ‘ride’ over his head.

Lumps and bumps is another, the coach takes you up and down the banking. Don’t be near the back, as other folk slow down too much, and you’ll get the concertina effect and end up way too slow for 40 foot up in the air.

Never undertake, always go round the ‘top’ of a rider.

Have fun, you’l be knackered.

In addition to don’t stop pedalling…. keep going anti clockwise.

Its nothign like riding fixed on a road as you have zero obstacles

If you’re in a line of riders, look “through” the rider in front so you’re focussing on people nearer the front of the line. Do not look at the rear wheel of the guy in front. It has a similar effect to staring into a flickering fire, you sort of become mesmerised by it. Look up, let your eyes follow the painted lines and you’ll ride around the banking like it’s more or less a straight.

Sounds weird at first but it’ll click after a few laps.

You’ll have velodrome cough the next day (from sprinty stuff in a dry atmosphere).

Best taster session we ever did was in the early days of Manchester. Coach leading on a bike with microphone, small group all following tightly. At surprisingly low speed he snaked us all over the place to show just how much grip there actually is. Bottom of the track, straight on at the bend right to the top, then down to the middle line mid bend, then back up again etc. Squeaky tyres and bum but it never let go 🙂 Presume they stopped doing that as too many people ended up in a splintered heap….

I did a Newport session with a club as a total newbie and by the end of it was whizzing round in a 4 doing the ‘lead -sweep up – rejoin at back – repeat’ for what seemed like an age at lightning speed. Insanely exhilatating.

Wear lycra not baggies.

1 do not stop pedalling
2 wear gloves or mitts
3 ride on tops or drops, nowhere else
4 do not stop pedalling
5 do not get spannered the night before
6 listen to the instructor
7 watch out for morons
8 take shoes and pedals
9 get someone to film it and time laps
10 feel awesome, its great fun at 4w/kg

I don’t think the height and steepness is as shocking as the surface!

Like one look at it and teh rest of the sessions i’ve done my mantr was “don’t fall think of the splinters!”