Saturday I decided to finally give the Bloomer Velodrome a try. Sunday there was going to be a 3k time trial, so in order to race I needed to complete the track 101 course. The Velodrome is a whole different beast. Its a 200m oval with corners that have 44° of banking with straights at 14°. To make matters worse you have to use a track specific bike. Which is a fixed gear bike, I hadn't used one of those since I was very...very young. The first few laps on the bike felt really weird. All braking is done with your legs, mostly since the bike has no brakes! Riding on the banking is also very different, if you don't carry enough speed you simply slide down the track. Cornering can also be a bit complicated because you have to be careful not to hit your peddle on the track on the banking. Anyways after some coaching and many...many laps I finally got a hang of it all. In fact I really like being on the track. I might have to make an effort to get to the track a couple times a month to train. 
So now that I had completed the course I could race Sunday. A 3k time trial doesn't sound like to much, but how do you gauge it. I best compared it to the 400 meter, which I did in middle school track and field. Its just a little to long of a distance to go full throttle the entire time, so you have to find the medium between the red line and what I would do in a normal 20k time trial. 3k is only 15 laps in the velodrome, so I wasn't to worried. Anyhow for my first time on very tired legs I completed 3k in 4:22. About 17 seconds a lap. That was good enough to put me 5th out of 7...low turnout. However I was only 6 seconds out of 2nd, so if I was rested I could have probably done a lot better. Anyhow it was fun and I can't wait to hit the track again. Next weekend is West Branch. Full Results
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