I coach a middle school track team and this year they re-paved the middle school track. It’s smooth asphalt instead of a track surface and anytime I see that I start thinking about how nice it would be to ride on it.
Anyone ever done some track riding like this? I was doing some research and velodromes are 250 meters so it would seem to me the turns wouldn’t be too severe even though they aren’t banked. I would suppose doing a 100 mile ride might do some unusual wear on the tires if you went the same way the whole time.
Have you ever riden on a regular outdoor track? I’m guessing that riding a 250m velodrome would be much easier than a 400m unbanked track. A nice smooth surface should give you pretty good grip, but I think it’ll be challenging to maintain high speeds, if you weren’t swining out to the outside lanes on a straight-away, and then diving in on the corners, and maybe still be challenging.
That said, it sure would be fun to get out there and crank it out for a bunch of laps. If you ride a hundred miles on a 400m track, I might suggest you check under the helmet, before checking your tires for uneven wear.
I think even if you cut the apex, it’s going to be a lot of yoyo speed up and slow down. Would be a really fun high variability ride. I think it would be a lot of fun to also see fastest lap times, fastest 4000m, or even do a 15K TT on it (only 37.5 laps). You could do a 2x15K TT to replace a 2x20min and take your NP to get your FTP too!
There are plenty of 400m velodromes, asphalt paved even. Japan is littered with them. Sure you can ride a bike on a flat track but without a banking you’ll probably need to coast the corners to avoid hitting a pedal.
I love asphault tracks. I ride one 2 times a month working on skills. I put cone in the middle of the straight away and do 180* turn practice going each way around the track. One way has me staying along the outside lanes, U turn and then stay on the inside part of track.
Now 100 mile ride…you my friend have some good mental toughness. But then again you do coach middle school track, so yeah you’ve got some crazy in you to deal with those kids…
I’ve never tried it, but if I had access to one I would see if it would work for aero testing. If you can handle the corners at a decent speed then it would be close to ideal for that.
I think even if you cut the apex, it’s going to be a lot of yoyo speed up and slow down. Would be a really fun high variability ride. I think it would be a lot of fun to also see fastest lap times, fastest 4000m, or even do a 15K TT on it (only 37.5 laps). You could do a 2x15K TT to replace a 2x20min and take your NP to get your FTP too!
I was thinking this too. Good high tempo interval ride. Hammer the straights and coast the corners. It’s like riding a crit without worrying about getting half-wheeled!
I have an indoor running track that my club uses for cycling in winter. Outside lanes for fast riding, inside for recovery.
It is hard to hold even power but not impossible.
The track is 300m inside and 350 outside. If you have others riding with you 2 hours goes by quite quickly
I have done it on two different asphalt tracks. In my experience getting a 24 mph lap was difficult due to worrying about clipping a pedal. It was in the drops on a bike with clip ons as well. I have often taken my 8yr old to the track either with sand toys for the long jump pit or on her bike to ride while I run. I have thought about using it for a low cadence brick workout though doing something like 5 min hard into an 800 and then 5 min recov on the bike.
A question for the OP. I just found out I get to be a middle school track coach as well. Any simple advice or fun stuff to do on indoor 2 hour workouts that are inside on just two basketball courts with 60 kids? I am excited but the indoor just seems crazy. (northern WI)
Rice University has a 500 meter asphalt track that is used for an annual bike race, Beer Bike. Zero banking and often windy it is a great place to train because of the lack of cars. It is difficult to do high speed efforts due to the lack of banking, but under 25ish mph I have had no issues, and I have done thousands of miles on this track.
I’ve never tried it, but if I had access to one I would see if it would work for aero testing. If you can handle the corners at a decent speed then it would be close to ideal for that.
i dont think the riders drink someone rides, some others catch said rider and then something about beer being chugged and some sort of penalty for spilt beer? i forget how the X explained it. she participated back in the mid 80s as a rider
We ride our track bikes on a similar HS track sometimes… so long as you’ve got relatively short cranks you should be fine at a pretty serious pace. I’m pretty sure TN (maybe other states) used to do races on flat tracks, long ago.
It’s not the ideal scenario, but it keeps us used to “turning left” when traveling to Rock Hill/Atlanta/Indy isn’t in the cards.
I have done it on two different asphalt tracks. In my experience getting a 24 mph lap was difficult due to worrying about clipping a pedal. It was in the drops on a bike with clip ons as well. I have often taken my 8yr old to the track either with sand toys for the long jump pit or on her bike to ride while I run. I have thought about using it for a low cadence brick workout though doing something like 5 min hard into an 800 and then 5 min recov on the bike.
A question for the OP. I just found out I get to be a middle school track coach as well. Any simple advice or fun stuff to do on indoor 2 hour workouts that are inside on just two basketball courts with 60 kids? I am excited but the indoor just seems crazy. (northern WI)
There’s no good way to handle the indoor practices so we get out as much as possible! We have about 170 kids split between two gyms and it’s wild. We set up different stations and shuffle kids around hoping nobody gets hurt! Some kids are running laps in the halls, some doing stations in the gyms, and some are probably sneaking off doing who knows what. Honestly, some days a big game of dodgeball is better than trying to get anything structured done when you’re stuck inside.
I’ve never tried it, but if I had access to one I would see if it would work for aero testing. If you can handle the corners at a decent speed then it would be close to ideal for that.
