I went on Saturday. Here’s my report I wrote for some people who are thinking about going. I’m going back next Saturday!
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I went to the velodrome about 5 years ago and it was so fun. But, it’s an hour away and trying to fit it in with triathlon training didn’t work too well. Fast forward to this year and I decided that I wanted to go back and try it again. Especially since Masters Nationals will be at that velodrome in September and I want to race then.
The forecast for Saturday was rain, but in the morning when I got up, it wasn’t raining, but it was COLD (like 39F in San Jose). I got down there and teammates Jeff and Ashley were there, plus about 12 other people. Most had some experience but there were a few with limited experience. We got signed in, got the rental bikes and then went over some rules of the track and what the different lines on the track were for. Everyone was freezing so we got started and did a 40 lap warmup which was a rotating paceline, starting out easy, but ramping it up every 10 laps, with 10 to go supposed to be hard, 5 to go really hammering and the last lap as hard as you could go. (Five laps to the mile on this track.) I felt pretty good and everyone stayed together until about 10 laps to go and I got gapped and off the back and shortly thereafter, the whole paceline split apart and we all finished at our own speed.
About riding the bikes…they are fixed gear bikes with no brakes. What that means is that you have to constantly pedal and if you stop, the cranks keep moving and about rip your legs off! You really only do that once. It also makes getting started and then stopped quite the adventure since you can’t clip in, coast and clip in the other leg. It’s clip in and try to clip in the other foot as the pedal is going around. Stopping is just as fun–you slow way down and unclip one foot and when you are going real slow, you can actually use your quads in the still-clipped in leg and stop the bike and step down.
After the warm up and catching our breath, we spit up into smaller groups and did some paceline work and then some “follow the leader” going up and down the embankments and getting a feel of how different areas of the track felt. To slow down on the track, you just move up.
Once people starting feeling better on the bikes, we did some races, which was fun. There were three gals with limited or no experience (me, teammate Ashley and a gal named Lindy), two experienced gals who race and were very helpful, then 10 guys, most with experience and two who were really good. I don’t remember all the races we did, but the first was a 10 lap race (3-man pursuit, I think). It was really hard to try and go hard for 10 laps. I liked the 1-2 lap races!
The other thing that was really tricky was starting from the rail. You go to the top of the wall and you are clipped in and hold on to the rail and start from a dead stop, pushing yourself off the wall. Hmmm. This will take a lot of practice. I was slow getting off the wall every time and it’s a little nerve wracking to push yourself off, head the bike down the track and then grab the other handlebar.
Another race we did was the Italian pursuit. We had 4 people and you all start together and the first person does one lap and peels off, then the next person peels off after two laps, the third after three and the last person ends up riding four laps against the other fourth person. I volunteered to go first. ha
There were some others and we did some races more than once and mixed up teams and then we did some sprint drills. We rode around in groups of 4 and instead of a paceline, we rode 4 abreast and when the whistle was blown we had to sprint until he blew it again. And some sprints were up out of the saddle (and you’re down in your drops), and other sprints were seated. Plus, the length of the sprint varied. And, you kept rotating spots on the track–low in the sprinting lane up to higher up the track, almost to the wall.
The last race we did was the Australian pursuit. There are 32 light poles at the track and we were each sent to a different light pole, via a handicap system. When the whistle was blown, you went as hard as you could until someone passed you, then you were out. Well, I got a really slow start off the wall and got caught by the fastest guy pretty quick. Actually all three of us gals got caught pretty fast. But that race was fun. Once that was finished, it was about time to go, so we packed up and that was it.
You need three Saturday beginner sessions before you can race, so I need two more. I’m thinking about going next Saturday as there are races in the afternoon, so it will be fun and beneficial to watch some real races. I can’t wait!
And I will love it even more this year, now that i ditched my 170 cranks. 
