Track camp

I've just had a great long weekend in the Netherlands at a track training camp organised by the Finsbury Park Cycling Club. A real mix of ages and abilities but a great bunch of folks.

I'd heard about this a couple of months back and was very jealous then I realised I would be driving over to Berlin for the Bike Show anyhow so I could just leave a few days earlier and include this as well. We  had the Alkmaar track to ourselves for two days which is a lovely 250 indoor wooden track plus we could use the derny and start gate.

The first day was mostly derny sessions, starting off with some familiarisation of riding behind the derny, then we did some simulated point racing experimenting with different Gear selection it was a good hard day with some fast riding.

Day two primarily we were working on starts, something I'd never done before having never raced a timed event on the track. It took some getting used to, mostly managing the timing was the difficult part. Really hard work though, repeated accelerations from stopped, after a few my back was getting a bit tweaked so I took it easy. Then the derny came out again for a final fling. As a good chunk of our party had already left due to having trains and ferries to catch, I thought I'd take a long shot and ask our great coach Carolien if I could have a go at riding the derny. To my amazement she agreed and I got her up to speed and whizzed around the blue a few times - what a blast! As a last fun thing to do we tried riding the wrong way around the track, something I'd never done before. Such an odd feeling, though I got used to it pretty quickly. I think it was the life-long trackies who had a harder time adapting than us newbies.

Monday I had to head down to Amersfoort to pick up my Berlin show bikes from Jelle at Just Pedal. Carolien had mentioned she had a derny session organised at the Amsterdam track for just herself and another friend and I could come along if I liked. I liked! The opportunity to ride such a classic track at speed behind a derny was not to be missed. We did a good warm up and my legs were feeling pretty tired after the weekend and I'd been out on the road for a couple of hours in the morning. First run up behind the derny I was solo and did 40 laps taking a lap every 10 with the bike doing about 47. Then the next couple of runs I was just trying to hang on to Axel (multiple world master's medallist) while he was in his pursuit position running over 50. I was pretty cooled after that and warming down on the rollers when Carolien said 'Sam you do one more' I couldn't really say no given the opportunity. After the first few laps on the track I wished I had, I was starting to break... Kristian said we'd just do 40 laps fast, meaning 52-53kph for me. So I started out trying to count off laps but quickly lost track of it just became a blur of slightly easier in the bends, pushing on the straights and just burying myself. Thankfully Kristian signalled 10 to go, the next 5 seemed an age. Then finally 3, 2, and off the derny on to the black for final 'sprint'. I was completelt spent by that point, legs and lungs just searing. Wish I could do that every week :-)

Overall a great few days riding some different tracks with some fantastic people. Thanks to everyone, especially Chris for the organising and Carolien for the coaching. Hopefully it will have whipped enough track speed into my legs to not completely embarass myself a the Good Friday meeting.