Round and round with no brakes

This past weekend I had the honor of officiating at the New York State track championships held at the Kissena Velodrome in Queens, NY. I bet most of my faithful readers didn't even know there was a velodrome in Queens. I used to race down there about twenty years ago every week for food money. Let's just say it kept me thin! It is actually a pretty decent outdoor set up and the racing is fantastic. The event was two days long and included 500m and 1000m time trial events, points racing, match sprints, scratch racing, pursuits and of course my favorite: the keiren.

That's right, just like on TV.

The thing that stuck out most in my mind were the people involved. From Alan the tireless and generous promoter to the development team coaches to the sun baked referees to the fans in the bleachers; everyone was super supportive and excited to be part of the program. But let me tell you the most amazing people there were the racers themselves.

These men and women were some of the nicest athletes I have ever met. Track racing is a small community and they all know each other by name. No matter what the situation, they may be rivals on the high pitched banks, but they are all best friends on the infield between events. They are also some of the most diverse and eclectic group of riders too. They almost all have beautiful artwork tattooed on their bodies, piercings, style and heritage that were so storied and layered that I found myself listening and learning for hours at a time.

There were cadets from West Point (no tattoos), messengers from Brooklyn, 50+ masters from Manhattan and engineers from Cambridge. The most impressive group were the women's field: more than twenty racers in all. Simply amazing and all of them strong and fierce competitors.

The fun part about track racing is that if you want, a rider can compete in as many events as he or she wants to at the meet. That means some of these guys would do ten or twelve races. Sure, they are only about 2 minutes or less each, but the rhythm is non stop. Warm up, race, recover, nap. Warm up, race, recover, nap. Endless highs and lows. Sound familiar?

The coolest event as I said above was the keiren. It is a 2000m long event (5 laps on the track) paced behing a durney type moto-scooter. The riders all line up in a row on the start line and the durney goes by at 30kph and off they go. The riders have to stay behind it as it slowly builds up to 50kph by the fourth lap. Then it pulls off and game on. So these guys are going at mach 5 and then get slammed by an instant head wind and start going crazy sprinting and moving and racing hard. It is super fun to watch.

One of the most notable items was the complete and utter lack of TARGETRAINING athletes, probably the first time all year that I have not seen someone racing somewhere. If any of you want to get fast in a hurry, see Viega or Matt at Tri/Cycle in Westport, CT to get a nice Cervelo track bike and get down there to race. I know I am hooked again.