The Velodrome!
I have to come clean here – I wasted two summers being terrified of the velodrome. I’d allow my firstborn to ride on it. For that matter, I’d drive him there. I’d help throw a beach party on the infield. I’d swap pedals for kids until the cows came home. But the thought of riding a fixed-gear bike with no freaking brakes!!! up on that banking was really, really scary. My son finally coaxed me onto a fixie late last summer and, in the interests of staying a page ahead of the clinic, I joined a Learn to Ride class a few weeks ago.
I had an absolute blast. This is good, because it meant I could tell nervous clinic participants what fun the track is with complete sincerity.
Kurt Innes comes to us from the Canadian Sport Centre Pacific. He did a great job of easing people into every little step. He has this way of offering a progression to a new challenge as this funny idea he just had… you might or might not want to try, no big deal if you don’t… and people just glom on and give it a whirl. Clinic participants learned how to ride (and stop!) a fixie without brakes, and then started working around and around the track, gradually working up the confidence to move up onto the banked part.
By the end of the evening (and boy howdy, it was cold out there), he had us doing a sprint called a Flying 200 and had instilled enough safety wisdom that everyone was free to ride on the track to stay warm. It was great to see the confidence rise and speeds increase as the evening wore on.
The Greater Victoria Velodrome Association has seen explosive growth since the track was re-opened a few years ago, and it’s not hard to see why. Racing, clinics, and open track times are described on their site: check it out!
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