i'm just consistently inconsistent

so saturday i had an interesting day au vélodrome, as it were. a coworker had been keen on going out there because time trials were scheduled, and he was interested in seeing how well he could do, having previously only timed himself, clumsily at best, on a visit to the major taylor ‘drome in indianapolis. this person is a more fiendish cyclist than your correspondent, being the type to race crits locally (cat 5, i believe), head to france to follow the tour and then knock off a six-gap century. there is a new baby in his household (their first) that has had an impact on his training schedule. but still, he wanted to go out to the track, and i was more than willing to come along, being not a little curious as to where my own benchmarks may lie.

it was hot, and well-attended, and generally good fun. i will now take this opportunity to prove, once and for all, that i do not boast in this space, by cheerfully posting my times:

flying 200: 14.76
500: 43.34
3K: 4:52.65

not really what i expected. but actually what did i expect? for some reason i had been really hoping i could somehow break 14 seconds on that flying 200; the others were just things my friend wanted to get times for. so naturally i was a bit disappointed, but i could see right away where i failed, strategically, in the 200: i did not work up to something nearly top speed coming into turn four (which is what the big dogs were doing, later), and i did not have a good line in turn two, coming up over the red line briefly, but easily enough to lose a tenth of a second or even more. also, i could have been turning a bigger gear than 48:16 (which is something short of 80 inches with those 22 mm sewups). so that gives me something to think about, and to work on, and i hope to be able to get timed again later this summer and get closer to 14 seconds, and maybe even below.

the 500 and 3000 meter trials were standing starts, which was a new experience for me, being held in place, wheels chocked and then unchocked, and the countdown and the length of pipe struck and the clang resounding and being let go and mashing away frantically, trying to get enough speed entering the first turn to not fucking fall over on those 44° banks. the 3000 was run as a pursuit, and i was thankfully paired with my companion who did catch me with a lap and a half to go (15 laps total, on the 200 meter track), which helped me turn it on just a bit, although there is some risk in catching up because the rider in front gets to hold his line, down there on the black, and if you want to pass you have to come up and if you’re in the turn you lose radius and are going uphill. but i guess that’s what racing is really like.

anyway it was exhilarating, highly so in fact, and worth the effort. the scene at walden is pretty cool for the most part. as the morning “new rider” class was wrapping up (my friend hadn’t been there for a few years and wanted the opportunity to regain the feel for the close corners, which i welcomed also) and the serious racers began to arrive, and whip out their gear and their rollers and their general attitude, i started to get somewhat of a jock vibe, an unpleasant memory of the teen years and that whole conflict, completely fake in retrospect but as real as anything when you are living through it as an adolescent, and i felt just slightly like a fish out of water, or perhaps simply a fish in an ill-fitting pond, but really it was okay because everybody there is friendly enough and very welcoming for the most part; there is just a different personality type that tends to predominate where athletics are the focus. there is the kid with braces who chortles about the 92-inch gear he’s going to use for the flying 200, and i can’t help rolling my eyes, but then he clocks 12.38 and i’m thinking well okay, i can’t do that; the kid is fast (his 1K was just under 1:15). i read elsewhere of conflicts at northbrook outside chicago (not physical conflicts but just weird energy) between various groups, for example the more self-styled serious trackies holding in disregard the alt-culture “bikeforums” types (to whom, it must be said, i am closer to in spirit although i am undoubtedly as much a stranger to them as anybody else); like being in high school all over again. but the mike walden velodrome is just too small for that: we were all crammed into that infield together, hiding from the blistering sun under the tents and swapping wrenches and chain whips among each other. so i was pretty comfortable being there, considering that, on paper at least, i didn’t really belong.