Germany and Monday racing

This past week I went to Germany, flying from Manchester to Berlin by way of Zurich, as described in my previous post.

In Germany, I saw all kinds of wonderful things.  The next three pictures (each of which is worth considerably more than 1000 words) each demonstrate some of the marvelous things I saw:

A local bike shop had an innertube vending machine outside their front door.  That way, if you have a flat tire outside of normal business hours, you can still buy a new tube and be back up and running before the next morning.

In a grocery store, there was an aisle with bike tires.  Right there in the grocery store!  How civilized...

Possibly the most impressive innovation I encountered was the German 11-pack.  Taking into account exchange rates, the 11-pack of 500-mL bottles is only slightly more expensive than a 6-pack of 12-oz bottles in America, but you get way more beer!

I also encountered the spiced warm red wine (Gluhwein, but with a pair of dots unavailable in my English font selection over the 'u') at a Berlin Christmas market (delicious), schnitzel, white asparagus, partying on the S-Bahn and U-Bahn at 5:15am on a Sunday, and some wonderful guiding around by my new friends.

After returning to the UK, it was back to aspiring-to-be-a-mostly-OK track racer mode.  I headed to the velodrome Sunday night for another SQT session where we did a fun exercise near the end where all but seven riders rode easy around the top of the track.  The other seven riders dropped into the lane and rode at a pretty hard pace.  After a lap pull, the lead rider would pull up and swing way up track, and then the next rider to be passed by the line (now a group of six riders) would drop into the lane and join the back of the fast riding line.  It was like a Madison, but without the hand slings.  It was great for practicing situational awareness on the track and putting in some hard efforts at the same time.

Last night, Monday, I headed over to the velodrome for the ACT Track League.  We did a 12-lap scratch race, Devil Take the Hindmost, 12-lap Courses Des Primes, and then a 50-lap Madison.

After being boxed in at the end of the scratch race last week, I made a point of being near the front, and found myself at the front with 2.75 laps to go.  I eased the pressure off the pedals slightly, but stayed in the lane and patiently waited to unleash a sprint.  The 2 to go sign went by, then 1 to go.  In turns 1 and 2, one of the GB para cyclists came up to my hip, so I opened up my sprint full gas and held him high through the turn and down the back straight.  We were neck-and-neck, elbow to elbow, hip to hip all the way through turns 3 and 4, but then he pulled ahead by just under a bike length on the finishing straight and took the win.  I held on for 2nd, and about 5 other riders came through within two bike lengths of me.

In the Devil Race, I felt like I did a good job of positioning and reacting to changing conditions in the race.  On the first lap, I went to the front and sat on the hip of the lead rider who was in the lane.  We rode tempo for some time as riders were pulled from the back.  After a few laps, someone came over the top, but I immediately accelerated and moved onto their hip as they took the lead position in the lane.  This process repeated twice more as the field was whittled down to about 7 riders.  Then it became time for bursty accelerations, which my 81" gear was perfectly suited to.  I punched a few of these accelerations until there were only 4 riders remaining.  Then, one of the young guys put in a vicious attack, and pulled the other two guys away from me.  I was off the back and was eliminated as the 4th place rider while the other three went on to take 1st through 3rd.  All in all, I was really happy with how the race played out and felt it was good practice for the way I need to ride miss-n-outs back in Colorado and in the Omnium at nationals.

The 12-lap Courses Des Primes was a hammer-fest right from the start.  The field shattered about two laps into the race, and I was left bridging gaps and moving up from group to group.  I reconnected with the leaders with 2.25 laps to go and then followed an attack with just over a lap to go.  The attacker was obviously saving something because he rode away from us all.  I hung on for 2nd on the finish lap, but don't know how that placed me overall in the points.

In the Madison, like two weeks ago, we paired up one rider from the senior group 1 with a rider from senior group 2.  The first eight laps were relatively neutral, and then sprints began with 40-laps to go and went every 10 laps until the finish.  My teammate and I did a good job of maintaining a position in the lead group for the whole race.  We missed an exchange before the 40-lap to go sprint, which may have cost us the race, but after that we came roaring back and were able to put the hurt on a few of the other teams in the intermediate sprints.  With four laps to go, my teammate threw me in to a 4th wheel position which was just about a perfect for the finishing sprint.  The winning team took the final sprint, but we finished 2nd and took 2nd overall in the points, so it was a pretty respectable result.

Tonight: Manchester Regional Track League, racing with the big guns!