A couple of weeks ago my swim group went to Cambridge, NZ, a couple of hours south of here and home to the national velodrome, for “have a go day.” One of our members works as a physiotherapist with the cycling team, and we shamelessly exploited that connection.

We did this trip last year too, but I couldn’t go. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try. I’ve spent a lot of time on a bike, but this was my first time on a fixed gear bike or on a track.

Oh. My. God. Sooooo fun. All the sensations of being on a roller coaster but you get to decide how fast and how swoopy.

We had a proper coach giving us lessons. He was very thorough… probably good given the range of people in our group. But I wanted more track time.

First we just rode around the infield to get used to the bikes. Not being able to coast, and not having any brakes, does take some practice.

Then he let us go onto the first banked section, but still riding pretty slowly.

Finally we got to go all the way up the 45 degree banked turns. I was ready… I wore the green sprinters jersey I won 10 years ago at a little tourist contest on my Tour de France trip.

Riding up on the steep banks is amazing and scary. And amazing

In the end, I never really got to open it up to top speed… I was pretty confident in my riding by the middle of the session, but we had people who weren’t, and sometimes they made unexpected or unplanned lane changes. When I semi ignored the directions and started to wind it up on our final interval, the coach yelled at me to slow down. Oh well, still great.

We got a VIP tour of the hall of fame with posters from all the Olympics that NZ has participated in, mostly signed by the athletes. Here’s LA 1984, where I interpreted and gofer-ed for the French shooting team. We also saw the high performance gym which had some really specialized training stuff and an unofficial whiteboard with lifting records on it. One of the track cyclists from a few years ago had a leg press of nearly 2,000 pounds. Sheesh.

After, we had lunch in the attached cafe, still buzzing from the adrenaline. They had a bunch of track bikes hanging on the wall, including a couple of crazy aerodynamic frames from the 1980s. They’re all forbidden now… because they’re really hard to control and because they want the races to be between riders, not between aerospace engineers.

Can’t wait for next time…