This article was contributed by Steven Woo.
I wanted to share this so that people with a similar background to mine ( I have only ridden at Hellyer like most of the juniors in the 10-14 program ) can read what it’s like to ride at the ADT event center velodrome in Los Angeles. They didn’t mention any age restrictions but I think the faster and bigger kids in our group would easily fit in there. If you have any doubt you should contact Roger Young and ask him yourself - they do have junior only sessions. Bigger because all the juniors I saw there rode 700c wheel bikes with adults. The faster is explained below. Also IIRC, juniors have to pay at ADT, unlike Hellyer.
Anyone with previous track experience and their own equipment is welcome to take the advanced training
session in lieu of the six week beginner session which is impractical for us Bay Area folks. Unless you are a cat 1 or cat 2 rider it’s necessary to get certified to ride on the track. It’s such a long trip though that potential riders should keep that sliding and you’re out rule mentioned later in mind at all times while on the track.
Short version : lot of fun, legs sore after just the warmup. For someone who has only ridden at Hellyer, it was well worth the trip to ride there for two days.
Long director’s cut (rated G) version follows. There was simultaneous beginner session and advanced session starting promptly at 3pm. Roger Young taught both sessions. He spoke to the beginners first and told the folks in the advanced class to come back after he had talked to the beginners. He wore a wireless mike which was audible anywhere in the velodrome which comes up later in this. I paid attention to the beginner session to see if I could learn anything to use at Hellyer. This must have been their first class. Most of the beginners had rentals which were brand new Felts! Roger and one assistant evaluated everyone’s position on the bike. Then he began talking about the velodrome terminology. Everyone who signs the release form becomes a member of the ADT club and every ride there is a club ride.
The infield was the concrete area inside the track. Anyone could ride there just to stay loose and I noticed they do not enforce the helmet rule here.
The safety rail was the name for the fencing between the lower infield and the start of the wooden track. Sometimes racers start from here, and there are receptacles for water bottles here on the infield side of the net.
The apron is the part of the track between the blue band and the safety railing. One should only ride here for recovery and building up speed to get onto the track.
The blue band is the wide blue band at the bottom of the track. One should only ride here when getting off and on the track.
The measurement line or pole as Roger preferred was the black line at the bottom of the track. One should ride there when riding hard efforts.
The relief line, or stayers line or madison line was where one should ride for light temp, resting.
The last area he mentioned was the ballustrade. This is what we call the railing here since we only have one railing. He said sometimes people use this for hard tempo, and we started some mass start races from here.
Another key difference from Hellyer riding is that he really wanted riders to ride on the black line, and not use the sprinters lane and ride on the relief line and not just above it and close to it. Riders were verbally corrected if they drifted. The only reason to ride elsewhere in most training situations at ADT is if one is passing someone.
Then he said if you go too slow, you can slide down the banking. If you slide down the banking, your day at the track is over.
I think I thought a little too much about this because it took me a long time to feel comfortable doing exchanges during a paceline, but better safe than sorry.
He recited the same speech to the advanced class about fifteen minutes later, seems like it would have saved him some time to do both groups at once, but we seemed to have more questions. (After writing this I did some research and found out the beginner session had started an hour earlier so I missed quite a bit.)
Then he talked to the beginners about their first exercise. They would ride 5 laps easy on the apron, then 5 laps on the measurement line, then 5 laps on the relief line in groups of 10. There were about 30 in the beginners class. There were some juniors but they all had full size bikes. Then Roger handed off the beginners to an assistant and spoke to the advanced class.
The very first thing he spoke to us about was tires. He wrote down four things on the whiteboard.
- Black - softer, better than colored compounds on wooden surface
- Tread - better to have tread on wooden surface
- 23 or wider - better to have on steeply banked surface
- High profile better on steeply banked surface, with low profile if you lean over too much you end up riding on the sidewalls.
Now he said you could choose something which is less than optimum, but that we had to adjust our riding style so that our equipment would permit us to stay upright - if we chose less than optimum equipment, we would have to
- go faster to avoid sliding in the banking
- not lean the bike over as much as we were used to when doing out of saddle efforts
Then he repeated the terminology speech he gave to the beginners.
Next he talked about riding etiquette. In short, slower riders have priority in that since slower riders have less maneuverability and cannot go up the banking far or they will fall down. But faster riders can issue orders like stay. Faster riders should not say pole or rail and expect slower riders to get out of the way. The cardinal rule was - if in doubt when being passed, ride in a straight line. Faster riders should always talk to riders being overpassed. When turning - use the smallest movement possible - do not swerve suddenly. Keeping in mind this rule and the fact that if one is going too slow, one would slip down the banking, he said one might take quarter to half a lap on the blue band. Do not use any hand signals to indicate turning. He said some riders move their arms so much while just riding it would not be clear at all times what they meant. Always look before turning. Thus, riders can tell if you are turning by observing the rider ahead of them turning their head. The last thing he said was always have a plan before you step onto the apron. Something like get on, go hard for 10 laps, light tempo for 5, repeat or something like that, whatever you want to get out of the day. Then there was a question and answer period and we *graduated* from the advanced class. Then immediately we started our first event, which caught me a little off guard.
This was a 100 lap warm up or 25K . He split us into C(field 25 including 3 USnational team members/Rahsaan Bahati/1 Australian National team member) )/B(field 25)/A(field15)/Jr(field 5)/Women(field 8, 1 US National Team,1 Swiss National Team). He confused me first by calling the Elite field the C’s, then he said, everyone who has not raced at ADT should be in the A’s. So I went with the A’s. The A’s/Jr’s/Women started at the ballustrade. This is the key reason only the faster juniors should consider going - you have to be able to keep up, dropped riders are told to get off the track for safety during the warmup and during large field races. Unlike Hellyer, one cannot just go slow at the relief line. The B’s and C’s started at the safety railing. Roger Young rode the motorpace electric bike and wore the wireless mike to instruct us. The C’s and B’s started riding first. The first thing I noticed was the loud resounding thump noise as riders rode over the planks. It’s like thump thump for each rider in certain areas. After they got up to speed at the relief line, he instructed us to follow him to the pole. I was near the end of the field so I got to ride with the C’s and B’s for a couple of laps until I could get down to the pole. He worked the speed up to 25 mph and told us to not worry about the number of riders and just look at the person in front of us, and when in the corners, to look 30 meters ahead of us. When riders were getting dropped from C/B field he told them they should consider riding down in category. At 30 laps to go the juniors go the OK to race and they sprinted with 25 laps to go. Then the women go the OK to race and they sprinted with 20 laps to go. Then we go the OK to race and sprinted with 15 laps to go. I thought I was feeling pretty good but got dropped pretty quickly when the riders in front of me got gapped. The first time I really went hard in the corners I almost felt sick. I could feel the unsupported weight of my torso beneath the rib cage being pressed downward by the momentum. This got less and less signficant as I spent more time on the track and I either adapted or got slower. One of the riders that got gapped was pretty sketchy in that he kept swerving up and down without looking so I decided to play it safe and stay clear of him. After exiting the track I spoke with one of the riders in my group and he said he got dropped pretty quickly too so he thought he was undergeared. I changed gears from 50×17 to 50×15. Later after speaking with him more it turns out he knew Mark Altimirano from our track from when Mark lived in New Mexico. His name was Jim Gelb and he still lives in New Mexico. Meanwhile, the B riders sprinted with 10 to go and the A riders sprinted at the end.
The next event was a 30 lap scratch race for each group. The juniors, women, and A groups got Roger to motorpace them. The juniors got I think 25 laps motorpaced and the women and A groups got 20 laps. The B and C groups got no motorpacing. Roger Young did all the motorpacing and commentary while on the motorpacing bike. With the larger gear I felt more comfortable with accelerations but the one guy who was sketchy in the warmup was sketchy in the race when we lapped him so I had to ride harder than I needed to go way over him. A couple of times, folks would slow down and go up track. This is the opposite of what Roger taught us - he said if you are going slow, just ride in a straight line, let the other riders pass you. The last time this happened was foolish because it happened on the last lap. This was foolish because there is almost no way anyone is coming back on the last lap of a scratch race after slowing down in the banking on turn 2. I was a little less aggressive than I should have been at this point - instead of just going up track and passing the slow folks I kept thinking about sliding down the track so I waited for an opening that was lower, so four riders got off the front. I came close to them at the end but it was too late.
Then they had a callup for volunteers for the pursuit. I think about six or seven folks did it and a couple only did that.
The next event was a 20 lap tempo for every group. One point a lap for whoever wins each lap. A couple of guys traded points the first four laps - the neutral start lap was a bit unfair since they had a head start on us, but whatever. After we caught them I countered and built a big lead. After about two laps!? I didn’t feel so hot but was so far ahead it took them two more laps to catch up so I had four points and the lead. Immediately two others countered. They took the rest of the points. After they took off and I couldn’t chase I figured I would settle for third. As long as I disrupted any chase, no one else could catch me since no one else would score more points.
The last event was a madison but I was so tired I did not stick around and watch. They said they ended up leaving at 9:30pm.
The next day was a *sprint* day. I learned from yesterday and showed up early so I could get my gear inside and ready without having to rush. There are two entrances for athletes, one that is a long walk from the parking lot unless you shuttle you car to the door and back to the lot, and one that is closer to the lot but up two flights of stairs. This session started at 9AM. This time we got to ride as soon as we signed up. It was pretty cool being the only rider on the velodrome for about fifteen minutes. The turnout was quite different from the previous day. Not sure why.
The first event was either the flying 200 or the kilo. I picked the kilo. I set a personal record by two seconds even though I felt like I died after two laps. Two other guys did the kilo, one beat me by five seconds and I beat the other guy by three seconds, but they were both on aerobars.
Each track is different for the 200 - the optimum line for each rider needs to be learned through practice and repetition so I figured I would just watch the others do the 200. Here the 200 Meter line is between turns 1 and turn 2 so one does not get the chance to use the banking in the same manner as one does at Hellyer. A couple of people dove late and sharp and ended up going through the blue band, compensating by going up track and correcting too far by going past the sprinter’s line and having to come back down. One of the US national team members did this. The fastest time was 11.4 . The other national team members came in with 12.2 and 11.7. The fastest women’s time was 13.5, by one of the national team women. I think times were slow because of the humidity, it was raining.
Next we had Keirin heats with Roger riding the motor. I got to do the keirin with the two other guys who did the kilo. I got on Roger’s wheel and stayed as close as I could. He said he was going to start at 25 and work his way up to 31 on the lap 6, which was when he pulls off. I went as hard as I could as soon as he pulled off. The guy who beat me in the kilo caught me on lap 8 and left me a few bike lengths behind at the end, and the other guy was way behind us.
Then we had two lap chariot races. This was with the same groups we had the keirins. This turned out exactly the same as the keirin with the gap being smaller at the end between me and the winner and bigger with the guy behind us.
Lastly we had match sprints. At this point my legs were pretty sore so I skipped it. There were a couple of accidents. The primary problem was riders not looking before turning. After the sprint some riders have a tendency of using the banking to slow down immediately without looking and this caused one accident. Nobody was hurt badly. During one of the women’s match sprints a junior girl slid and knocked Jennie Reed off the bike but they just restarted and did it again.
For those considering going down, I was really disappointed with the low local junior turnout they had but perhaps it’s because it’s the off season and faster riders were permitted to ride with adult groups. Roger was more than willing to accommodate kids who wanted to do non scheduled, different time trials during both sessions for the juniors, but then again, this may have been because there were so few. They also said they were doing these training races to gauge interest and determine what they would do in the future.
Then at 12:00 they started three hours of open training and there were eventually about 40 riders, mostly different from the morning sprint races, many of them I recognized from the previous nights *endurance* events. I stuck around for an hour of easy spinning and scouting vantage points from different seating sections for the world championships.
Last thoughts.
It seems like they need more people watching the race to give feedback to some of the newbies and people used to riding at shallow tracks. So just because someone from down there has graduated from the beginner class or advanced class doesn’t mean one can automatically trust them to ride safely, same as racing here.
Part of the reason my legs are so sore is I never really use my legs for braking that much at Hellyer but you pretty much have to in certain situations there because there are so many people on the track at some times and Roger starts the next event promptly after the last one has finished. After I finished and was already off the banking and on the apron, I wasn’t certain how fast I could take the corner on the apron so I took it very conservatively and slowed down a lot. I had to do this many times, but as I watched some riders would use the banking to slow down and then exit but they had the benefit of a somewhat empty track and were very careful to look behind them first, except for the ones causing the accidents.
The first time I looked down the banking from the stands, the steepness was pretty intimidating. It looks steeper from there than from the infield for some reason. Not sure if I would have believed how easy it was to ride if I had seen it from the stands first. Even when I was just on the infield I wasn’t sure I was going to ride very far up the banking because it was so steep compared to Hellyer, but I got over my initial trepidation.
