Track Rash!

What a fantastic night at the Velodrome doing Accreditation 4 on Tuesday. The aim of the session was learning the various races in which one can partake on the track. We learnt the Scratch, Points and Elimination (Devil takes the hindmost). There were 17 of us at the session so the track was pretty busy. As you can imagine, with all the adrenaline running and people flying round at speed and jostling for position on the track, the inevitable happened and there was a crash. These are some of the friction burns on my arms, I have matching ones on my legs too. Starting to heal thanks to Detol and Bepanthem.

During the elimination race, I decided my tactic would be to sit in the middle and during the sprint lap I was going to put on the gas and try and get out front then drop back a bit thus not being eliminated and also using the group to draft and save a wee bit of energy for the next attack. It seemed to be working until they got wise to my tactic and when I re-joined the group everybody seemed to want to get by me. On the banking somebody came over the top of me and nudged into the side (accidentally) of me which sent me down the banking and my front wheel locked into the back wheel of the rider in front of me. It came out momentarily but straight back in again and all of a sudden I was on the deck sliding down the track at 20 odd mph. Crash aside, I did enjoy the elimination race best. Very tactical, very intense and very much a whole lot of fun.