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Beginners Track Day by Ajay Khandelwal

Open the washing machine, detach your head and slam it into the back of the drum. Lock it. Select Fast Spin Cycle. In fact, just whack the bugger upto fully-loaded TURBO WASH! The drum is humming. You hear a muffled thud as your head is flung from side to side. This is such a great experience you want to do it with your friends.

If you don't want to damage your washing maching, then pay a tenner and go down to Southampton for a collective version of the same experience. Remember, despite appearances, this is no ordinary trip to the sea-side. Calshot Indoor Velodrome is basically a huge non-stop super-spinning wooden washing machine drum. So get organised. Jackass is a kid's commercial compared to this stuff. For road racers, the deepest fear wasn't dropping off the back, more a case of falling off the track.

On our club chat forum, one rider helpfully told us that 'Calshot was the first track I ever rode on - first look at the wall of death' banking scared me sh***tless!' Reassuring words indeed. Nevertheless 12 Addiscombe riders made their way to Southampton. We packed cakes, pedals, helmets and scare stories. We ranged from experienced track riders to a couple who had never ridden on any form of track before; in age from 17 to 50. Eddie Munday, club veteran, recounted how earlier generations of cyclists had left Croydon to visit Calshot by coach.

Setting up the hire bikes

Take your own bike, or do what I did and hire a perfectly good one at the track for £5. Once we saw the track the swagger varied from cock-sure and confident, 'Hey you have to ride with 165cm cranks and a maximum gearing of 83 inches' to the mildly terrified 'isn't that banking, well, a bit steep?'

What ? Are you sure???

As readers of Londoncyclesport.com many of you will be familiar with that flat piece of tarmac in South London, Herne Hill Velodrome. The Calshot track is about 1/3 of the circumference of Herne Hill, which means that you go fully around it in just over 10 seconds. The coaches were local cyclists who had been coming to the track since it had first opened. They made sure every ready was able to familiarise themselves with the track with gentle build-up exercises. Even those who had never ridden on a track before where spinning around within before you could notice you didn't have any brakes. Warming up, you have to push yourself through the corners. I think we all felt quite shocked as we pushed up to the blue line half way up the wall of death. Once you've done it, you're hooked. Its an exhilarating feeling., as the g-force takes hold and you are cradles in a powerful and invisible force-field. I felt like I was actually stuck down to the track. For some, it was too much. Our experienced 3rd Cat road racer, Brian Tidy, looked decidedly giddy as he took time out to re-insert his eyeballs.
The coaches made sure everyone would ride safely

The coaches threw in dozens of permutations on riding around the track over the next three hours. We did various team pursuits with one team on the lower red line and another team on the midway blue line. We also had three teams race and do thru' and off and race around the track. Later on we had the front rider peel off the front of the group and sprint down along the lowest black line to rejoin the group at the back. Finally, we all had an individual crack at sprint around the track at full speed. The coaches told us that the secret was to hold as tightly to the black line as possible. This was a real challenge, as the tendency of the bike was to veer up the banking on the corners. Steve Dennis, an experienced track rider, uttered a circuitful of expletives as his fast speed was countered loss of control as he flew up the banking. He's getting the miles in, the coach muttered. It took real determination and upper body co-ordination to keep the bike down and tight. It looked good, and you felt like you were in a grove. Our fastest rider, Rob Fallon, was a junior, and had only been on a track once before at Herne Hill, and completed it in just over 10 seconds. So much for age and experience.
Getting up to speed

Our most relaxed member, Sue D, completed in 19 seconds, but accomplished a great deal more. It was her first time at a track, and she is well known for her unconventional method of only clipping one foot in, and leaving the other dangling. Her partner commented, 'Sue suffers from Acrophobhia (fear of heights) - her brain gets confused about how high she is. This is compounded by balance problems resulting from childhood ear infections' For Sue to get two feet up the track at Calshot is like one of us getting two hundred feet up the wall That's is why I'm very proud of what she did achieve, and why I'm grateful for everyone's support'

What better testimony can you have of the joys of club cycling? A rider afraid of heights overcomes the wall of death. So, next time you throw your London-grimed lycra into the washing machine, when you hit the spin cycle, think Calshot.

By the end of the session everyone had the courage to ride high on the wall