Track race premier

 

 

 

This week was the track racing premier for this year, and as usual we started with timed events---500s for the ladies and kilos for the men. Amelia rode a very strong time, coming in fifth in a very strong field (all national level ladies). My ride was about .3 off last years PR which is very good, placing me second in my field. Interestingly, the gym work seems to have paid off---we both rode very fast first laps and have some work to do on our last lap.

Fixed gear riding in Portland seems to have grown the interest in track racing a lot this year. After 75 people had registerred, the organizers had to cut off registration as there would not be enough time for everyone! This is great for the sport.

Then yesterday was 200m night in the sprint series. A fair amount of people showed up here too, but everyone got the opportunity to ride two rides at least. My legs were toasty after the kilo and a mid-day massage, but I managed to bang out a time only .3 seconds slower than my Alpenrose PR (without using aero equipment, to boot). Amelia did great too, putting down a ride that was comparable to her best of last year.

Today Amelia is racing the Eric Kautzky memorial race, while I stay home and do some efforts on the road. I am up in the air about whether I should do any mass start racing at all this year (I did none last year, and that worked out well). For now I have decided to hold back.