Taking the kids to the races: The Welsh Madison Champs

On Saturday evening I took my two girls to see the Welsh Madison Champs at Newport Velodrome. I wasn't sure what they would think of it. I guessed they would get bored and we be leaving after half an hour. Well how wrong was I? They loved it. Explaining the rules of the Madison Devil was a little hard so I just told them about the hand sling. The fact they were paired up and you if you came last you were out. Seemed simple enough. I took some colouring pens and some puzzzle books for them to at least not get too bored.
The warm up confused them as they couldn't understand why they were not racing even though some of them were going very fast. The racing started and they kept asking me who was the best. I had no idea other than that the 100%Me guys would be fast and probably the Wiggle boys to. They picked Wiggle Team as they were easy to spot and Wiggle is a funny word. I had no idea Ben Simmons of Wiggle was doing the National Cyclocross on the Sunday and just assumed the one Wiggle rider was him. It wasn't it was Jon 'Euro' Cannings and Anthony O'boyle of team Torq. So my kids were shouting for Ben and Boyler. Only later when I spotted Cannings in the crowd did I realise. Oh well.
The Wiggle boys got a bit confused with 3 sprints to go and thought they were out but sadly they were not and they had already dropped back. 100% won the Madison Devil my kids had no idea what was going on but loved cheering and that was that.
The next race was the 'B' Madison, the race for riders not keen on racing with the Elite riders. There were Girls in this race. My youngest found out that number 27 was a girl called Emily and that's what she screamed every time she passed. I think they like this event the best as there were girls riding. There was a crash on the far side which we missed as the girls were in the toilet. Glad they missed it. Not nice to see crashes.
The main even was one of the most one sided races I have ever seen on a track. The 100%Me boys who are GB development are both awesome. Both local lads. Jon Mould and Sam Harrison. They didn't win all the sprints but they did lap the field five times. Matt Rowe was commentating and is clearly quite pally with they boys riding. Lots of banter about Jon Mould's yellow Mavic shoes through out the race. This time my girls shouted for Wiggle and Cwmcarn Paragon. My daughter shouting Cwmcarn as loud as she could was quite funny. Most of the evening we were sat next to Legro and Lee Povey of Fast Track Coaching. They had some riders in the races and Lee was coaching them from the wings.

What a night. They announced that the next races would be held at the Velodrome on the 5th of Feb. That should be a little easier for the kids to follow.

British Cycling Report

Velodrome

Head down on my flying lap

I live in Newport on the weekends not that far from the track but until last summer when my children had a swimming event in the nearby pool in the Sports Village I had never been to even look at it. 
I popped in to have a look with my kids and my eldest daughter who is pretty keen on riding her MTB commented that she thought the tyres were a bit skinny but she was keen to have a go.
I thought it looked amazing. I hadn't ridden on a track with a fixed wheel for 20 years and thought I'd have to have a go at this. I have no big ideas about racing on the track. I'm just not powerful enough for it or more like, I'm more interested in endurance cycling. Track racing is never really much more than 20km. I'd be shit at it.
I'd been toying with the idea of doing a training course for a while on the track. You can't just turn up and ride on an indoor track it's not allowed. There are a few training companies out there and my mates Dave and Lee run one called Fast Track Coaching So I was keen to go on one of their beginner weekends. 
Next thing I here as if by magic my club have hired the place for 3 hours with a coach. So I put my name down paid my money and turned up. 
I don't have a track bike so the bike you see in the pic above I'm on a rental Pinarello. We had young Welsh international Matt Rowe showing us the ropes.

The twelve of us riding as a group (me third wheel)

We first had to get used to the bikes. Like I said it had been a while didn't take long although I did stop pedalling on my second lap which almost sent me over the bars. We did a few laps around the black line at the bottom and then slowly moved up to the red. It felt a bit disconcerting on the bends as the track wants to drop you down the banking if your not going quick enough. So more speed and slowly edge up to the blue line in a group. So after we had gotten to grips with riding round the track in one big line as a group Matt asked us to do something which scared the shit out of me just thinking about it. When on the blue line if your not going quick enough the track tends to pull you down hill on the corners. What he asked us to do was for us to ride on the black line as a group then the front rider to move up to the blue line and let the group ride past and rejoin at the back. I had visions of me slipping down and taking out my team mates or them doing it to me. As it happens we were not muppets and this did not happen. We were just fine. 
Matt then set us doing all sorts of things like riding as a group and the rider on the front sometimes with the 2nd and possibly 3rd rider were to get a lap. Ride round the track at a faster pace to catch the group. For some reason I was never paired with anyone so I did many laps on my own (maybe my 118118 sweatband mad me look like i was quick or something)
Something I really enjoyed was splitting up into 3 groups and doing a 2000m team pursuit. On road form I was put in the middle group. Sadly I fear I was way quicker than my 3 team mates and on the final two laps I dropped them which is a big no no in a team pursuit I guess (well it is fact). Third man across the line get the time not the 1st. Anyway we were just under 2 seconds as a team down on the faster group. I cocked it right up. 
Flying lap was next. I messed that up as well by building up my speed half a lap before I needed to. I wasn't the fasted but not by much.
I had a bloody good time on the track and can't wait to go again. Now need to get mt accreditation for the track which is a test to show I am competent to race and ride on open group training sessions. Hopefully soon I will be doing the Cwmcarn Club training evenings.