Is this a love affair or just straight lunacy..? Those that know my recent history would probably say both. Majority will accuse me of being retarded in thinking but for me there is unfinished business with regards to the London Olympic Velodrome and track riding…
As a 50th birthday gift a couple of mates paid for a ticket & night out to the London Track 6 Day event. 6 consecutive days of racing, for those that participate it must be so shattering to perform every night for 6 evenings. These are not event’s you can hide in, you have to give it your all. The venue has a short history, built for the London Olympics, many British gold medals, a certain Mr Wiggins creating a new hour record for distance ridden. To those of us amateur cyclists looking in from the outside it is spell binding, almost hypnotic… wow, the event, the venue, these are inspirational and on our doorstep.
What you would give to be able to give it a go..?
Nov 2015 I went to the Ghent 6 day in Belgium with my friend Loggo. We stayed in an Airbnb and with the short hop across on the Eurostar we were there in a couple of hours. This event has so much history, the first edition 1922. The track only measures 166.66m in comparison to the London 250m. Ghent is full on bonkers racing on a short & steep track, intoxicating atmosphere that just hooks you in.
It comes with its health warning, not only with its Belgium beer, but more seriously there are impacting consequences sadly in 2006 a rider died after hitting the barriers. There have been countless nasty incidents but I suspect this forms part of the appeal of its raw speed and skill, there is always a consequence. As I said everything is done at speed, there are no brakes on the bikes, no changing gears as these are fixed wheels. Just rider ability to ride and the strength of their legs and body to meet the demands.
From that day I am truly hooked… What can I do to give this a go..? I’m told back then that I have the riding characterises to be reasonably decent on the boards. 90kgs, a reasonably big engine and reasonably able to hold a bit of power. I do a little bit of internet research leveraging the British Cycling webpage and the Velodrome itself. I learn that there is an accreditation course, multiple nights of training, getting familiar with the track and learning the fundamentals that will expose me to the skills necessary to be able to participate, be safe for myself and to be safe for my fellow riders. Just to be riding on this track, the very track where London Olympic memories were crafted by cycling icons, the very track that Bradley trashed the hour record on. I had to pinch myself whenever I was down there, I felt privileged and honoured to be able to call this my home track.
Through many weeks of training I was fortunate enough to get through the accreditation process and become fully qualified to ride in events. Let me be clear, training is brutal… simple as that. Nothing that you would have encountered riding road, MTB, Cyclo-Cross will prepare you for it. To go faster you can’t use gears, this is cycling in its most simple form. You want to go faster..? Then you have to pedal faster. Want to slow down..? Then you use those same legs to request of them to deliver power to manage the pedal rotation. You cannot freewheel… when you have trashed yourself and can’t rotate your legs no more you can’t lose concentration, the legs need to spin, you can’t stop otherwise you are being launched off the bike. You learn to pick & ride the optimum lines, the banking, learning what power is needed where on the track, left leg lead, tucked into as small as front on position as possible… all this whilst being sympathetic to your ever changing surroundings, looking over shoulders, being vocal if you have to be. Thinking track position, thinking safety and being aware of what you are doing…
I have this absolute fantastic opportunity before me… the perfect venue. I have trained hard, under the guidance of my coach Dave Le Grys, who himself is a decorated track rider and coach. His own career, that continues and is hugely successful, and his coaching skills are just second to none. Dave and I meet and he challenges me to set goals that ordinarily I’d being calling him a crazy fool. I can’t do that…! Dave never backs down, he has had some just awful crashes, smashed his body to pieces. Recently having heart surgery and on Eurosport during the London 6 a huge mention by Bradley Wiggins & Carlton Kirby. He is highly respected and his attitude and his drive hooks me in.
“Let’s give the British National level a bash” … 3km pursuit… 12 laps of the London track. I train hard, I’ve a new bike all set up by Ben Hallam, I even have my name & Union Jack stickers on my bike… we are ready to give that journey a go.
Aug 2016, shake down of the new bike and gearing. Ben Hallam is with me, wants to see how the gearing is set up, if I’m as efficient on the double stem customised handlebar with a funky set up to lock my right arm to cater for the pulling on the bars when applying the power. I’m riding amongst a fully accredited bunch of guys… some I know as we have shared the journey to this point. A few new people but have faith in the accreditation process. The track coach introduces the first skills session, tells everyone that I’m bedding in a new bike, I will be at the back and I’ll give a shout when I’m up to speed. The tyres have had vinegar rubbed on them, they are super sticky and we are ready. 12 laps of feeling really comfortable, the gearing is bang on, Ben knows his stuff. I feel confident and easily able to keep in the flow of the training.
At that point, the wheels came flying off… Turn 2, one of the new riders ahead comes off his bike when doing basic half lap rotations and his bike slides down one way whilst he slides another. There was about 14 of us and it was a scattered landscape… you hear the noise, you see riders going off on all different angles. We have no brakes and ditching your bike is going to hurt. Unfortunately, everything was done at speed and as I was the last coming around I had nowhere to go accept into a pile of bikes. I remember thinking ‘bunny hop’ but what a retarded thought… Fixed wheel, no brakes, and one arm. Idiot, brace yourself…!!! I collected the bikes as they slide done, all in what seemed a slow motion sequence. Up I went and it appears that I landed on my set of handlebars… I say that with the benefit of hindsight because the extent of my injuries suggests so. I land, it went black… my immediate feeling as I come around and I look at the boards, I can’t breathe..! I don’t have the capability to breathe… Help me..! I quickly realise that all I can do is really short and shallow breathe. As I look up to the guy who came off all I could say was “you f***ker” as I lay in a crumpled heap on turn 2.
The scene is carnage… I get immediate assistance from other riders that detached nearby as well as the trainers / venue support guys as this is clearly a serious crash. Everything stops… within 7 mins I’m being given morphine by a quick response medic, still on the same spot I landed. An ambulance crew arrive and the talk is whether they get the helicopter in, what hospital can deal with the suspected injuries, the concern is lung damage, they can see the ribs are all over the place on my right side. I am bleeding from my mouth, I‘ve had some history with injuries and I know myself that this is serious. I’m going into a spasm and they are hitting me with more morphine… I don’t mind admitting that this is hurting me.
I ended up in Homerton Hospital in a super slow ambulance ride because every bump is causing a reaction to the ribs, lung… I can’t thank the medics, ambulance crew, the hospital and the track side trainers enough for their support, expertise and quick thinking. Out of all of this I ended up with 3x fractured ribs, an additional 3x broken ribs, a shattered clavicle, a dislocated shoulder and a fractured wrist. The rib was against the lung and was extremely lucky not to puncture.
The body heals in time and with the nice addition of a plate for a clavicle (it took 4 hours to collect all the pieces and screw in a plate with what little bone was left). Rehabilitation was tough and the ultrasound guided needle to inject a solution to ‘pop’ the scar tissue within the dislocated shoulder to allow the return of movement (remediate a frozen shoulder) was reasonably unpleasant, how I didn’t lose teeth when clinching I don’t know.
One positive I can take from this negative situation… it happened to the right side of my body. That side is smashed already with my arm, trust me it didn’t lessen the pain but if this had happened to my ‘good’ left side then I’m into full disability mode and this is life changing. I cope because I have experience and history to draw upon, I have positive people around me… my coach has been there and seen it and helps focus my mind on my goals. He knows I’ll give whatever is needed, we share a similar mentality and we can get through this.
Repeat… What would you give to give this a go..?
It nearly cost me dearly… and most people will tell you that I’m a reasonably robust individual and will look at the positive in life. However this episode left me with 2x real negatives…
1) The ‘compromised’ individual known as the ‘other’ rider who became detached from his bike. To this day he has hidden himself, remained unknown and did not even come to see me or even communicate his best wishes. I spent weeks in hospital, lost a lot of income and endured a lot of pain. Yes, coming off your bike happens but not to act like a ‘man’ is a pretty crap indictment of him. Whoever he is…!!!! I don’t have bitterness of him coming off his bike (apparently he borrowed it off a friend), his actions afterwards show what a ‘man’ he is.
2) The Velodrome… Management is a rather unhelpful bunch I have to say. All under the guise of the protection of privacy of data. As a British Cycling member that has a race licence we are told that we have insurance cover. I contact BC after I came off the pain killing drugs and ask what the protocol is. I am not earning money, as a contractor on a day rate; I’m not capable of moving let alone thinking of Financial Regulatory reporting. The BC lawyer’s need only to know whether the other guy is a BC member and if so what his number is and they’ll take it from there. I ask the Velodrome Mgmt. for a copy of the incident report and the detail of who the other rider is / was missing. Fabricated not to share his information… The BC Lawyers even asked the Velodrome directly, missing me off the request, and they still would not give any detail at all… All I was asking for was to recover a loss of earnings nothing more, nothing less. We were not racing so I know that we are covered. Racing and you lose that coverage… This was a training accident; I was losing money hand over fist… To date all I have had is a lot of sympathy. I was left with and remain with the overriding feeling of questioning the point of a BC Membership & its publicised insurance.
For any of you considering the track I would caution a ‘eyes wide open’ approach in that you should consider the ‘what if scenario’. Is there any risk mitigation you can provide..? Insurance protection and such like. Track riding does carry a ‘health warning’ risk and there is a realistic chance that something could happen. The track accreditation process, the insurance coverage and the management of the whole thing is lacking and with the ever increasing popularity needs to move with the times. I have ideas but it is about gaining an appropriate platform to share those thoughts hence one of the objectives of this blog and its opportunities. Ideas like minimum hours needed to be allowed to progress through the accreditation levels. We have licences to be able to ride, why not have a points process like we do our driving licences..? Points deducted for the lack of quality of riding determined by the coaches who manage the sessions, points deducted for causing crashes when severe, then potential demotion down the levels or worse case bans.
Enough of that, another blog subject for another day… Life goes on..!
So, having said all that we are now at Nov 2018… I’ve just been to the London 6 day (thanks fella’s… Lofty, Colin, and Loggo), I see my coach back on the boards after everything he has been through. I am finally strong enough to consider getting back on the boards. The key question is… “Do I have the balls to go again..?” I’m 50 now, I go up an age category into the 2km pursuit, 8x laps of full gas. Is my body fully prepared for the consequences..? Can I shift the risks to the back of the mind..? I don’t know… but what I do know is that I’m hooked and it would be a regret if I were to walk away without dusting down my bike and giving it another go. This is going to be a ‘Mind over Matter’ exercise and where my coach will earn his stripes I suspect.
Repeat… What would you give to give this a go..?
I’m not sure Amanda or Lola will be thrilled with the prospect of me starting on the track again, nor my Mum for shredding more of her nerves but they all know me well enough by now. I’ll let you know how it goes…
Wayne
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