…Continued from the previous post.

When last we visited, I was at the L.A. Velodrome to take in the USA Cycling Elite Track National Championships – specifically the Team Pursuit competition. Although I had struggled with the whole “pursuit” concept, I was enjoying the uniqueness of the event. This is not the cycling that the average Josephine on the street is familiar with.

For starters, the bicycles themselves are really just first cousins to the road bikes that are used in the Tour de France – or the Tour de Coffee Shops that we recreational riders take part in, for that matter. For one thing, there’s no brakes. While this could be problematic when out for a ride in the neighborhood, in the velodrome it’s pretty rare that some clown in a ’96 Toyota Celica blows a red light and cuts you off.

There are also significantly fewer gears than the 21 (or so) that we’re used to. There’s actually just…well, none – unless you count the pure leg strength of a rider as a gear.

In a somewhat smaller surprise, there are no kickstands, wicker handlebar baskets or those little bells that you can ring with your thumb on these bikes either. Just so you know.

Cycling pursuit teams start their heats side-by-side from a standstill position, with their bikes on a progressively steeper angle. Consequently, it’s easy to envision a scenario in which the outside rider on the most steeply banked angle might veer to the left on an initial move and wipe out the rest of the team in a domino effect. And I’m going to guess that it’s happened more times than anyone would care to count.

That probably explains why each cyclist has their own valet starter at the beginning of each race – someone who holds them upright and then sends them on their way. Kind of like your Dad did when you took that first ride with the training wheels off.  

In the break between the qualifying heats and the medal races, I took a walk over to the far end of the velodrome and leaned over the rail for a bird’s eye view of the track at its most steeply banked point. The angle here is listed as 45 degrees, but to me it seemed a lot closer to 90 degrees – i.e. straight up and down. Although I was seeing it with my own eyes, I still couldn’t fathom how much the forces of gravity were being denied by the cyclists that came this far up the bank. Not to mention the slimmest of margins by which the rubber on the sides of their tires was keeping them from wiping out.

There were no crashes – and only one near miss – during the competition that I witnessed, but I can imagine that they are pretty horrific. Someone traveling at a speed of more than 45 mph, at an almost vertical angle, and wearing no protection other than a helmet…   

Even on the much flatter areas – the lower, inner part of the track which the team hugs during the race – the proximity in which they ride to each other can be unsettling to watch. Strung out in single file, the riders maintain a space of no more than a foot – and often less than that – in between bikes. Again, one hiccup, one false move, one random ’96 Toyota Celica with an open door, and…well just envisioning it made me wince.

Returning to my seat for the women’s Bronze Medal race, I noticed that there was a good deal of milling around at both the starting line, and also across the way on the back stretch in preparation for the competition.

“How come both teams are on the track?” I asked newfound friend and cycling coach Justin. “This is the pursuit part of the competition”, he replied. “In addition to racing for the best time, a team can win via The Catch.”

AHA! The Holy Grail! The missing piece of the “pursuit” puzzle!! In the Gold and Bronze Medal races, the teams are actually pursuing each other around the track. If one team can make up the half lap needed to reach the other, the race is ended. If neither team is able to win via the Catch, then the team that posts the best time for the 16 laps (12 for the women) wins the medal.

This was infinitely more fun to watch than the qualifying trials.

In the men’s qualifying trials, something called Team Ouch had blown away the field with a time of 4:22:217. Which, it was pointed out by my trusty P.A. announcer, was more than three seconds faster than the previous year’s Gold Medal time. It came to mind that they might have peaked a bit early, and I wondered if they would have the energy to repeat that performance in the Gold Medal race.

Not to worry. Team Ouch won by virtue of the Catch, “lapping” Black Dog Cycling not even three-quarters of the way through the race.

As dominant as was Team Ouch, they were matched on the women’s side by a team dressed primarily in white and named Peanut Butter & Company Twenty 12. I can only imagine that their sponsorship comes from an amalgam of food groups and numbers, a la an episode of Sesame Street. On this particular evening they should have been sponsored by the number “1”, because that’s how easily these three women – Hanan Alves-Hyde, Cari Higgins and Ruth Winder – breezed through the qualifying trials. And in the championship race, they too won Gold via the Catch, less than 10 laps into the festivities.

Having now witnessed world class road bike racing and track racing, I have to say I prefer the latter. Track racing doesn’t get nearly the publicity, but from a spectator standpoint, it’s definitely more compelling.

In fact, long after leaving the velodrome I still had an overwhelming urge to lean to the left. And an insatiable craving for peanut butter.