The Beacon Message Board

Children age 4-15 on freewheel bikes
Adults on track bikes
Hire bikes available £5 please comment if you would like one.
Back up date if rained off is Saturday 9th July.

Voting not working for me Tim, am planning to come along & watch or help out if free on the day.

Doesn't work on Chrome.
I shall be riding

I've fixed the problem that was preventing voting on this forum.

Thanks Steve!

I've never done any track sessions or dont have a bike so im guessing i'm probably not eligible to ride? ill be there to watch though.

There are hire bikes £5. If you did a stage one session at Derby beforehand (may get a last minute spot) you would be totally fine to take part in individual pursuit or potentially on the day get there at 1 and if Gavin or Pete could get there a bit early and could get you up to starting and stopping safely which is all you need to take part in the individual pursuit. Maybe though yes just come and watch this year if never ridden a fixed or done a track session then take part in any sessions we run over winter or do some of the Derby track accreditation over the winter too.

Possibility we will do a road bike TT on day. If there's demand???? Although would need to check with Charles the organiser and personally think we have enough other races to get through and want more to take part in some of the track races rather than just then opt for road bike TT.

To do individual pursuit I would say Tim is quite right even if you have never ridden fixed it should only take,1/2 hour or so to get the basics and I am happy to help with Gav to do that if we can have the track before hand.
For any mass start racing then at least a basic one hour session and preferably track accreditation.
Personally I think any TT should be on fixed wheels bikes with adults.

Bump

It's 2-6 not 1-5 as previously advertised. But get there early so ready to race from 2pm.

Hi,

I'll be there.
I'm doing the stage one track session at Derby in the morning, so would like to be able to race.
I'm not so sure of confidence levels though and if ill be able to.

Great Gemma. Do you need to rent a bike? What size if yes? Whether hiring a bike or not I'd advice getting there bit early so not rushed and should have chance to ride around before any races.

Yes will need to rent one.

eeerrrmmmmm good question about size, one that fits someone who is 5ft 8in.

So if I get there about 1.15 ish you can save me when I fall and break an arm? lol

A medium order 54cm should be fine for a woman 5' 8" , I have only seen a couple with women's saddles unfortunately and you aren't officially allowed to change saddles or pedals. You will need flat shoes as the hire bikes use straps and toe clips.

Hi Pete,

do you mean flat shoes as in trainers?

Not clipless cycle shoes?

Flat shoes as in not road cleats. Trainers or mtb shoes or road shoes with cleat removed, up to you, high heels and long boots aren't the best . Don't know if you have used clips, but a clip goes over the toe (hence clips) and a strap around the top of the shoe.
When you do the session at Derby they are a bit more uptodate and use Look cleats, if you haven't got shoes with Look cleats they hire them.
The pedals themselves are cage type pedals and will not take either road or mtb style cleats .
If you were very adventurous (and verging on the insane) you could use traditional road cleats that nail onto the bottom of leather soled cycling shoes, you would gain loads of credence amongst the more traditional minded members.

It's all a lot easier than it sounds and once you have done a session at Derby you will be raring for more

Ok this might sound a really dumb question but im guessing ive missed any chance of doing the derby track session before hand? i've just tried to find info about it on the forum and also on the facebook groups but cant seem to find anything. Am I too late or are there any spaces left? sorry for the late questions.

Club sessions at Derby are run during winter, so to late for last ones and a little early for next

Derby and other Velodromes like Newport, run regular taster sessions throughout the year, see their websites. Derbies taster session is also the first stage of the track accreditation process to get UK accreditation.

You don't need accreditation to ride our club track day, although some experience would be required before entering the mass start events.

The other and easiest way to get into track racing is the Halesowen Friday Night Track Leauge, which runs throughout the summer months, they run their own accreditation sessions. Too late for those unfortunately.
Come on down on Saturday and find out all about it.

This is the provisional full race schedule, subject to change on day depending on numbers there and weather etc. :

1 ADULT sprint heats
2 CHILDREN 1 lap time trial
3 ADULT 4000m (8 laps) individual pursuit
4 CHILDREN 1 lap handicap
5 ADULT sprint repercharge
6 CHILDREN Handicap Elimination / Devil
7 ADULT sprint semis
8 CHILDREN 250m dash x2
9 ADULT sprint finals
10 CHILDREN 2 lap handicap
11 ADULT 20 lap scratch
12 presentation photos

Dan and anyone else without track experience if get there 1.15 ready to get a track bike hired and ride from 1.30 then Gavin and Pete can get you up to starting and stopping safely to take part in individual pursuit.

If there's anyone interested in organising next year who would like to assist on Saturday or anyone just able to assist then please let me know. Especially with children's 1 lap TT and adult individual pursuit.

If you have a trophy please bring it!!

Hi all

thanks for an awesome day yesterday, i've quickly gone through the pics I took yesterday and just resized them down for now. Ive split them into four folders to make it easier to grab the ones you want let me know if you have any issues getting access to them. They are all in Zip files and I have the original large format still if anyone wants any just let me know.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BylhW ... ngwM256TWc

thanks

Many thanks first to Charles, he's not a member of the club any more and still gives up his time to organise and run the day. Secondly to all the other helpers for pushing off my kids and time keeping and helping me with handicapping the children. Thirdly to Dan for all these brilliant pics, will have a look through and share some to the Facebook page later this week. Lastly to all the riders adult and children who took part to make it such a competitive programme of races, I really enjoyed it and both my children did too. Beating Robin and Gary in the same afternoon was really fun just a shame that juggernaut Mr Clegg turned up to halt my march to the final!

Special kudos to the debutants as know it's a bit daunting especially if riding on a hire bike, in particular to Gemma who was at Derby in the morning then this in the afternoon!!

Was an almost perfect day, just missed Mr Shayes gun wielding and his tyre and bar checks! Hope the eye op has gone well.

Looking forward to next year already.

The names of the events are probably bit wrong here and may have missed some but winners were:

Girls Omnium: May
Boys Omnium: Jake
Women's Omnium: Jess
Men's Omnium: Matt
Sprint: Matt
Individual Pursuit: Matt
Scratch Race: Matt
250 fastest time: Gavin

Good photos, Dan - they'd make a great flip book!