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Old 07-15-05, 11:37 PM
  #16  
bitingduck
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I'll second the comment that being clipped in is more about safety and ability to control the bike in a group at all speeds than it is about getting more speed.

I learned to ride the track at Blaine, and have ridden a bunch of others. If you're all by yourself out there, do what you want, but if there are other people on the track, you have very few ways to control your speed, and the pedals are the one with the most control. If something happens in front of you and you need to change speed fast, being clipped in is important. It's also important if you're getting out of the saddle in the corners to go from low speed to high-- you can get the bike at weird angles and you don't want to slip off the pedal.

On the track it doesn't matter if they're easy to get into and out of-- you can do that at the rail. I recently switched from Looks back to cages and double straps because it's harder to come out of cages and straps (I did a little flip after breaking a look cleat in a flying 200). It takes me a while to get into them when there's not a rail, but I still like them.

They also don't need to be expensive- if you're not doing serious sprinting, you can just move your road pedals and shoes around. Decent cages and straps are also available pretty cheaply, though cleats are getting hard to find and expensive. Track is probably the least expensive kind of racing when it comes to equipment-- bikes are more of a buyers market and equipment lasts a long time unless you crash it. I race in the 1-2-3 fields in shoes that I got 10 years ago on sale from Nashbar for about $12.

Do whatever you want about jerseys, but I think the USCF still doesn't allow sleeveless in races.

(edit because I wanted to comment on some of the stuff at the bottom of your original post):

I'm glad the people at Blaine are still as nice as when I learned there-- Bob Williams actually talked me out of getting stuff that I didn't need when I bought my first new road bike from him at Flanders. It was a couple year old model-- like you, I didn't have a lot of money. I probably put 70K miles on it, and I still use it as a beater. It definitely proved that it's the motor, not the machine. Bob was the instructor later when I learned to ride the track, and he was great. I think the friendly attitude there was part of what kept it so fun for so long.

Except for the amount of time it takes, riding the track can be more convenient than you think-- my friend and I used to keep our track bikes at the track and pedal up from the U or Downtown. I had a pretty cheap used bike, but it worked, and I managed to do well on it. I started out racing on the rentals. You can keep an eye out for used stuff and get reliable stuff for pretty low cost-- there are plenty of low cost parts that work fine, and if you can do your own work you save a lot of money. Sheldon Brown's site has lots of decent low cost new stuff, and Third Hand/Loose Screws also has decent stuff cheap.

Last edited by bitingduck; 07-15-05 at 11:54 PM.
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