Track Cycling - Slinging and Throwing your roomates at the track

From this page (http://www.fatnick.com/0203amspics/0203Amspics.htm):
http://www.fatnick.com/0203amspics/Amsterdam1_189.jpg
"Learning the ropes: Wilco Zuijderwijk throws Britain's Tony Gibb into the action."

So do they actually do this- the slinging of your partners during a race?

I remember watching a race a LONG time ago in the olympics where everyone rode VERY slowly around the track for a couple laps- and suddenly everyone took off. Would that be a pursuit race?

The above is called Madison aka 6day racing. Original an a American from of tracking started at Madison Square Garden in NYC. They rode for 6 days 24 hrs. You sling your partner and he rides for a certain amount of laps and when he is done you come in a do the same. This was the high light when Cycling was the top sport in the ol USA. In Europe they still do this during the winter months and is really big.

Here in the US Dale Hughes and Rick Denman kept this alive in the US!IMHO.

Pursuits is riders on the opposite side of the track and they ride a prescribe amount of laps (now men do 4000 meters and ladies 3000 meters. for team pursuits they are different ones from Assie style, italian style etc.

S/F,
CEYA!

P./S. Found a good link http://www.umcycling.com/faq1.htm and Dale's http://www.nas-track.com/velodrome/race.php

what does the sling do?

The rider waiting to enter the action idles at the top of the track. As their partner starts to come by, they pick up speed coming down the bank. Their partner catches up and passes by them, grabbing their hand in the process. At an arms length, the current rider who is traveling faster than the rider entering the relay slings the new rider up to speed.

They have a Madison league at the Bloomer Park velodrome in Michigan. Check out some videos here. (http://www.nas-track.com/video.php) Looks really fun.

It's like when i slingshot off the front of cars in traffic.

sounds like a sprint, the idea being you get to the line first no matter how slow or fast you go. Most sprints start slow as you cannot sprint for 3 whole laps at 70km/h and so tactics plays a big part. Sudden bursts of speed are used to gain a gap on your opponent.

The Madison is fun to race, very hard though. The speeds are insane. Basically you ride as a team and swap out laps so that you can have rests. This means that the speed is higher than if you rode it yourself the whole way. No set changeover times, it's up to each team to change when they want to. Very tactical and demanding racing over a lot of laps.

They have a Madison league at the Bloomer Park velodrome in Michigan. Check out some videos here. (http://www.nas-track.com/video.php) Looks really fun.


Dale Hughes put them on there too. I learned from him and Rick Denman.

S/F,
CEYA!

Ceya: Great links- what I had seen was a sprint (thanks climbo)

TNCLR: thanks for those videos- very cool. I can imagine how fast they can go. I wonder if they have more crashes! I would think it would be harder to transition with a bunch of people around you.

Amazing stuff. Thanks again.

The site TNCLR (http://www.nas-track.com/video.php) put up as a link is Dale Hughes site and is part of the site I linked up (http://www.nas-track.com/velodrome/race.php).

Have fun!

And Enjoy

S/F,
CEYA!