Originally Posted by cavernmech

Hey all. The first "messenger" evening at the London velodrome went pretty well. All told there were 12 of us from Toronto who made the journey down to race and do the learn to ride. Although there were at least 4 in the bunch who could have been in the "A" group, we all did a program with just our Toronto group. We all did a flying lap time...cheers to Mike with a scorching...at least for us...9.16 second lap. Everyone had a pretty good time as far as timed laps with everyone putting in lower than 11 second laps....even me! WOO WHO! The second event we all did was a 20 lap scratch race with Mark of Kingz of the Road, coming over the top on the last turn to nip Dave at the line. So all those folks who tried to give Mark a hard time for his "fixie pedigree" or "track king" moniker can feel free to go down and try to beat him. The next event was a 15 lap scratch with Stephano leading the group off the line. I guess he did not realize that the first lap was a neutral lap on the low "cote d'azure" section of the track to get up to speed. Most followed him into the steeper banking at a low speed and before we knew it the whole group was falling and sliding down the track en masse. Much laughter ensued...both from the spectators and all of us. We got it together for a second start and after a fairly mellow first 10 laps Mike took a flyer and took off from everyone for the win. The last event was an unknown distance event and we were all kind of burnt out a little from riding the track all day. It was agreed that we would all stick together at a moderate pace until the bell for 3 laps to go. Apparently Chris "granola" didn't understand this and tried to go off the front on his own. This was a gutsy move for a guy who has only been riding fixed for 2 weeks. In any case he got caught by the group before the bell. The final 3 laps were hotly contested with Dave just holding off Mike at the line.
It was an awesome day of riding and racing. Our next trip down will be Saturday July 30th. Anyone who would like to join us is welcome. Let me know if you are interested and we can make arrangements to get you down there. K.