Originally Posted by
atbman
Agree with the general answers. If you compare it with a 4-up team time trial on the road, or even the chaingang, the hardest part of the peel-off on the road is when you have to accelerate to drop in behind the last rider, having slowed down to allow the team/group to go past.
as others have said, swinging up the banking slows you down quickly, gong back down the banking accelerates you with less effort onto the wheel of the last rider and you therefore spend less time unsheltered by your fellow team members and therefore spend less energy.
This seems to make sense though I'm guessing visibility plays a big part; lead rider swings up high & doesn't have to look straight back to see exactly where/when to fall back into place.
Well I never rode track but it's nice to see NBC doing a decent job at covering current Olympic velodrome events. They published the broadcast schedules on the net & (manual-programmed) Tivo gets all the cycling bits. Have seen previously that even non-race fans can get into track events (esp sprints) 'cause they're short duration & sometimes quite spectacular.