first keirin
 

this friday evening, i'll be doing my first keirin at frisco superdrome...

i'm pretty much a track newbie, but i raced in the fall series last year in mass starts, and then did 'freeze the burn' wednesday training series throughout the winter.

gonna give keirin a shot this friday....planning to use a 90" gear...and ...i've watched plenty on youtube...what else can you guys tell me?

Try and get near the front, but not on the front in the paceline behind the motorcycle.

Watch all around you, try and know where everyone is.

It's not the world championships, don't try any hoy-like moves.

Kill it on the start, and stay on a wheel as long as possible.

Enjoy it.

1. Have fun.
2. Don't take the wheel unless you're assigned it. Unless you're just a TT monster, then do whatever.
3. Have fun.

Really, just relax and enjoy. Don't go for the prime positions towards the front, leave that to the guys with experience. Besides, you can't see anything from the front, and you are there to learn in your first races, so stick mid pack and learn from what the experienced guys do. 90" is fine - ya know you will be doing well over 30mph when the motor pulls off. Gotta have a nice smooth fast spin in those legs of yours.

Treat it like the last 2.5 laps of a short Scratch race.

...that's pretty much what it is.


Being that it's your first one,
- Focus on finishing safely.
- Try to stay in the middle of the pack.
- Expect the speeds to really ramp up with one lap to go.
- If you feel that you have more juice than the others with 1/2 lap to go, check over your right shoulder to make sure that it's clear, punch the gas and hang on till the end.
- If you get boxed-in, relax and finish safely and try not to get boxed-in next time. It happens to the best of us.

thanks all, and good stuff-- one concern i have is this: as mentioned above, i know that internationally, the motor brings the riders up to 50kph before dropping down...GULP!! will we be doing that in a novice keirin, with women and juniors in the field as well? i mean, holy crap that's fast...i have pictures of not even being able to hold the motor laps

Don't worry. They will lower the speeds accordingly.

thanks, carleton-- i'm calming down .... ;~)

Perfect. If you get boxed in, do not try to a) muscle your way out, or b) pass underneath. Only bad things will happen. That said, they are usually very clean. In the beginner bush leagues (me), guys going Senko (me) will string it out, and get passed coming out of final turn by a big Makuri like Carleton.

i think i'm something between a senko and a makuri....

I can assure you, you don't know yet.
Until you've done track for a while there's no way of knowing where you fit in the continuum.

Take safe wheels, be a safe wheel, when appropriate go fast,
Over the next few races you'll become more clear on what good wheels are, how to be a safer wheel yourself, and when is it appropriate to go fast.
Rinse, repeat, so it goes.

Eventually you'll learn what you are and what your best tactics are, but give everything a few tries - never assume you know.
Example - this road season I realized that attacking on downhills is actually a decent strategy for me at times. I always thought that small size/weight meant that I never should, but having a tiny aero profile mated with track-level spinning of big gears and I've now podiumed using downhill attacks... I never would have known had I not tried it a couple times.

This is some perfect advice for all track racers.

Yeah, good advice above!

Tonight's the night. Let us know how it goes. Most important thing is to relax, have fun, and be safe. That relax part is important. A tense stiff rider does strange things to the bike and the rider. Don't forget to breathe, try to stay loose and be smooth. No sudden movements. That is the way to be safe.

Not to scare you, but 50km/hr is pretty typical speed for the motor to drop off. The race accelerates from there. If that concerns you, just hang in the back half of the pack and watch the fun in front of you.

Per UCI rules:

- Men are taken up to 50kph (31mph)
- Juniors and Women are taken up to 45kph (28mph)

That being said, at DLV we adjusted the drop-off speeds according to the field participants. Elite CAT A/1/2 Men would get the full 50kph/31mph and we'd slow that down for lower categories. Even slower for beginners.

I should know...I've been the human pacer before for the Elite A/1/2 field...for several heats. Then for the beginners...for several heats. Not fun....not fun AT ALL. The speeds were easily manageable by me even being out front as the pacer with no one to cut the wind for me. But, heat after heat after heat turned it into a grueling session of intervals. During the last Elite A/1/2 field there was a guy in the field yelling encouragement at me because I needed it :)

But if you are in the field, it's easy.

When we ran a keirin in St. Louis last year we had a strong rider from each category (a, b, c) all get lead rider behind the motor at the practice session to figure the top speeds.. I think we ended up with 50, 45, and 40.

have yet to do my first keirin- on the way to the track Friday night, i got a text saying the event was canceled. i don't know why, but i was very disappointed. and, even worse, on a Friday rush hour, i had to then make my way back home from far north dallas to my home near down town-about a one hour forty five minute beat down ....

all good stuff up there, guys...and i will report back when the next keirin is scheduled on first Friday in June

So, how did it go?

FB- you can see that my last post mentioned the early May event canceled. the next, scheduled for 5/31 also didn't make, with only a total of 14 racers in 3 different categories appearing. i really felt bad for the young guy who flew in from San Diego....sheesh! so, with motorcycle on hand, we did keirin practice- first riding in pace line on the motor and learning how to exchange positions on the motor's wheel at the end of a lap, and also finding that third place behind the motor is....rough, with the airstream descending back down over the draft.

then we did individual 4 lap efforts behind the motor at keirin speed, ie, 50 k/ph. wow, that's fast. we were supposed to come around alongside the motor on the last lap of these efforts and it felt like jumping out of a plane. holy crap i can't imagine being able to go from 50 k/ph to 65 or 70k/ph!!

on sunday june 2, this ancient roadie entered an all sprint event, flying 200m's and match sprints, posting one of the slowest 200s of the day, and then creamed by a 6'3" 200 lb 18 year old boy who simply disappeared like the Millenium Falcon on the bell lap. afterwards, he told me it was his first match sprint win, but i KNOW it won't be his last. i told him it was my first match sprint and was utterly clueless, so we had a laugh and shook hands.

i'm meeting with a coach tomorrow morning