On The Other Side of the World...

Long before the hipsters made it cool to ride "fixies", this has been happening in Japan:

http://www.nowness.com/day/2011/3/8/574/keirin--speed-racers

Back in the 1991, my family and I took a trip to Minnesota to attend the wedding of one of my cousins.  Since my dad is from there, it made sense to just turn it into a family trip.  I was deep into my love affair with cycling, and while we were there, the Twin Cities were hosting an Olympic type of event where the country sent their best athletes by region (North, South, West, and East) to compete.

I found out that they had cycling events happening, so my mom and I went to watch.  We stood on the side of the road and watched the team time trials go by, but more importantly, we spent a day at the velodrome.

It happened that on that day, they were holding 3 events;  Match sprints, elimination and Keirin.

Holy crap.

There could not have been a better line up of events to introduce someone to the world of fixed gear velodrome racing. 


Here's some pics I scanned:

 The picture above is of one of the Keirin races.  The basic rules of Keirin are 5 to 8 riders start out behind a motor pacer, as they complete laps, the motor pacer ups their speed until the bell rings for the final lap and then all hell breaks loose.  First across the line wins.

This picture is of the elimination race.  The basic rules of elimination are every lap (or in this case it was every other lap) a ride or two is eliminated off the back of the pack, until there's 5 riders and they sprint for the finish.  This one was a lot of fun to watch.  So much so, my mother was standing and cheering.  Every other lap, there was mayhem at the back of the pack.

I don't have any pictures of the match sprints as this was the era of film, and I had filled up my roll of 24 pictures.

What does this have to do with the TdF this July?

Nothing.

But cycling is cycling.  No matter how or where you pedal your two (and sometimes 3) wheels around, it's sport that's probably worth watching. 

Happy riding.