Reading Track League (May 12)
Palmer Park Velodrome (Reading)
Report: David Jack
Photos: Thanks go to Guy Swarbrick for a fine set of photographs from his Nikon D3 from the latest round of the Reading Track League. See more pictures by clicking the Gallery button at the top of the page.
Warm weather brings out “the speed”!
A beautiful night of warm and calm conditions, a crowd of eager cyclists, a super fast slick track, hopeful parents in the crowd and the classy Mike Mullet on the mic…. What more could we want…bring on the action indeed!
After the usual round of shorter warm up races where the youth riders completed a one lap TT, a Devil take the hind most and Japanese Keirin sprint race with Daniel Maslin and Jamil Gaida sweeping all before them.
The seniors completed a quick 10 lap Hare & Hounds, with the B’s holding the A’s off for 5 laps before swamping them and blasting round with a victory to inform Chris Legg. The nights main event was the Keirin competition. A Japanese invented event where riders of 4 to 6 follow a special motor pacing bike until just under one lap to go ( 3 laps on an indoor track), where they are let loose at about 24 mph to sprint it out for the finish. The Japanese have a betting format for this race and spend more money betting every year on Keirins than on horse racing.
With heats for the A’s , B’s and a straight final for the women, it was going to be a busy night. The A’s had some hum-dinger heats, none more closely fought than heat 2 where 4 riders, at 35mph plus crossed the line within half a wheel.. fantastic to watch the power of these guys hammering to get to the line first. But the finals brought out the fastest and sometimes smartest riders and to start off we’ll mention the womens race. Defending league and Keirin champion Janet Birkmyre, still suffering from back issues, put the pain aside to hold off Emma Patterson with local youth favourite Rosie Serruya beating off two other seniors for third.
The B’s final had a close finish with taxi driver Dave Dentus holding off father and son duo of Trevor and Stephen Bradbury to take the win. The A’s final had Portsmouth local Lee Povey travelling up for some sprint competition, local rider and brother of Rosie - Sam Serruya who has been riding at this track since he was 5. Another local Neil Cooper, Newbury’s Ian Greenstreet, David Jack - league sprint champ from last year and another local Reading chap Rob King, all fast finishers and all ready to do battle.
As the Derny took up pace it was Jack who grabbed the mudguard or front position, Povey on his wheel with Serruya, King and Cooper lined out behind. Greenstreet had tried to push jack off the derny but to no avail and dropped back to take up the rear position.
As the Derny came round to prepare to pull off, and release the riders for the final sprint, Povey dropped back from Jack, leaving a gap to accelerate into. Jack saw this and did likewise. As the derny pulled left onto the running track Jack had accelerated into the space and hit the front winding it up to full speed. Povey too had accelerated and got to Jacks wheel as they hit the start of the long home straight.
Serruya was biding his time and as Povey went for the line, he jumped, gaining on Povey all the time. Povey and Serruya passed Jack and as they hit the line Povey had kept enough in reserve to hold off the fast finishing Serruya. Jack held on to third in this thrilling final.
The Youths had a new and intriguing event on their race calendar this year, the Madison, aptly named after Madison Square Gardens in the USA, where it was first run. Basically teams of 2 riders have to work together to gain points on set laps with the winning team accruing the most points overall. The trick or difficulty in this event is that each rider must sling his partner in when they swop turns. This involves the new rider dropping down near the bottom line, holding their arm back and out for their team mate to grab as they come round for the exchange at 20 plus mph. The team mate grabs his partners hand, uses all his approaching momentum to sling his partner forward into the race, aiding acceleration and bunch position. He then swings up to the top of the track and out of the way, until his turn to come. 
Above: Daniel Maslin and Matthew Lansley demonstrate beautifully the art of the hand sling.
British cycling have excelled at this event in recent years with Olympic and World champion Bradley Wiggins and World Champion Mark Cavendish winning the world champs in this event 2 years ago.
To the action though and with the track being a large one, it meant sling changes every lap for the youths and it was thoroughly riveting watching these youngsters smoothly making changes and being exceptionally competitive. The final results had Frazier Carr and Max Stedman notch up more points than their closest rivals Harvey Watson and Jamil Gaida, with Daniel Maslin and Matthew Lansley third.
There is regular training for this event at Palmer Park on most Saturday mornings – contact Shane Benson at the league if you’d like to be involved.
The Seniors completed their evenings racing with three races back to back, a Devil, and Unknown distance and of course the AW Cycles 20 km race. Although I could go into great detail of how in the Devil the sprinters took two of the top three spots, or in the Unknown distance, which ended up being 9 laps, Tristan Natolie attacked bravely to open up a big gap and only on the home straight did he get caught by two riders.
I could mention that in the 20km race a brave early attack by Eddie Sobieralski, David Jack and Nick Bradbury, where they gained half a lap and looked threatening, only to be caught 6 laps later,
but to be honest, last nights endurance races were dominated by local Junior Chris Legg.
Legg won all four races on the night and with Sam Sturgeon for company, lapped the field in the 20km race which is rarely done, and then attacked the main field again to win alone. A dominant display by the young local rider indeed.
Above: Chris Legg crossed the line first four times on this night!
More action next week with Pursuiting, Sprinting and a full program of youth events. See you there!!
