A Taster Session at the Manchester Velodrome

        

          Today I went on a taster session at the Manchester Velodrome.  It was fantastic.  I cannot tell you how exhilarating it feels to be whizzing around the best cycling track in England!

            The session is an hour long, which is just about the right amount of time – long enough to get going confidently on your bike, short enough to ensure you don’t wear out your leg muscles!  My hour started with a quick explanation of what to do on the bike from the two men controlling the session.  The gist of what they said was that as the bike has no gears or brakes, you must keep pedalling at all times, even when trying to slow down.  This concept seemed illogical to me, and I wondered if they were pulling my leg.  No, in fact this was true.  The idea of slowing down by ‘leaning back’ on the pedals while continuing to pedal forward was, as the instructors told me it would be, easier to comprehend by doing than through explanation.  After tightening my helmet and embarking on a couple of shaky laps around the flat section of the track, I was delighted to discover that I could actually stop by this ‘leaning back’ method and so didn’t have to throw myself to the floor in order to stop moving.

            Getting started on the bike was, for me at least, terrifying.  One of the men straps both of your feet onto the respective bike pedals, leaving you no option to lean on one leg on your bike, as you do at red traffic lights on roads.  Your stability when stopped is maintained by holding onto the rail at the side of the track, and you are told to push off hard from this and begin pedalling to get going.  I wasn’t very taken with this idea of letting go of the safety of the rail, and it took me a good three attempts to successfully start pedalling and move in a controlled manner.  Having managed this once, though, it was simple for me to remember how to do it again – almost like riding a bike (sorry)!  What surprised me was that the two instructors, who took the thrilling (or lazy) ‘learn by doing’ approach to teaching, also encouraged speed.  After no more than ten minutes of riding around on the flat, I was told to move up to the sloped side of the track, and when I slowly began this new, weird and wonderful way of cycling I was told to ‘pick up my speed’.  My belief that these men were giving me a baptism of fire, with the sadistic hope of seeing me crash at high speed, was proved wrong.  As I sped up I found the cycling easier, because my pace took me effortlessly around the sloping sides of the track, making it feel almost like one long, straight road.  Not only this, but the enjoyment levels experienced when whizzing around the track as fast as you dare are so much higher than cautiously and nervously crawling around it.  The instructors obviously knew what they were doing as the hour passed without injury, and every novice on the session managed to cycle around the track by themselves; in some cases at dizzying speeds!  The ‘time trial’ at the end of the session was good fun as well – try and beat my time of 26.3 seconds for a lap!  Sadly, you probably will…

            I would seriously recommend anyone of any age (nine or above) to try out a taster session at the Velodrome.  It’s great fun, and in one hour you learn a new skill at Manchester’s very own national cycling centre.  Add to this the fact that you get a certificate at the end (score) and the motivation of trying to beat my time in the time trial, and what are you waiting for?  Why not bring a mate as well and learn together?  Book early, though, as places on these sessions are understandably in high demand!