Salt City Sprints
The speedskating season is quite long, and after the stress of national champs, it’s a really good idea to do a mid-season fitness rebuild that involves plentiful cross-training.
Usually this involves the weight room or the bike. The US national team often goes somewhere warm for a week of long rides. However, this is not an option for the rest of us.
When a friend sent me the link to this bike event happening in a local bar, the Salt City Sprints, I just had to go!
Although wintertime indoor cycling races have been around for over a century, this modern version of it involved one of my favorite strange American sub-cultures; the fixed-gear urban cyclist crowd.
I’ve ridden a track bike on the city streets since 1993 (for training, never really for commuting) and it’s been so much fun to see the explosion of interest in fixed-gear riding & the distinct cultural identity that has become attached something I’ve done on my own for years.
I thought it was mainly a young hipster thing, but there was really quite a diverse & playful crowd there for the sprints. That is one of the fun things about bikes, (or speedskating for that matter) the love of an activity can cross all sorts of lines.
I had my camera with me, and about halfway though did some taping, just because the event was so cool.
Click here for the high quality Quicktime, or press play below for the youtube.
There is an interesting psychological footnote to this. This was a fun event, but it did center around a “race”.
When it was my turn to ride, my extremely intense competitive nature naturally bubbled forth.
I am a sprinter by nature & nurture, and I wanted to show that, even though speedskating ability does not necessarily mean you can spin 220+ RPM on a track bike.
These were time trials, as fast as you could go for “250 meters”. Everyone rode once, and that was supposed to set up elimination rounds between the top 16.
When it was my shot for the time trial, I rode pretty well, and as I staggered away from the bike, I heard the times announced.
I heard the time of the fellow who rode next to me, and thought it was my own. It was not a good time. I watched guy after guy, and even some women, go faster.
I was pissed off, mostly at myself, for having that prideful, competitive kernel bouncing around my innards like a spiked superball.
Eventually, I did find out my true time, and felt much better, as it barely qualified me for the top 16. I would get to ride again.
However, as the evening wore on, it became quite obvious that the “times recorded” were all off, as the computers were not registering correctly, and in fact, the organizers were forced to just use one bike & do hand timing. So the results became “wildly impressionistic” rather than accurate.
But because of my earlier moment of timing confusion, I started wondering why “racing” is so damm important to self-esteen. Why do some of us so enjoy measuring ourselves vs other people? & why do the crowds cheer so loud?
They seemingly got the computer working for the final round of 16, I was one of the first to ride, and I guess with some combination of my size, power, & lack of grace, I killed the computer (the moment in the video that goes from fast to slow-mo, that is that moment).
I’ve done this before; I once broke a treadmill in a professional lab during a VOmax test when I was 19, I have snapped the downtube on several bikes & crushed maple clap blade mechanisms. I guess I just break stuff when I go as hard as I can.
I don’t blame the organizers, they were doing their best, and without them, I would not have had so much fun. But should I blame myself for caring so much? Especially when I see prizes being handed out.
Is unleashing that nasty spiked superball on your guts a necessary personality trait to have, if you want to be someone who can win races when it really counts?
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