A couple of track questions for the brain trust

Ride Track
1

Hi all,

Now that I’m retired from bunch racing Lorie and I have been thinking about giving the track a go. Lorie has shown a keen interest in this and we’d be looking to do individual events like the sprint, IP etc. A few questions for you…

1 - How do O-Cups work for those events? Are there rounds where you race repeatedly over the course of a day or two? Or do they take the best time and use that to compare against the rest of the field? (Like a road TT)

If it’s the former I would think that would impact your training/racing approach. (When I ran short sprints in track you had to be strong/fit enough to go rounds or you wouldn’t have enough in the tank to run a good final)

2 - I’m 49 this year, turning 50 next year. What are the race distances for the short events? I believe the IP is 2km after you turn 50 and 3km if you’re under 50 for masters?

Any other info you can share would be great. As usual if we get into this we’re going to do it right and give it a proper go. :smile:

Thanks!
Chris

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2

Hey @ChrisP

SO happy to hear you and Lorie are looking to transition to more track!

I can help answer your questions:

  1. OCups won’t always have the same events. There are definitely OCups that have IP, TP, team Sprint, and TT (Kilo or less depending on age…more on that in answer 2 below). So you’ll need to keep an eye on the OCup schedule to determine which one(s) to sign up for.
    All those events I list above are run on a day or two (two OCUP sessions are 3 days long…one is 1 day) and your time is compared against the field of your ability level (OCups are grouped by ability…Provincials/Nationals are age based) There are usually no ‘rounds’ you get one shot in the list of events above.
    (slight correction: At the Nationals there were IP/TP, and Team Sprint qualifying rounds for some age categories. Provincials there were not).
    You can see this year’s OCup, Provincials, Nationals results here:
    OCUP 1
    OCUP 2
    OCUP 3
    Provincials
    Nationals

Ability is based on your previous racing stats (I believe they will also look at Road…but when you get your Track racing license you will self declare your level to get your started).

  1. I’m 49…turning 50 this year. So (yay?) we’re in the same age grouping (Master B 45-54) for Provincials/Nationals. Luckily we probably only overlap on the TT…you will destroy me on anything endurance related. :grimacing:

Distances:
IP: 16 laps (4km)
TP: 16 laps (4km)
TT: Elite/Master A (35-44): 4 laps “Kilo”
TT: Master B (45-54): 3 laps (750m)
TT: Master C (55+): 2 laps (500m)

Last year they made a rule stating you needed to race at least one OCup to be eligible for Provincials. This really helped improve the quality of competition (and safety!) at the Provincials this year and was well received by the community.

There are also Saturday night NCIM races which are predominantly bunch races with the odd sprint/keirin mixed in (I am on the committee for planning these races so can give you a heads up on anything interesting).

NCIM will also run clinics (School of Sprint, School of Omnium, School of Pursuit) which are 4 sessions over 4 weeks to give people devoted track time to focus on their specific event (gate starts, strategies are discussed/practiced during the sessions). I can also help with giving you heads up on these sessions too. I am pushing to have a Keirin school. :wink:
There are also twice a week “Open” track sessions ($20/session for 90min) which allow pursuiters and sprinters some focused track time to practice their respective events. It’s set up so that riders ride above the blue until their effort…coordinator calls you down and you either do x laps or set up for a standing start and you can be timed too.

There’s my first shot at giving you details…throw out any more questions and I will try and answer, or at least get you answers from my contacts at Milton.

Finally…today (Friday) are the TP and Team Sprint finals for the Nations Cup tonight…if you’re free, get some tickets and go see some amazing teams from around the world. The Italians have sent their top women’s TP team…and GB too.
Saturday/Sunday will have the Omnium, Keirin, Sprints, Madison events on both evenings (flipping genders accordingly). Tickets here: Event Info — Track Nations Cup Milton

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This is awesome information thank you! Regarding rental bikes are you stuck at a specific gear with those or can cogs be swapped? (I’m assuming not but let me know)

I’ve done the track cert at FCV and Milton but Lorie would need to do it.

What sort of speed/power ranges are the best Masters putting out for their respective events? I can get myself very optimized aerodynamically from all the high level TT’ing I’ve done but I’m curious on the speed/power the top Master B guys are putting out.

Thanks again,
Chris

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No worries!

Rentals are usually 48x16 (81") or 48x15 (86.4") but now that Velofix has taken over managing the rentals, I know of a few riders that have requested higher gearing and they quickly swap it out.

Take a look at the results links I sent to get a sense on speeds. Power…I’m not sure on the IP/TP races. I can share my Keirin and TT numbers?

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Yes please :slight_smile: TT numbers would be great!