Accreditation day today, 12 riders out in all for the one hour ride. After signing on we pushed our bikes out to the track and lined up along the rail to take a briefing. This was the worst bit for me, I tend to over think too much about what we're going to do but once I'm doing it in the moment it's fine. It's stressed that safety is the most important part of the accreditation and that you won't get extra points for being the fastest or the strongest rider. Most important thing to do is look before you move and indicate your intention. We've been told on the course that most people don't look when they pull away from the rail for the first time, get caught not looking three times and you fail. True to form a handful of the riders in front of me didn't look over their shoulder when they pulled away from the rail! nerves I guess.
We did a warm up starting on the black line changing every lap, then we were sent up to the blue line and did half lap changes, this was fine except that there was a bit of faffing around on the front when we got called in and we slowed down too quickly. I was fifth in line so I could react OK to the change in speed but I think it must have gotten a bit hairy towards the back of the line.
Next up was the weaving exercise we haven't tried this with a line of twelve so it was a bit different, everyone riding on blue for this 2-3 bike lengths apart, on the whistle the last rider makes his way up the line weaving through the spaces. Thought I might have got this wrong as I made my way along the line at a brisk pace, shouting "inside" "outside" at each rider in turn, I'm sure a few twitched in their saddles as I shouted and cycled past. Anyway that put a smile on my face and after a break we progressed to stacking. I was with a few of the guys from the Improvers Course and two new faces, the communication was really good between us and before we knew it we started to enjoy ourselves. Our group got called in first and that was it the hour was over.
After tidying our kit away we got called up and thankfully I was told that I had passed. I think everyone who was on the Improvers Course with me passed too, so we all had a good chat afterwards and agreed to look out for each other over the coming months.
They tell you on the course and at the briefing to communicate with each other during the drills and I think that is key, if someone is doing something wrong it is best to let them know or better still give each other clear instruction during the exercise so everyone knows what's going on. It's something we covered with Andy on one of the Saturday morning coaching sessions and seems obvious but is often overlooked. It just makes it so much easier for everyone.
So I guess now that's dusted on to advanced track cycling sessions in preparation for racing?
