Lee Valley VeloPark - taster sessions!

You can bring your own shoes as long as they have look keo cleats on them. They have shoes for rent there. Or, you can just wear your trainers with toeclips and straps.

do you need to take your own gloves?

I would take your own gloves or mitts yes.

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doh, sorry, read your question wrong... yes as pharoah says bring your own gloves

Ah good stuff - cheers.

Thanks

Looks like I'm going to have to bail out of my stage 3 accreditation on Sunday. Not sure how transfering to another rider works, but before I pay the £5 to reschedule does anyone want to attempt to take it? @Dramatic_Hammer maybe?

It's booked for 7pm btw.

I've got one booked for next month unfortunately chap!

Well that was a lot of fun.
The 4 miles in 2 hrs driving home, not so much.

I have booked a taster for next month with a real interest in becoming accredited. Can anyone shed some light as to how the taster session works. I am taking my own track bike and shoes.

They give you one of their track bikes and a helmet, don't know if you can take your own bike. Bring gloves, Keo style cleat shoes (spds wont work), lycra and some water. Me and my Mrs turned up late, busting for the loo, with no gear and having no lunch so I belted round in trainers and trousers and she in trainers and jeans (thankfully they make them stretchy for lasses). We both still had a fantastic time.

For us it went - get talked to for about 15 minutes, then sent round on the saftey to get used to riding a fixed gear. They then get you gradually on the track, explain about safety/observation when overtaking etc and send you out to pedal the full track. After a short while you can overtake. We got 3 sessions when we were going round overtaking, it was much fun.

I called and they have no problem with taking your own bike. I figured I may as we'll get used to track cycling on a bike I know. I'm really looking forward to it. I hear they are really helpful there.

What bike have you got? Just asking cos they have some regulations about bringing your own bike.

The taster session is very basic

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Emergency over, I will be attending tomorrows stage 3 accreditation!

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It's a Planet X. With spoked wheels and pista tyres, spd pedals.
I have checked with all the criteria and it fits them all so hopefully will be ok.

Did my Stage 1 on Tues, yep pretty basic, I just took my own bike along which did get them a little on the back foot especially as I have never ridden it :) but after a few questions about age of the tubs , length of cranks, gear etc I took to the boards with my Colombus framed 1980's classic....Loved it, with the 50 x 15 I had the hardest part was keeping inline on the initial really slow stuff, seemed the stalling speed on my bike was a little lower than the guy leading with the Hire bike. I have already booked phase 2 for 24th Feb and I was tearing round the top in no time. Legs were suitably written off the next day when I was doing my normal 1 hr 20 inc 4 x 14 min intervals but they will get used to it....Sitting in the middle at the start looking at the banks was like a Holy s**t moment, but when up there feels really natural, smile from ear to ear, great experience and they do a great job considering the wide range of abilities present.

Im due there on tuesday. Im geared to a 52 x 15 i may drop it to a 52 x 17 if you say that the slower riders were holding you up waht you think?? Luckily i have ridden mine prior to going both on the road and rolers. If all goes well i will book the phase 2 also.

For the Stage 1 / Taster it might be less of an issue, as there was less group work. But for stages 2/3/4 I would say 52x15 will leave you overgeared. For whatever reason, many of the group exercises in those stages took place at quite a slow pace when I did them. Even on a lower gear than that it was tricky to find fluency on the track at those speeds.

I did the whole accreditation and now do SQTs on 52 x 16. The 15 is too big a gear, it's a taster not a race.

i think ill swap it out this weekend as i have the time, better safe than sorry eh? i think stage 1 i will have no problems with as i ride a fixed gear daily. for stage 2 what you thinking 49 x 15.

yeah i get that i wanted to make sure that i wasnt under geared as my daily ride is a 49 x 15.
maybe over did it a bit lol. i swap it over for the 17 i think that should be ok.

I'm on 48:15 for the skills sessions and it's pretty much perfect.

my daily ride is a 49 x 15

Your knees called from the future and asked you to ride a smaller gear on the road.