Yellow Beast

The only downside to this is,
any yellow registering in the peripheral vision of fellow competitors,
will spell in vocoder mode:
Incoming Yellow Beast! / Incoming Yellow Beast!

Before mayhem, speed, adrenaline and exhaustion,
my soundtrack to this completion is
Rencontres de chants polyphoniques CALVI 2013: "A filetta" extrait - YouTube

soundtrack to this completion has to be

Tenacious D vs the devil - YouTube

TM - rule 26

Not my finest moment, but I was trying to cause minimal foot damage to the snow...

The only downside to this is,
any yellow registering in the peripheral vision of fellow competitors,
will spell in vocoder mode:
Incoming Yellow Beast! / Incoming Yellow Beast!

Haha. I like it Midi, but I suppose the only correct response is:

Peripheral vision is not used to see what is in front.
:-p

hma, please don't post pantomime here.
This is better: The Gun - Race with the Devil

Whilst we're on music, tyre gluing soundtrack was not Bernstein and Bach, but Beethoven and Brendal.

I need a lid for my track endeavors now, and apparently to satisfy the people in blazers I'll have to buy one ready made.

This one I think.

This is better: The Gun - Race with the Devil

defo better, no argument there. started it at 33sec as the beginning is the only important part :)

Oh yeah, didn't get it first time round. That is actually quite funny. I hope if the Yellow Beast could speak though, it would be a little more gracious.

I'm thinking about the transport issue now. Could drill the forks, that are obviously designed for it. Probably won't. Not sure if clamp-ons will fit around the beefy arms.
Wheels; probably a spare front I have and rear probably something off of here.

What about a back brake? Maybe that's what the guy who had it before did, would explain the paint loss.

I don't think a back brake only is enough. Front + fixed is ok. Would be eaisiest to drill.
I might just buy a car. Then I can take it to other velodromes too.

Front drum brake ?
I really like the non ventilated Casco,
would match the Beast perfectly.

I might just buy a car. Then I can take it to other velodromes too.

Rule 25.

Nice to meet you at the track today Mr Dot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWghTVdDGDM&feature=kp

It's not everyone's cuppa, but there you go. See you next time. PS

Hi PS, thanks for the intro to the Pharoah.

I had a great time at the track today. It was the Beast's first proper outing and it went extremely well.

I decided not to use ceramic wax and instead, this morning applied to the chain a sparing amount of ProGold.

To get to the track I decided to use trains; a walk to Finsbury Park, a change between KC and St Pancras and then a walk from HH station to the track. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I don't want to go through that every time.

On the track all the bits worked perfectly and I had quite a lot of fun whooshing around. In fact one chap got a bit grumpy with me after I failed to resist the urge to surge off of the front of a group. 'Why are you accelerating?' He complained. I shrugged, frowned and answered 'because it's fun.'

I felt comfortable and confident in the intermediate session. I was faster than some people and some people were faster than me. Not doing too badly, but some work to do. A nice position to be in I think.

After the training session I spectated for a while. I had a chat with Scoot, who knows all about the to-drill-or-not-to-drill predicament and got a look at her clamp on brakes. Later I helped out in the works party, mostly working on the hire bikes; changing gears, truing wheels, wrapping fresh bar tape. I wanted to sweep the track, but it was busy all day.

The reward for helping out was tasty beef burgers from the barbecue. Better yet whilst munching on one of those burgers I was told I had earned a hook.
That is, a place in the storage for the Yellow Beast. I'm really chuffed with this and I feel a bit jammy to have got it. It's the best solution to the transport/drilling/tubs issue and the solution I wanted most.

The Yellow Beast's first visit to the track couldn't have gone any better.

(:

Time for an update.

Over the last two years at Herne Hill Velodrome I’ve been having a good time with the Yellow Beast at Intermediate sessions, sometimes the Track Skills sessions and some Race Training sessions. And one forum track day. ;) I had hoped to enter the league in 2014, but it wasn’t possible due to work. This year I’ve finally had enough time and energy to do it.

I decided to start making an effort to ride at least one hour a day with training in mind and started this in January. By April I was in some sort of decent shape. Before the first night I was a bit nervous, because I didn’t know what to expect. What would the pace be like? What were the formalities? How friendly/unfriendly were other racers and the officials? I hadn’t actually been to any Wednesday evenings to watch.
My debut went well; In the three races of the first week I came third, sixth and second! The second week I had to miss because I was riding with Chris Hoy at a work thing, which I thought was ok to miss one week of league for. At the third week I got a second and two fouth places.

After the third week and for about two months, I have been out of the game, unexpectedly busy and tired with moving house and doing lots of diy, which was a bit sad after such a good start, and not a little depressing thinking about my league ranking going down, but last week I came back and I won my first race! This week I won my second race. Hurrah!

The bike:
A couple of weeks before league this year I decided to get that ring. I couldn’t really afford it, but yolo.

I got steel RaceFace bolts too.
Now I think I have the Goldilocks gear. The 48x14 was too spinny in the sprints and the 48x13 too big for longer races. The 50x14 is just right for most things I’m doing. I don’t like faffing about changing gears between races.

I’ve tweaked the riding position a couple of times, but only slightly. I haven’t needed to change any parts. I quite enjoy that the drop is so low that I have downtube strike rather than toptube; I keep a bit of bar there to prevent dings. The saddle is pretty hardcore, but I never ride it for longer than a two hour intermediate session with a break, so it’s fine. I haven’t had any accidents and I’ve had one slow puncture on the rear. I took the wheel home for a week to put a new tyre on and one of these days I’ll get round to repairing the first one. Today was actually my first time riding the 19mm tyres in the wet; no problem. I have tried running them at the stated maximum of 220psi, but I have settled on pumping them to about 160 most of the time.

Apparently I’m the only rider repping the forum at this year’s league. Come and cheer me on. :)

You might be the first and only one to have ever pulled off that Cinelli stem.

Congrats! :) Btw 220 psi sounds absolutely mad haha, I'm not into track racing but I guess it's still kinda brutal even in the velodrome.

Thanks.
I've had a lot of fun so far. I've learnt quite a bit and I'm still learning and getting better and faster.
220 doesn't feel as mad as it sounds but I don't think it's necessary; I have to jump on the pump to reach that pressure, which surely suggests it's more than I need. I might do a roll down test on it one day to really find out.

After last night's races, I'm up to tenth place in my category.

Well done.
And the music of the Beast feasting on its competitors is ?

Of course! How could I forget?
I think this covers it:
:-O

I haven’t needed to change any parts

Good to see the time and effort you put into this build has been paying off. Bike is awesome as is this thread, very few have such meticulous detail. Good luck in your races