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@h2o
My point was that having a discussion about riding on the road shouldn't be off-limits. Yeah, boasting along the lines of 'yeah, i overtook some granny on a shopper' is asinine, but finding that you've got into a friendly bit of sprinting with someone else who's evidently up for it and got some good exercise out of it is hardly out of place - after all, as someone mentioned somewhere (not sure it was this thread), it's surprising what you find you can do when you're on the track and competing with other people. It's about having the stimulus to push it a little harder than you would on your own.
Not directed at Lee at all - I've found your advice to be very good, cheers.
Personally I spend quite a lot of time in the gym because my ride to work is too short. Once it gets a bit warmer I'll probably spend more time on the road and less on the exercise bike, and just stop in the gym to do some strength work and stretches and have a shower. One mate finds it odd that I've spent so much time on the bike in the gym this winter, but I've been able to do intervals and cadence training there in a very focused way in a limited amount of time that I'd have to ride a bit out of town to do - my part of town is full of crappy drivers and traffic lights, and not so many hills. And as a result of the gym work I'm a lot faster and my endurance is better. Diff'rent strokes, as the sitcom had it. Hell, I did a spinning session down the gym one week with a bunch of randoms and they all thought I was a nutter because of the cadence I was doing. I thought it was quite fun!
Anyway, in a nutshell it was the comment 'do your racing on the track' that I found a bit pretentious. It isn't open yet! So in the meantime, let's get our training in whichever way works for us, and compare notes to see if we can learn owt from t'others!
Back on the topic - definitely agree on the overspeed thing. Found that the static bike work helped me get a smooth enough cadence at high revs to get the most out of that, though - back on the road I am now finding myself cranking up to speeds on a 71" gear that I used only to be able to get on 80" gear. Ditto the intervals, I think the better your ability to recover, the better-placed you are to be able to jostle for positions in a bunch.