You are reading a single comment by @BloodyMary and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@BloodyMary
I definitely agree there are too many novice mistakes happening in TL. Some racers seem to care more about glory than group safety. Alot of people that have been inducted this year are showing up for very advanced sessions, which is irresponsible and difficult for volunteers to moderate. There should definitely be more steps involved between inductions and racing...
The fact that riders who have been doing track for a few sessions are pulling into TL is clearly a self moderating failure in the 1st place. Im sorry to say, but this over-confidence has a role to play in how riders are overshooting categories, showing up for advanced sessions they are not ready for, and riding too aggressively for their own experience level. I couldn't believe it when some newly inducted's were bragging about their bike handling skills afterwards, and how they managed to stay upright over other riders! How do you give riders like that constructive feedback if they already think they have all the answers and are the next big thing? So unless I missed some bunny hopping madness over bikes and bodies while I was eating tarmac, some very experienced riders, that have been racing longer than I have even been going to track, went down in the crash! The safest place in this one was towards the back of the race, which is where it usually spreads(from what I have unfortunately seen before)? If you went down its not because you don't have good bike handling skills, it means there was nowhere to go, or you were right where the unfortunate action was. If you stayed up then you were lucky, so consider those that weren't...
So on that note is there any news from any more of the riders that went down? Fixed Cheese, Im glad you ok :)
I hope this has not put those riders off, and that they come back next year when they are healed and a new system is in place :)