Like everyone, during the glorious, golden summer of 2008 I’d seen the likes of Sir Chris Hoy and Victoria Pendleton collect themselves a nice pot of medals and I’d cheered them on as much as the next guy did.

The British track cycling team looked supreme as they hared around the Laoshan Velodrome collecting 12 gold medals and accounting for around 20% of the whole British medal total.

So, to quote a phrase used by a man I recently wrote a little diatribe on, “how hard can track riding be?” Err, in all honesty very hard.

Yesterday (Wednesday May 25th) was the first ever time I’d ridden a track bike and the first time I’d ridden on a velodrome so I apologise to the more seasoned readers because this is a strictly beginner/novice take on track cycling. One of the perks of working at RCUK is that on rare occasions I am invited to various events, a few weeks ago I attended the opening of the Rapha shop on Clerkenwell St and rubbed shoulders with Dave Brailsford and Kristian House amongst others. So my first introduction to track cycling was kindly organised by Sean Lally of Cycle Systems who gave me and seven others a little track time on the Herne Hill velodrome.

So why was my experience very hard? Two words: fixed wheel. I’d never ridden a fixed wheel before and in all honesty it totally freaked me; it didn’t seem a natural way to ride a bike. There is no freewheel on these things and no brake, which freaked me out too.

I started off confidently leading the other seven riders into the first banking and my thought processes were, “the laws of gravity come into play on the banking so let’s build up speed to get round it.” Job done and it felt pretty good too, but as I cleared the banking I wanted to slow up a little so tried to stop pedalling. As I did the bike bucked a little and it was then I realised, this wasn’t going to be easy.

For half a dozen laps I gingerly made my way around the venue for the 1948 Olympics before having a petulant strop and saying to myself, “enough is enough!” I have to admit I would have felt more comfortable on a bed of nails.

“Oh, yeah, takes a bit of getting used to, a fixed wheel does” said one of the more experienced guests. “Just ride more,” was his suggestion but by that time the more experienced riders were having races and I felt if I took to the track I’d simply be a big mobile chicane which would be unacceptably insensitive to the other racers who included RCUK ed. Richard.

Seeing him tear around the Hill made me slightly envious. On the train that morning, while half-awake, I’d entertained delusions of grandeur about riding fast enough to stay on his rear wheel before going full gas around the outside and beating him to the line a la Chris Hoy. But while the daydream seemed cool, the reality wasn’t because after my half dozen laps riding slower than a tortoise I wasn’t sure if I wanted to even go near a fixed wheel bike again let alone ride one. [What about the fact I was going quite fast? – ed.] Like I said earlier it felt completely unnatural to me and my confidence took a wrecking ball of a knock.

I’m not going to end this by self-righteously declaring “you can ‘ave your fixed wheel but I’ll ‘ave me freewheel and brakes thank you very much,” because what’s the point? After all I work for a cycling publication and while my first time on the track wasn’t great (understatement for diplomacy’s sake) I have a feeling it won’t be my last. After all what’s that old mother’s saying?  “Practice makes perfect,” except in my case “practice might make for barely acceptable competence.”

Finally a big thank you to Sean Lally and CycleSystems for organising the track session; it was enjoyable but sometimes, the first time can be a little awkward, can’t it?