Report from the worlds by Ice Man Kappes
Well, it’s like this. We went round and round and round and round.........
Being able to compete at the UCI headquarters in Switzerland was a real privilege. The facility is very impressive and is set in a very picturesque area. The town of Aigle is set in the bottom of a valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides.
The track in Aigle is 200m, which causes problems for tandems. The corners are much tighter than at Manchester, and the slope on the straights is a little steeper. This meant that getting the tandem round the corners was going to be a challenge for all of the tandems, as would the starts. Also, the transition between the corners and straights at the top of the track were quite sharp. This meant that if you went over them at speed the bike would go very light for a moment. I think a lot of the teams found this a bit unnerving, especially in the 200m TT. We found that the best way to deal with them was to attack them and hold on tight.
Fortunately, the GB team has a great advantage in that our tandem pilots, Barney Storey and Ellen Hunter, are amongst the best. They were able to keep the tandems down on the black during the kilo rides, while other tandems were ending up on the blue line in the straights after struggling to get round the corners.
The worst thing about the kilo rides, apart from the pain, breathlessness, headache, etc., was having to do 5 laps. What a brain job! In fact, it worked out fine. There is so much going on with the two extra corners, that you don’t have time to dwell on what is going on. Our only problem was that the commisaires were having trouble holding the tandem up at the start which caused us to dip down and run over a few of the foam track markers. Anyway, we managed to win the thing and got a new world record into the bargain.
The women’s tandem kilo was the next day. Ellen Hunter and Aileen McGlynn were seeded last off. Their nearest rivals were the Americans who posted a time 3 seconds off Ellen and Aileen’s world record, but such a big margin just made us more nervous! However, we need not have worried. The girls went out as hard as ever and won by a mile, which is impressive in a kilo race.
The tandem sprint event was cut down to a 200m TT, because of the obvious silliness of match sprinting on such a tight track. Even with the TT, I was expecting to see bits of tandem hanging from the rafters, but most of the teams tended to err on the side of caution. The only exciting bits were one of the Aussie tandems sliding down from the top of the corner after hitting the rail during their lead-in, and the more amusing point where everyone was trying to tell the Polish pair that they had a puncture. After all, what is the Polish word for ‘puncture’? For all I know, ‘puncture’ could be Polish for ‘faster’!
Our ride for the gold was good fun. We hit the start of the 200m as hard as we could, but as soon as we were in the apex of the bend the bike started to slide. It is fairly normal to feel the tandem moving about in the corners, but on this track I could hear the tyres sliding on the wood. However, at this point we were absolutely committed so you just keep putting the power down. The second corner was even rougher and I spent most of it banging my chin on Barney’s back, which is not padded – I have the bruises to prove it. Barney told me afterwards that normally the front wheel slides a bit but on our rides the back wheel was going too.
Our winning time was slower than our qualifying time, even though we hit it so much harder. The time we lost was due to the movement of the bike because of the higher speed, so we are satisfied that we found the limits of the track for our tandem.
So that was that, and we went home.
Being able to compete at the UCI headquarters in Switzerland was a real privilege. The facility is very impressive and is set in a very picturesque area. The town of Aigle is set in the bottom of a valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides.
The track in Aigle is 200m, which causes problems for tandems. The corners are much tighter than at Manchester, and the slope on the straights is a little steeper. This meant that getting the tandem round the corners was going to be a challenge for all of the tandems, as would the starts. Also, the transition between the corners and straights at the top of the track were quite sharp. This meant that if you went over them at speed the bike would go very light for a moment. I think a lot of the teams found this a bit unnerving, especially in the 200m TT. We found that the best way to deal with them was to attack them and hold on tight.
Fortunately, the GB team has a great advantage in that our tandem pilots, Barney Storey and Ellen Hunter, are amongst the best. They were able to keep the tandems down on the black during the kilo rides, while other tandems were ending up on the blue line in the straights after struggling to get round the corners.
The worst thing about the kilo rides, apart from the pain, breathlessness, headache, etc., was having to do 5 laps. What a brain job! In fact, it worked out fine. There is so much going on with the two extra corners, that you don’t have time to dwell on what is going on. Our only problem was that the commisaires were having trouble holding the tandem up at the start which caused us to dip down and run over a few of the foam track markers. Anyway, we managed to win the thing and got a new world record into the bargain.
The women’s tandem kilo was the next day. Ellen Hunter and Aileen McGlynn were seeded last off. Their nearest rivals were the Americans who posted a time 3 seconds off Ellen and Aileen’s world record, but such a big margin just made us more nervous! However, we need not have worried. The girls went out as hard as ever and won by a mile, which is impressive in a kilo race.
The tandem sprint event was cut down to a 200m TT, because of the obvious silliness of match sprinting on such a tight track. Even with the TT, I was expecting to see bits of tandem hanging from the rafters, but most of the teams tended to err on the side of caution. The only exciting bits were one of the Aussie tandems sliding down from the top of the corner after hitting the rail during their lead-in, and the more amusing point where everyone was trying to tell the Polish pair that they had a puncture. After all, what is the Polish word for ‘puncture’? For all I know, ‘puncture’ could be Polish for ‘faster’!
Our ride for the gold was good fun. We hit the start of the 200m as hard as we could, but as soon as we were in the apex of the bend the bike started to slide. It is fairly normal to feel the tandem moving about in the corners, but on this track I could hear the tyres sliding on the wood. However, at this point we were absolutely committed so you just keep putting the power down. The second corner was even rougher and I spent most of it banging my chin on Barney’s back, which is not padded – I have the bruises to prove it. Barney told me afterwards that normally the front wheel slides a bit but on our rides the back wheel was going too.
Our winning time was slower than our qualifying time, even though we hit it so much harder. The time we lost was due to the movement of the bike because of the higher speed, so we are satisfied that we found the limits of the track for our tandem.
So that was that, and we went home.
posted by Andrea Ingram at 9:32 AM
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