I bet you thought this was one of those unfinished projects, an incomplete collection of part vegetating in the corner of the garage gathering dust. Sound familiar? Not this project, she’s all finished. If you missed the first two episodes you can read the whole story here.

Part 1
Part 2

Tyres fitted to rims ready to install on the wheels


Crank and pedals fitted.


Wheels in, chain on and tensioned. Add saddle and viola. To this


From this...


First ride
One of the joys of building a bicycle, beside the intense satisfaction of completing it, is unlike any kind of motorised transport. Once its ready for a road test, that's it, job done, you just put a helmet on and ride it. No inspections, no warrants, no registrations. Just ride your creation out the garage door and down the street. Having never ever ridden fixie before, I opted to fit flats for the first ride. Time to see what this baby can do. I wound it up, and I think you can guess where this is going. Years of running a freewheel, I got to the end of the sprint and stopped pedalling. The pedals didn't stop, spat both feet off and I sat astride the bike, trying to keep my shins as far away as possible from the spinning bear traps till things had slowed down enough to allow me to re-sync my feet with the pedals.


First race
I had tagged along to last Sundays development programme to get some experience riding on a banked track, but this Wednesday was my first club night racing. Things didn’t get off to the best start. The first A grade race ended prematurely with a large pile up, taking down over half the field.

First race was a three lap scratch race. I didn't make a good start and was a good few bike length off the back of the lead pack. Maybe the starting pave was a shock to the system, maybe my gearing was too tall to get up to racing speed fast enough. Whatever my racer excuse was, here I was off the back, busting a lung trying to close the gap, but it wasn't appending. I guess I can draw solace from the fact that I might not be catching them, but at least I was holding the gap. Three 400 laps is a long way flat out, and it was getting harder and harder to hold the gap. I know it's a cliché, but my lungs felt like they were on fire and every pedal stroke was fanning the flames. Hearing the bell gave some relief with the knowledge the pain was close to ending. Coming onto the last straight, I don’t know if I was pushing the pedals or the pedals where pushing me. As the line (not so) rapidly approached, only two thing circulated through my mind: "Ow" and "Don't stop pedalling". I collapsed after the warm down lap a coughing, spluttering mess, my chest hurting from every rasping breath. "Can you break your lungs?" I though as I sat through a post ride pain, the likes of which I have never felt before.

Race two hardly deserves a mention, it was an elimination race that saw me boxed in at the back and eliminated after the first lap

Third and last race was a 'wheel' race, which from what I could work out was a grouped handicap race. This time I was determined to onto hold the wheel in front, I got out of the saddle from the start and that seemed to help. As the first couple of laps went by I was grovelling to hold the wheel of the last rider, leaving a bike length gap to be filled by rotating riders and providing me a fresh wheel for me to drop off. By lap three I was beyond close to hurling. A small amount of puke retched up into my mouth, fark, what do now, I NEED to breath NOW. It’s funny, you’d think the rational part of your brain would fire and you’d pull out of the race and have a proper hurl. but strangely, for my brain at least, it opted for swallow it and hope it didn't happen again. It proved to be the right choice, because the group pace seemed to drop just a fraction.Just enough to get my heart rate down a bit, it was probably only the difference between 190bpm and 189bpm but it helped.

Lap 4 and the chasing group blew past us like they were using diesel/electric power over our steam powered efforts. Well we were no longer racing for the win. Coming down the back straight on the bell lap. I found myself on the wheel of slowMTB of all people. I moved out and wound things up for the sprint to the line in what I thought was a two horse race, until I heard some heavy breathing coming up on my right shoulder. I was the now both the hunter and the hunted. Modesty refrains me telling you who won out in the end, infact it doesn't really matter. I had had an absolute blast, and had proved to myself that you can polish a turd.


Costings
Frame: free (Thanks SlowMTB)
Forks: free (Thank you to my lawyer Rob Davidson)
Stem: $20 (Thanks Simonius_Titius)
Wheels:$80 (Torpedo7)
Chain: $40 (Thanks to el_booto at Around Again Cycles)
Bars,Tape are original
The original saddle and stem were swapped over with my commuter.
BB, cranks and tyres: Various upgrades on the roadie had left me with a collection of spares to complete the project

So I think we can call this mission accomplished, turd to trackie in three easy steps.

Good for you

Love the typos too - "a large pie up" and "a two house race, "

FLATULENTFRIEND wrote:Good for you

Love the typos too - "a large pie up" and "a two house race, "

Cheers fixored

Good one Rik!
Just one more thing to work on? The engine?

Good write up Rik.

It was a good night out

Next time I will be having a good look back ... not planning on towing the "Pink Flamingo" around again you scalper But in all fairness that is one of the strategies and you won that one

To anyone on here reading this, if you have not tried track and thought about giving it a go, it is really good fun and very social. Might even add a new string to your bow

slowMTB wrote:Good write up Rik.

It was a good night out

Next time I will be having a good look back ... not planning on towing the "Pink Flamingo" around again you scalper But in all fairness that is one of the strategies and you won that one

To anyone on here reading this, if you have not tried track and thought about giving it a go, it is really good fun and very social. Might even add a new string to your bow

+1. That was a good write-up - Thanks, Rik. Track is an excellent way to find the limit of your fitness, and to improve on the same. I, too, encourage those who haven't tried it to go down to the nearest set of boards or concrete, and give it a try.

EoinC wrote:+1. That was a good write-up - Thanks, Rik. Track is an excellent way to find the limit of your fitness, and to improve on the same. I, too, encourage those who haven't tried it to go down to the nearest set of boards or concrete, and give it a try.

Word! - I thought I was bike fit, because I can do a 12hr race blah blah blah. Riding track was a slap in the face with wet fish of fitness reality.

I was also surprised at just how different an experience it was compared to any other type of cycling I have every done. It was sensory overload at times.
If you like experiencing new highs, you should try some of that track stuff - It'll expand your mind dude.

Zicactly, Rik. The sensory overload starts when you first venture onto the track, continues when you first start learning how to hold your line and control surging in a group, and becomes totally mind-blowing as you try to hold your own in an Elimination or a Keirin. It ventures out of the known Universe once you start bringing the Madison into play.

IP's and the 500 / 1km TT are an excellent means of shrinking the Race of Truth into a very small, but accurate, package. What could be simpler than a few laps of the track? How hard can it be? Try it and find out...

Please don't stop at Part 3, Rik - It's great to see you enjoying this cavalcade of experiences. The most powerful learnings come from when we step outside our comfort zones, so keep it up.