IVCA Track – How to get involved.
By Hugh Byrne
I know that there is interest within the IVCA in trying out Track but many of you are not quite sure how it works and how to get involved.
Track Racing requires a two stage ‘Accreditation’ with the first being attendance at an official Track Accreditation at Eamonn Ceannt Stadium, Sundrive Road, where you will be taught how to ride a fixed wheel / no brakes bike safely and how to deal with moving around on the track and the etiquette involved for training and racing. The second stage is to attend a normal training session and put all you have learned into fitting into that session.
Your options regarding ‘Accreditation’ is to either attend a normal public one in Saturday May 13th or Saturday June 03rd at 1430 and you can book in advance via https://eventmaster.ie/event/yzmwtP0SVy at a cost of €15. Use of a hire bike is included in that price.
Your second option is to attend the IVCA Track Accreditation (Free) night on June 9th at 7pm. I will circulate a link to sign into IVCA sessions closer to those dates. Either way you need to attend a normal training session on either at Saturday at 10am or Monday SQT. Details of all public coached sessions are listed on the calendar on www.trackcycling.ie as is how to sign in and pay for them.
We then have an IVCA Race Night (for Accredited riders) on Friday June 30th at 7pm followed by the IVCA Track Championships on July 22nd /23rd featuring Match Sprint / Pursuit / Standing Start 500m TT / Scratch Race and Team Sprint – all categorised by age. This forms a nice prelude for the Master National Track Championships on Saturday September 9th.
Track Racing is exciting, fast, fun and social and will compliment your road skills. Sessions can be quite structured, technical and efforts are short, defined but generally intense. You do need to put a bit of time into it of course to get the best out of yourself but we have superb coaches to help you with that. You don’t need a bike to start with as we have an extensive fleet for hire. There are fitted with Look Keo Pedals (we also have shoes) and gearing is low for training. Low gearing will however help with the transition as cadences are higher than we would use on the road.
The website for information is www.trackcycling.ie and the contact email is sundrive@trackcycling.ie or indeed you can contact me directly at 086-3488708
Hugh Byrne (Sundrive Track Team)
