Circling–or cycling–the track at F1’s famous Circuit of the Americas
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
> This F1 fansite claims that cars can get to around 110 km/h (~70 mph) climbing this thing, which we very much did not achieve.
The fansite link is stating that cars will brake to approach the sharp left-hander of turn 1 at 110km/h (~70mph) (site claims 85km/h on the apex), they'll do well in excess of that on the run up (300km/h+ on a flying lap or still comfortably beyond 200km/h from a standing start).
With that out of the way it looks a great way of using a racetrack when cars aren't going around it, and I'll have to see if there's anything similar in the UK as a lot of racetracks will often have very pleasant surrounds and similarly undulating elevations for a bit of a challenge. (Brands Hatch strikes me as having a lot of potential for a particularly pleasant ride)
Details: https://www.flyingrhinocc.com/flying-rhino-race-series
Bicycle road races are otherwise pretty complicated to put on, because they require a section of road that can be closed (eg: private industrial park / campus), sometimes work done to the road to clean it beforehand, etc. Using a race track has a lot of this done for you.
As an example, the 2020 UCI Road World championship was centered around the Imola track, and looking at their schedule they frequently have other cycling events.
https://www.triathlete.com/events/challenge-u-s-splits-with-...
Professional road cycling generally has no barriers between spectators and the riders except in key areas or start/finish lines. A race track designed for cars of course has enormous run off areas and view blocking steel safety structures, tire walls for 150mph+ accidents - you don't need these for a bike race. The result is spectators generally sat far, far further away and the atmosphere is IMO much worse for it. I've had far more fun sat at the side of mountain stages with friends and a few beers.
That said, of course it has the advantage you get to see the riders multiple times instead of just once as is case on most point to point stages, but easy access to live streams on phones/tablets makes the race so easy to follow at the roadside anyway.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/27/sport/tour-de-france-crash-in...
Because it's one of those comments that took 3s to write but would take a lot of effort to properly respond to, because it's 'not even wrong'.
Basically, it's all of the bad and boring aspects of driving excepts you're on a bike. But to me one of the best parts of biking is that you're not in a cage on a boring highway. It also has big "drive my truck to the gym to do a run" vibes since it's in the middle of nowhere.
That said, turn 1 is a (fun) beast and being around a bunch of people excited to cycle is the best part.
https://www.austintexas.gov/department/southern-walnut-creek...
133ft @ 11% is a speed bump to most competitive or avid amateur cyclists. Where I live 1000ft of climbing per hour would be "hilly" but not mountainous. In mountainous regions you can very easily go on rides requiring climbing > 10,000ft over the course of a 3-5 hour ride.
It is actually common to have bicycle races at car race tracks, I've done it. But on one of these F1 courses you'd race many many laps of the track and the officials would pull anyone out of the race if they fall behind to avoid anyone getting lapped and causing safety issues.
If you ride that 133ft hill on the race track 10-30x in the course of a race then it starts to be annoying as there is going to be someone who attacks up the hill every lap, and if you fall off the back on the hill you'd stand a good chance of not catching up and being pulled from the race. A typical road race would have the lower categories doing around 8 laps of a track like COTA to get to a 25 mile race and the upper classes would be doing 30ish to get to a race closer to 100 miles.
I've been a competitive-ish triathlete for five years, and I have to disagree.
From "The Climbing Cyclist, Gradients and cycling, an introduction" [1]:
* 0%: A flat road
* 1-3%: Slightly uphill but not particularly
challenging. A bit like riding into the wind.
* 4-6%: A manageable gradient that can cause fatigue
over long periods.
* 7-9%: Starting to become uncomfortable for seasoned
riders, and very challenging for new climbers.
* 10%-15%: A painful gradient, especially if maintained
for any length of time
* 16%+: Very challenging for riders of all abilities.
Maintaining this sort of incline for any
length of time is very painful.
It's over in less than a minute for a fit cyclist. You would hit the bottom of the hill at > 20mph and your momentum is going to help you get partway up the hill before they hit the point they even have to climb at a steady speed. It's not even long enough for "climber" type cyclists to be able to start dropping heavier sprinter type cyclists because it's a quick little effort and you're over the top. Even if you're in a race and had to do 10 laps (a short beginner level distance) you would still only climb 1330 feet across a 30 mile race, which would generally be considered a fairly flat race.
The Tour De France has a classification system for climbs.. this one would be so short it would not necessarily even get a classification since it's not even 0.5km.
A really scary climb would be > 10% for 10km or more. I had mentioned the Mt. Washington Hill climb in NH. That is 7mi/11km at a 13% average grade with essentially no letup the entire climb and some sections exceeding 20%. An excellent time is anything under an hour and twenty minutes and if you can break 1 hour you're putting in a world class performance. A winning time up that mountain would considerably longer than a 10 lap race of COTA, average speed at COTA for an elite group would be around 30mph for 10 laps of COTA in all likelihood.
The hill at this race track is not even going to register to most serious cyclists.
I think we are differing mostly on semantics. I would say for a serious cyclist, it will register but would not be any kind of challenge. Not sure why you are bringing elite cyclists (cf again, TDF) into it, there is an absolutely massive gap between the average serious cyclist and the elites.
A typical setup for a velodrome is 1/3 of a Kilometer oval with 30 degree banked turns (you don't even notice that angle at velodrome speed, 20+ mph, because you're pretty much perpendicular to the surface and riding on the circumference). This gives spectators a view of the whole track and it's setup for many different UCI-sanctioned events-- match-sprint, madison, time-trials, kerin/moto-pacing, etc.
I wish there were more velodromes, it's a great sport and especially exciting to watch because all the action happens in a matter of minutes.
Austin also has an "velodrome-like" track called the Veloway. It's outside, so it can get hot, and it's not an oval track, but it's very fun.
> The Veloway at Circle C Ranch Metropolitan Park was constructed in the early 90’s and was the first facility of its kind in the United States. The Veloway is a 23’ wide, 3.1 miles (5K) long bicycle tract that traverses the natural terrain. People travel from all over the metropolitan region to cycle here on a daily basis. The project was partially funded by a Texas Parks and Wildlife Grant.
(PDF link) https://velodrome.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021-Freds-...