BUCS Track Cycling, 1-2 Mar 2025

The weekend started with the individual pursuit (IP) — 4km, 16 laps. Having literally never practiced this, I went out to give it a go with no clue about pacing and times. Annoyingly, my max-float pedal and cleat combo came back to bite me, and I unclipped at the start. It turns out trying to clip back in on a fixed gear bike isn’t the easiest, particularly when you have the banking looming ahead of you, which I didn’t particularly fancy sliding off of if I couldn’t get up to speed with one foot!

I eventually got clipped back in and luckily didn’t slide off. I came 8th, but definitely had more in the tank. That being said, I had a really fun time with it and definitely want to give it a few more goes — hopefully with both pedals next time!

The team pursuit (TP) was next, which we had at least done a couple of practice sessions, although this wasn’t nearly enough! We had a lot of issues in the sessions with some nerves and struggles starting, but luckily a gear change and one of our riders quickly pulling off the track meant things started fairly smoothly, but very slowly, with our team down to 3 women within 2 of the 16 laps. Again, being quite blind on pacing, we were very sensible and focussed on staying together as our top priority. We were all proud of how it went, and definitely learnt a lot. It’s the same team as BUCS TTT in a few weekends, so even if we weren’t as speedy as we’d have liked on the track, it bodes well for that!

Freya Taylor