Originally Posted by
carpediemracing
The last time I did tumbling exercises was 1983 (sprint and jump over 6-8 classmates with just their heads bowed over, and land/roll on a thin mat)? And those skills have stayed with me as well, as evidenced by my tuck and roll in 2009 where I saw pavement in front of me but hit the back of my helmet, not my face.
One of the best things I ever did was take adult tumbling classes. My GF did gymnastics up til college, and then in my late 30's she found a gym near us that had open tumbling after 8 pm and offered cheap coaching a couple nights a week. We went once a week or so for a year or more. It was fun and entertaining, because everybody who showed up was either an ex-gymnast or a stunt-person (this being LA). I sucked at tumbling, but it completely changed the way I crashed. There's a lot of time to plan and react when you're in the air.
Originally Posted by
topflightpro
The track I've been racing at requires new riders to get certified. It makes sense to me.
Originally Posted by
PepeM
The velodrome here also requires a certification clining before you can race. I don't think it is very long or formal (haven't been there yet.) Just someone walking you through the process of racing on the track. I am glad they offer that. When I finally decide to show up I rather do that than jump right in into the action, what with me having never ridden a fixed gear bike and not being all that great at looking behind while holding my line.
I taught the pre-race track certification class here for 5 or 6 years. We offered it because when we started having racing I wanted there to be a mechanism for people to be able to move from road to track racing without having to spend 4+ weeks taking the full class, and it also turned out to be a good way to get people to show up to race - instead of $65 for the certification, it was free if you were signed up to race, plus you got to race. The class was a review of rules, safety, terminology, local rules, a few racing tips, and then finally a short test on the track. If you couldn't get up to the blue line and ride safely you didn't pass, and if you looked sketchy or fell you didn't pass. Few, if any, people ever failed, but it did a few important things: 1) it made people take it seriously, including safety. You had to get up there and ride around by yourself with everybody watching, so people paid attention. 2) It let everybody you were going to ride with see you ride for ~15-20 laps. It's not a lot, but it's pretty easy to evaluate people on that many laps. When I first taught the class, I asked the track director "how do I decide if they pass?" and his response was "Would you be willing to get on the track with them after seeing them?", and that was it. 3) it gave the new riders a chance to get on the track and warm up on a nearly empty track (just the other new riders) so they could feel how it was going around, and if they fell they weren't likely to slide into anybody.
It was very effective - we very quickly got to where we could fill cat 4/5 fields, and then have filled cat 5 fields, and we didn't have a lot of issues with crashes. Another thing it did was gave them a person who could tell them what to do/not to do in between or after races without it being a bunch of random self-appointed experts telling people inconsistent things.