Without boring you with more rhapsodies about the course as a place to practice your cornering in berms, riding a faster line, or the thrill of flowing through a track built with jumps in mind, I’ll focus on the weird side of cycling we encountered.
We arrived at the track to find it in use for the weirdest of events. Circling the loop were a variety of machines, bearing some relation to bicycles, but not as we know them. Some of the bikes were obviously recumbents and we marvelled at the people riding along on their backs, and discussed how much safer that was than being on the streets of London. What was more bizarre were the bicycles from the future that were mixed in amongst the standard recumbents. They were streamlined and slippery, with faring ranging from the decidedly homemade to the achingly professional. The image was almost like spaceships hovering silently along, or something from an imagined world to come.
As the day went on more and more strange bikes turned up. From a selection of folding bikes doing laps, to a bike built up with wooden panels. We never did find out what was going on, but we’d definitely encountered the slightly wacky fringe of cycling. We kept our distance and even, sometimes got a little bit rad. (Although we always like to keep any radness hidden behind convenient plants).
Oh and to the guy who asked Four Miles if we’d like to buy the bike he was on, because “it’s a nice one”, er, no, and we should have got the police involved. How stupid are you to be trying to sell on a stolen bike at a centre full of people who are quite serious about cycling. Perhaps he was actually related to Mr Kona Andrea.
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