Palmer Park Velodrome, 5 March 2015

Whatever kind of cyclist I might be, I'm certainly not a track cyclist. That's all right though. Whatever kind of bike a Raleigh Chopper is, it certainly isn't a track bike.
As I rode the Chopper out on to the 460 metre track at Palmer Park, I felt extremely nervous. It was a cold, dry Thursday evening in March and the final session of the winter at which non track bikes were permitted. I had no idea how I would be received. 
The peloton tearing around the innermost section of the track was, as I hoped, utterly oblivious to my arrival. I started along the straight and then hit the bend hard for fear of falling off it, which I soon realised was ridiculous as the bank at Palmer Park is very shallow. Soon I found myself cruising around the velodrome above the blue line below which the real carbon based business was happening. There were plenty of others riding in the same area however and, after fifteen minutes or so, I thought I'd have a go at riding at a speed that I could maintain for an hour but only just. There was a headwind along the back straight and so the speed was far from even. One of the features particular to Chopper handling is that it feels completely dead on inclines. It's as though all the momentum evaporates from the bike with the slightest rise in the surface. It meant that, small as it is, the bank at the bend after the back straight was very hard work. 
After a few laps, as I started to push into the bend again, I noticed a little peloton sat on my back wheel, following me around. We hit the home straight and a bit of tail wind and I had the breath to shout "What speed?!" The answer from the closest person came "Just over 18 miles an hour."
I continued round and round and after about another 15 minutes I was, again, at a speed and rhythm I thought I could maintain for an hour. My wrist watch said that I took exactly a minute to get round. I was still quite high up the bank so as not to get in the way of the carbon TT brigade so I went a bit further than 460 metre published length of a lap. In any event, it seemed reasonable to target 60 second laps, which would mean I'd cover 27.54km or 17 miles 198 yards in an hour. If I can do that, I'll beat the distance ridden in 1876 by Frank Dodds at Cambridge University track, the first recorded Hour record. He went somewhere between 25.4km and 26.5km, depending on who you believe. Then again, he was riding a penny farthing on a grass track, had an enormous, bristling handlebar moustache, wore a three piece tweed suit and stout brogues and was probably smoking a pipe full of opium for the entire hour.

Dame Sarah Storey

I went to see Dame Sarah Storey's Hour record attempt at London's Olympic Velodrome on 28 February 2015. It was inspiring. 

I've seen all sorts of sporting events in person, from international football matches to an Olympic 100m final but never anything like that. The gut-wrenching loneliness and suffering that Sarah Storey endured to maintain her relentless and unflinching assault on the women's Hour record were clear. During the closing minutes there was a desperation in the crowd which understood that it was powerless to help as she pushed herself to her absolute physical limit. The shouts and screams were not only encouragement, they were a salute to someone with the courage to risk wilfully the gradual dismantling of their composure and dignity for all to see, for sixty increasingly agonising minutes. Having finished, it took Sarah Storey ten minutes to be able to stand. Her eventual lap of honour was evidently almost as excruciating as any lap of the attempt itself. As she rolled weakly by, barely able to raise her arm, there was sense among the spectators that, irrespective of the outcome, they had witnessed something genuinely extraordinary.