It's the third of August. The day is sunny, dry, and oven-hot, with a heat index topping 90 degrees. My bicycle, now modified for the track, has no brakes, one gear, and no freehub--so I cannot coast.
The T-Town velodrome is a gigantic concrete bowl where cyclists ride in circles around the rim. Everything here is designed for speed. The banked track means that you never have to slow down, even when you enter a turn going very fast, because leaning with the bike against the pull of gravity only makes you more upright relative to the surface of the ground.
The velodrome has no intersections, no stop signs, no motor traffic, and nothing to crash into--except for the other cyclists. You never shift. You never brake. You never climb. Nothing about operating the bicycle or riding in this environment consumes your mental energy, except for enduring the discomfort of extreme physical effort, turning the handlebars (always to the left), and reckoning with the other cyclists. The velodrome is cycling distilled to its most essential purity: go faster. It's absolutely thrilling.
I took an hour of video from the bike that day, but it's kind of monotonous, so this clip is about 100 seconds long. The microphone picked up nothing but the buffeting wind, so I added a soundtrack in hopes of making it more fun and interesting to watch.
Music: "Rock This Town" by the Stray Cats
