Monday 21st June saw Cardiff’s first Rollapaluza event and it was a blinder. For those of you that are unfamiliar, Rollapaluza is a roller racing competition (which has a history going back to the beginning of cycling), pitting competitors against each other on static bikes with the rear wheel on a couple of rollers. These are hooked up to magic timing machines that will tell you how far a rider has pedalled and in what time. Easy right? No.
The competition went like this:
- Qualifiers: 2 riders were pitched against each other and it was all about time. Who could pedal the 84 gear inch for 500m in the quickest time.
- Knockout: rider vs. rider – whoever was quickest over 500m progressed to the next round.
I have to admit I was surprised at how tiring spinning over 500m was. The first 250 was, frankly, a piece of piss. Think spinning down a longish hill. But then you lose the power, the muscles, the will to carry on. Your face distorts into an angry, ruddy version of it’s former self (and this isn’t just me – even Paul “I smile regardless of the pain I’m in” Dennison had the grimace on) and you fight to keep going over the final 250. And once it’s over, you jump off the bike and your legs feel like they’re going to collapse. This is the qualifiers for Christ’s sake. If I get through to the next round I’ve got to do that again.
The winner out of this round was The Bike Shed’s Richard Lansdown, with a time of 23.30 seconds. Pretty impressive, especially considering he’d completed a 24hr mountain bike race only a day before.
I’m pleased to say that all of Fixed Gear Cardiff got through to the next round, including Mike Jones, who quite frankly left it suspiciously late to enter the competition.
Once in the knockouts things took a different turn. Mike, who as mentioned, had seemed like bailing before the qualifiers got pitted against the fastest man of the night and very nearly caused a bit of an upset. It was neck and neck until the final couple of metres when Rich made a break.
I can’t possibly give full commentary for the rest of the knockouts but here are some of the key moments:
- Paul Dennison knocked out by Tim Heyes (have some!)
- Osian Meilyrdoing FGC proud by pulling the best angry face Wales has ever seen
- Osian and Matt Dove making it to the final 4 (Oz coming 3rd, Matt making 4th)
The final was between Richard Lansdown and Simon Lingard, both of The Bike Shed. After jeering from the crowd, the distance was upped from 500m to 1km. I have no idea how they did it… we thought there would be some sort of tactics going on – take it slow to start and sprint at the end. But no, they went hell for leather form the outset and didn’t stop until the final horn. Neck and neck until the end and completing the distance in 50 seconds. Amazing.
The Rollapaluza guys put on an awesome night and we have to thank Andrew Dade for organising it, as well as the Arts Institute for hosting.
It’s looking like there’ll be another event in November, which is great news. I know for one I’ll resist the temptation to drink between sittings and hopefully put in a better time.
More photos can be found here, courtesy of Simon Smith
Full results and more photos are here, via Rollapaluza
Posts