The boards
250 metres of pine.
Every plank is Siberian pine, laid lengthwise and sanded until you can feel the grain through the tyre. It is warm, quick and a little alive: on a cold morning the whole track ticks as it settles.
Track cycling academy Newport, South Wales
Fast is
a shape.
Banked Velodrome Cycling Club teaches track riders of every age on 250 metres of pine, 42 degrees of banking and a bike with no brakes and one gear.
Scroll to start riding
01 From the boards up
From the boards up
First laps
Everybody starts slow.
Your first session is gentle, around twenty kilometres an hour. A coach rides a wheel ahead and calls what to do next. Nothing on your bike has a brake, and by the end of the hour you will be climbing the bank on purpose.
The chain gang
Eight riders, one engine.
Two lines turn over like a belt. The inside line pulls, the outside line rests, and the front rider swings up the bank and drifts to the back. Learn the rotation and a group of eight rides faster than any of them could alone.
I / III
02 Your turn
Choose an event.
Fill the track.
Each event sends the riders round in a different formation. Change the event, the number on the start line and the camera, and the pack reorganises itself.
Event
Riders on the start line
Camera
- Event
- Sprint
- Riders
- 2
- Format
- 3 laps, 750 m
Drag the scene to look round
03 Race night
Race night
The sprint
Two laps of standing still.
Two riders, one finish line. For most of the race nothing happens, on purpose. They stalk each other up and down the bank, balancing, daring the other to go. Then someone does, and it is two hundred metres of pure noise.
The podium
Same time next week.
Most nights the podium is a bench for overshoes. But when the juniors' sprint series ends, the youngest rider in the club gets a medal round their neck and the whole bank goes up.
I / II
04 The small print
A small club with big banking.
- Track length
- 0metres
- pine boards, laid lengthwise
- Steepest banking
- 0degrees
- 12 degrees on the straights
- Club members
- 0
- from ten years old to seventy-one
- Youth academy riders
- 0
- every Saturday morning in term
05 Sessions
Pick your first lap.
Everything is coached, everything is on a bike we lend you, and nobody is ever asked to ride alone.
Start here
Track taster
£38 per rider
- 90 minutes on the boards
- Bike, helmet and shoes lent
- One coach to four riders
- Ages 14 and over
Most popular
Coaching block
£210 six weeks
- Six weekly sessions of 90 minutes
- Your track accreditation included
- Chain gang, sprints and race craft
- Groups of six, from £35 a week
Ages 8 to 16
Youth academy
£185 per term
- Ten Saturday mornings
- Kit bank and helmets provided
- Racing from the second term
- Parents watch free from the stands
Friday Night Track spectator tickets are £6, free for under 16s. All prices on this page are invented for the concept.
06 Book
Get on the boards.
Pick a session and a date. We will confirm by email and tell you what to wear. Bring a water bottle and a sense of humour.
Thank you. We will check the timetable and write back within a day. Wear close-fitting shorts and bring a water bottle.
07 Visit
Find the bank.
Banked Velodrome Cycling Club
Tide Dock Way
Newport NP20 4XX
01633 555 014
hello@bankedvelodrome.example
Free parking in the dock yard. Ten minutes on foot from the station. Bike racks by the door, and a kettle that is always on.
- Mon to Thu
- 16:00 to 21:30
- Coaching blocks
- Friday
- 18:00 to 22:00
- Friday Night Track
- Saturday
- 08:00 to 17:00
- Youth academy and open ride
- Sunday
- 09:00 to 14:00
- Tasters and club rides