Learning the ropes of track cycling at Canada’s national velodrome | Canada Voices

I’m a recreational cyclist. A commuter. A tourist in the world of clip-in pedals and carbon-fibre bikes. One day, though, I expect to fully emerge as a MAMIL (Middle-Aged Man In Lycra). While road cycling seems like the obvious choice, I’m drawn to track cycling.

If road cycling is orchestral music, track cycling is punk rock: risky, chaotic and aggressively fast. To get a clearer picture, I go to Mattamy National Cycling Centre in Milton, Ont., for an introductory course. Here, I’ll learn to navigate the daunting 42-degree corners of its wooden track.

The facility housing the velodrome was built for the 2015 Pan Am Games. From the outside it resembles a towering white hockey puck; inside, it feels like something else entirely.

As I walk my rental bike – a Montreal-designed Argon 18 – onto the smooth concrete apron below the track, Chris Reid, executive director of the National Cycling Institute Milton (NCIM), describes the layout: the matte blue “Côte d’Azur” encircles the bottom of the track as a (literally) soft inner border. The red and black lines above it frame the sprinter’s ideal path; and the blue “stayer” lines high above are a border for Madison (a relay event in track cycling) races.

Reid cultivates young Canadian talent through the centre’s ecosystem. “There are kids that are coming through our program now who believe that they can go to international competitions and the Olympics because every group before them has had international success.” This includes Junior Track World champions Dylan Bibic and Carson Mattern.

He describes his strategy as less about being smart and more about not being stupid. When “you think you have it all figured out, and you know what the game plan is,” he says, “tripping over your shoelaces is probably imminent.”

In track cycling, elite endurance riders cruise at speeds exceeding 60 kilometres an hour (a Tour de France rider averages closer to 43 km/h on flat roads). Things get faster in sprints, or when cyclists draft a motorized bicycle called a Derny in events such as the Keirin – which originated as a Japanese gambling event in the 1940s.

Reid references track cycling’s wilder roots via the Ghent Six Day competition, an annual Belgian cycling festival – “a beer garden” that just happens to have a bike race going on. Track cycling, he says, “never fully shook its ‘make money at the door’ carnival atmosphere.”

Most of my instruction comes from Jonathan Higgins, one of NCIM’s track certification coaches. After fitting me to a frame, he gives pointers on navigating the track in an accent that blends Kidderminster (“the former carpet capital of the world”) with childhood elocution lessons.

I begin pedalling while his 17-year-old son, Leo, a seasoned rider and instructor, glides ahead of me, teal-coloured hair rustling beneath his helmet. Higgins (senior) asks me to practise braking. However, there are no brakes. I quickly learn that you don’t stop a fixed-gear bike so much as bargain with it; my first attempt nearly catapults me over my handlebars.

After two circuits along the bottom, Higgins positions me between the black and red lines, where racing happens. As I pedal, I peek inward, toward the three hardwood-floored gymnasiums encircled by the track. Here, pickleball and badminton games are in full swing. Above us, adults of all ages orbit the walking and running lanes – typical community centre stuff.

Elite training often lives in a silo, but here it’s just one facet of daily life. Kids as young as nine can come once or twice a week without owning a track bike. Reid’s graduate thesis at Simon Fraser University – no coincidence – examined how to make legacy facilities sustainable.

Reid says the key to creating a hub for sport is: “Having a bit of a community, having a passion for it and having an open pathway so that you feel you can chase it – because you’re gonna lose kids if they’re in isolation.”

Pedalling on the track is relentless. There’s no coasting, no rest. I wish for a bigger gear – something that would let me trade cadence for strength. This could be hubris, but it’s probably just fatigue. At this point, I’ve got a stitch in my side and my throat tastes like copper.

Higgins guides me higher up the track, as if passing a competitor. I accelerate hard to take my first turn above the blue stayer line, 2.5 metres up. I experience a moment of vertigo, feeling like a mountain goat midway up a cliff.

When I take the staircase back down to the foyer, it’s one shaky step at a time.

I’m steadier when I return for a second ride. It’s … well, exactly like riding a bicycle. Hardened by Calgary and Toronto traffic, I savour the absence of cars, pedestrians and chewed-up pavement.

North American cities are built around cars, and cycling is risky business. We praise active lifestyles, yet make it impossible for kids to bike to school safely. We trade away valuable urban space for parking, and blame bike lanes for our commuting troubles instead of literally everything else. I’ve never experienced an environment designed exclusively for bikes and it’s both surreal and validating.

Canada’s competitive track cycling ecosystem has grown – likely as a result of the Mattamy National Cycling Centre’s success. The Centre National de Cyclisme de Bromont (CNCB) opened in 2022 as an upgrade to their older outdoor track – and the architects behind Edmonton’s new Coronation Park Sports and Recreation Centre took inspiration from regular visits to Milton, Reid tells me.

“I’m trying to get kids and adults to love riding and racing bikes,” says Reid. “We might find an Olympic champion – but we might also find an awful kid who loves it.”

The right environment, it seems, has plenty of room for both.