In today’s video, we’ll be visiting the Keirin cycling track in Gifu city, Japan.
Normally, these tracks are not open to the public for riding, but today there was a special
event for amateur riders.
My buddies and I quickly jumped on this opportunity and we couldn’t wait to get on the track.
It takes about an hour to get to Gifu city by train from Nagoya, and you have to put
your bikes in bags to bring them on the train.
A bit inconvenient, but at least they’re pretty light, and quick to assemble.
Keirin tracks, also called velodromes in other parts of the world, are common all over Japan,
and there is a milion dollar gambling industry built around them.
Therefore, the facilities are quite large and impressive.
Much bigger than any of the velodromes I have ridden back home in the US.
The average track length is about 400 meters with banking around 30 degrees.
Quite easy to ride in comparison to my home track, which is 200 meters with 45 degree banking.
The interior section has numerous rollers lined up for athletes to use to warm up and
cool down.
We quickly got dressed and warmed up to get on the track!
This was actually the first time this kind of event has been held at the Gifu Keirin
track, and a lot of people came out to ride.
Since not everyone has a track bike, they also allowed road bikes on this day.
smile!
the recently crowned national high school champion was also at this event, so we got our picture together.
My friend Jasmin recently had some new custom wheels built from Astuto with gold spoke nipples.
Bling bling!
There was also a decent amount of open track riding time, which
was followed by individual time trial practice for the 200m and kilo time trial.
I only tried the 200m, but Jasmin braved up and decided to go for the Kilo.
For those of you who are unfamiliar, the kilo is the equivalent of the 400 meter dash in running.
All out for one minute and pure torture..
start!
[200 meters to go]
c'mon Jasmin!
The velodromes here in Japan are a little bit different than they are in other parts of the wold
So they're called keirin-jo, instead of velodrome
which sort of has a bit of a negative connotation because there's gambling associated with them.
General people, non-cyclists, don't always have the most positive view of track racing in Japan
because they think it's all just gambline.
But sometimes there's special events like today, which is an open track day
Where people like me, who are not licensed professional kerin racers
can come out and ride the track
So me and a couple friends from the Nagoya Cycling Club decided to come out today to today's event.
It was free, which is great!
A little bit of a train ride over here. Took a train from Nagoya to Gifu
Umm, but not too bad. Huge turnout, lots of people on road bikes, lots of people on track bikes.
and overall, just a great, beautiful day
It's beginning of March right now. I just came back from a snowboarding trip in Hokkaido
So lots of snow, really cold over there.
But, it's pretty warm today. I'm in shorts and relatively comfortable.
So because the keirin gambling is such a big thing in Japanese culture
They're usually really strict about letting other people ride the track
The purpose of the facility is to make money, it's for gambling
There's even, a lot of spectators come regularly just to come and gamble at the track
Even if there's no event going on, there's spectators all over there
on the other side of the track, but it's illegal for me to film them, so... I can't get any shots of them
But they come to the track even if there's no race
And they'll watch races on the monitor, because there's always a race going on, pretty much every day in Japan.
So even if the race isn't nearby them, they come to the local track and they watch the race on the Tv and they do their gambling there
Quite a different culture for track cycling here
Compared to the US. Most tracks, if they do have a public open event
they only let you ride maybe once a month
and this is the first time they've held this event here at the Gifu Velodrome
and hopefully they do it a lot more, they've had a big turnout
everything's gone smooth so far, no accidents.
So hopefully they continue to do this
We have about 4 hours of open track time today
For some of it, we can just ride freely. Do whatever you want on the track
Do your warm-up or whatever you want
And then they start doing some time trials. Right now we're in the 200m time trial.
I did OK, I got a 12.6 second 200 meter time
Which isn't great, but not horrible considering it's early March and I haven't been training and I've just been traveling
the last month or so without riding too much
So not too upset, but definitely want to get down into the 11's as we get into the race season here pretty soon
Everyone here's been super nice, supper supportive
of us riding and coming out. They're excited that a group of foreigners came out
I guess it's not too common... It's not too common for a lot of people to do track cycling here so
it's even more rare for foreigners to do it
just because it's so strict
understanding the rules is a bit difficult. If you don't speak Japanese, it's really hard to get into these kinds of events
just because there's no information in English
That's one intention I want to do with this video blog
If you're interested in track racing in Japan, have any questions, feel free to give me a comment
umm, or send me a direct message
Anyway, check back in later
So, track day is over
We're just packing up, ready to head back to the train station
grab a quick bite to eat, and then back to Nagoya
back home
peace
Before taking the train back, we stopped at a nearby restaurant for some food
Coco ichiban, is a popular, cheap curry restaurant chain here in Japan
Never a bad choice when you're hungry
After dinner, we arrived at Gifu station and packed up our bikes for the final time today
Sometimes the train staff can be very strict about the bike bags and may even require you to take off your seat post
Since it's technically sticking out of the bag
Luckily we didn't run into any problems with that today
[thanks for riding. This is the final stop in Gifu. Don't forget anything as you leave]
After arriving at Nagoya station, Kenji and I still had to take another train to get home
so we decided to grab a quick snack first
unhealthiness, but
but happy!
We rode track today so... yeah
anything's ok
yessss
eclair
oh yeahhhhh
The photos used in this video were mostly taken by my good friend, Kenji.
Be sure to check out his site, Muto Photo, for both awesome pictures of Japan and cool bikes.
If you’re new to this channel, be sure to click the logo here to subscribe!
If you liked the video, be sure to give it a thumbs up, or leave a comment
As always, thanks for watching and see you next time here on Two Wheel Cruise!