What is a Track-stand (Competition)?
- Don't put your foot down
- Don't ride outside of the lines of the box
- Stay on your bike longer than your opponent
Backstory
In 2013, after graduating high school, I picked up a cheap track bike off of Craigslist that I used to commute to college. I learned how to track-stand on this fixed gear bike. A good group of friends and I that would ride all around our small Idaho town on bicycles practicing skid stops, trackstands, and racing each other. Below was one of the better spots in town to stop and rest during rides.
I hurt my back shortly after transferring to university. To allow me to ride my bike I swapped out the drop bars for a set of sweep-back, riser bars and added a rear rack to carry my pack so my back wouldn't have to. And since the upgraded wheelset had a flip-flop hub I converted the bike to a single speed instead of riding fixed gear. I couldn't skid stop anymore and track-standing wasn't quite the same without being able to pedal backwards, but I could continue riding.
I eventually gave my track bike to my little brother and upgraded to the Surly Ogre. I will for sure have a post on this bicycle in the future.
Fast forward a few years to last month when my friend invited me out to a new local bar. The HandleBar is a bicycle oriented bar in downtown Boise that puts on bicycle competitions every Thursday night. The Thursday night we went, the competition was a Track-stand Off sponsored by Sock-Eye Brewery. I showed up to the bar with no intent of participating as I don't own a fixed gear bike. That night though my friend Josh told me I should enter the competition and that I could use his fixed gear bike. The atmosphere in the bar was too hyphy to turn down his offer, so I entered the competition.
The Track-stand Off
At 8pm the qualifier rounds began. Some of my opponents weren't great at track-standing and lasted only a few seconds, so I won a few of my rounds easily. However, the opposition got stiffer. Below is the first round that I had to work for. I had a good support crew -- my coworkers from the bike shop we work at haha.
I ended up placing second in my qualifier heat of 12 or so people and was pushed forward into the finals!
After several rounds in the finals I ended up going head to head against Josh for third place overall. I'd been using his bike all night to compete, but he wasn't gonna let me use it when we went head to head because he needed it. A cyclist at the bar offered me his bike to use during our round. I appreciated the offer and used the bicycle even though he was much shorter than I am. In fact I usually ride a 58-60cm frame and his frame was only a 52cm. I felt huge on the little bike. And to make it even tougher he had little SPD pedals that I could hardly keep my feet on in flip-flops. Nevertheless, Josh and I gave the crowd a good show! You can't hear it but we were shit talking each other at the start of the round haha. I'm Josh's boss at work so I told him he'd better put his foot down otherwise I'd make him clean the bathrooms all the next day. He said he liked my bike and asked if it came in men's sizes too haha 😂
After minutes of dueling it out I ran my bike outside of my box and into Josh. My left leg was cramping hard and I didn't like the idea of just simply putting my foot down and losing. So I gave the crowd a little show and charged Josh making us both lightly crash. Don't worry both bicycles made it out okay 😅 Below is Josh and the other two victors getting their podium picture.
By 10:30pm the Track-stand Off had concluded and we were all partying hard and drinking for free at the Handlebar! Plus we got sent home with a bunch of free swag for competing and winning!
Go out and support your local bars! Thanks for checking out the post. Please resteem and 