Track Circus

Saturday morning, we went to the track and brought my training buddy, Marie with us. It was her first time at the track and we were on our road bikes. Hank taught her track ettiquette and we began an easy warm up. Marie is doing the two man TT on sunday on her road bike ( no aero stuffs) !!
Being away from a pack and no cars and NO traffic was refreshing for her. ((and me!)) This was good. There were a couple people there on real track bikes so we told Marie to be especially careful. Track bikes don't have brakes or coaster ability so to share the track we need to be sure to hold our lines and be where we are supposed to be in the stages of our workouts. Communicate to the other riders what you are going to be doing. Good ettiquete puts everyone at ease. We began to warm up. Gorgeous sunny day. early morning.

ALL of a sudden.
( insert circus music here for full effect)

THE GOOFY BIKES CAME OUT!!!!!!!!

Dang I wish I had pictures. Recumbants. Lots of recumbants....((already you know they are nutty people)) haha

Crazy bikes, recliners, funnel shaped, LONG long low bikes with plastic coverings , clothe covered, wooden frames, laminated frames, this that and double cranks. Mile long chains and VERY friendly people.
They came in groups, they came with friends. They carried the equipment into the center ring .........what the heck is going on?? tents popped up on the grass, people brought music and began to sit easily on the bleachers as if in anticipation of something big about to happen.
I went to the Northbrook Velodrome website to search the event. It is not even listed. It must be some Cult bike thing. HPRV bikes come up when I searched.

Here are some links to Human Powered Vehicle sites: http://www.recumbents.com/wisil/coslinger/coslinger_special.htm
http://www.recumbents.com/wisil/bythefoot/bythefoot.htm

It was a Human Powered Vehicle Race.
The guys that were riding these bikes, some of them looked like classic Retro. Long beards, crit bellys, (big crit bellys on some of them) crazy jerseys.
A few were serious. some had on USA jerseys. THey were their to race their goofy bikes and they were having fun!.
But it was the bikes that were so interesting. A few were these Bullet shaped covered up bikes. One , the guy slipped into the cloth covering and his head stuck out. Some when they got all incased, I was wondering how they could even see!

Fortunately they did not get on the track for an hour or so. We got in our workout and was finishing up just as they started to warm up .
When they did one of them was on a long low aerodynamic bullet looking bike. He wheedled in around us. I could hear this thing coming and suddenly this low rider goes past me and up around the track bikes ahead of me. His bike was about ten feet long. It looked more like a canoe than a bike.

Wish I took pictures! :)