Want to ride faster, smoother, and more confidently?
Here’s a secret: some of the best road cyclists, including Mark Cavendish, Aaron Gate, Corbin Strong, Georgia Williams — all started out or have a strong background on the track.
Track cycling isn’t just for elite sprinters. It’s one of the best ways to sharpen your road performance, whether you race, ride bunches, or just love a weekend spin.
Efficiency – Get the most from every pedal stroke
On the road, you can coast, change gears, or roll down hills — but on the track, it’s all about smooth, constant power. No gears. No freewheeling. This forces you to focus almost entirely on the rate of force production throughout each pedal stroke.
That means track cycling helps you:
✅ Improve pedalling technique
✅ Build smoother power delivery
✅ Hold steady efforts for longer
Riding track will help you become much faster and more consistent once you take these habits back to your road bike.
Physiology – Train smarter, race stronger
Track racing is short, sharp, and intense — perfect for building the kind of top-end fitness that wins road races (or keeps you with the bunch on the climbs!).
A few sessions on the track can massively improve your:
🔥 Both aerobic and anaerobic power
⚡ Sprint and attack strength
💥 Recovery between efforts
In road racing events, whilst the duration is generally longer, it’s often in the key events (crosswinds, attacks, hills) that the race is won or lost.
So when the pace lifts in a road race or group ride, you’ll be ready to capitalise.
Bike Handling – Confidence on any road
Track cycling teaches incredible control — how to hold a line, move smoothly around riders, and manage speed using body position and track banking.In the last post for the series, here’s how track builds handling and how it transfers to the road.Those skills transfer perfectly to the road, making you more confident and safer in bunches or traffic.
✅ Better control in close quarters
✅ Sharper reactions
✅ More confidence in any conditions