Emily Chilton reflects on her rides at the National Track Championships

Last weekend I took part in the National Track Championships at Manchester Velodrome. I raced as a pilot on a tandem bike with a visually impaired rider, Natalie Jamieson. We took part in two events which are both essentially time trials on the track of different distances. On Friday we did 1k TT which is 4 laps of the track and Saturday we did the 3k pursuit which is 12 laps of the track. Although it doesn’t sound far it is an all out effort from a standing start on a fixed gear so it takes it out of you!

I decided to pilot after trialling a taster tandem session at Lee Valley Velodrome and just loved it. I really enjoy doing new things and pushing myself outside my comfort zone so I decided to see if anyone was looking for a pilot for nationals. It was also great to give opportunities to para riders who otherwise would not be able to compete without pilots.  I first got into contact with Natalie through a para riders group on facebook and we decided to give it a go!

We set up several training sessions at Lee Valley and Derby Velodrome before the main competition and a training race. Natalie lives near Glasgow so organising training was more complex. Training went well, however we had one significant challenge to overcome- getting out of the gate. A standing start is tricky on a solo track bike as you have to push your heavy gear out of the gate, let alone on a tandem bike with two riders where you need to time it to perfection (especially when one cannot see the countdown). In training we actually fell out of the gate leaving us both a bit bruised and battered and quite nervous for the main event in front of all those people and the Youtube live stream.

For the race itself we were pleased we made it out the gate successfully in both attempts. We had some tough competition, racing against the current triple world champions (who actually came second in both events) and the current world record holders (who took gold in both events). We were happy to pick up bronze in both events and although very happy with our 1k time, I think our 3k pursuit would need some work to be more competitive.

In the future we are both looking to carry on racing and we will definitely be competing at the Scottish National Championship in December (I’m not Scottish but Natalie is). We also would love to aim for the GB squad and are looking into how we can go about doing this. Numerous power testing I imagine!