Back in 2003, the first rule of Sprint Club was that you talk about Sprint Club. Seriously, how else was anyone going to hear about it?

So people talked—VCU students, bike messengers, anyone with a track bike—and slowly the underground bicycle-race series grew. Late-night time trials in Riverview Cemetery. Sunday afternoon sprint races around Byrd Park’s Fountain Lake. Dashes through abandoned office park parking lots. These were Sprint Club’s lifeblood. What started with maybe four or five enthusiasts eventually ballooned to over 30. There wasn’t a plan; it was just racing bikes. The only rule was that you had to have a track bike.

Sprint Club was the brainchild of Braden Govoni, a former employee at Rowlett’s bicycle shop and now a co-owner of Carytown Bicycle Company.

“It started when a couple of us were sitting around the shop and talking about how it would be cool to race track bikes,” he said on a recent visit to the bike shop, which opened in April. “We went over to Byrd Park, around Fountain Lake, and raced around that. We heard that maybe 20 years ago they had races around there with road bikes. So we were like, ‘That’s as good a place as any let’s try that out.’ It was like a midnight on a Saturday night and like four people raced. It just kind of grew from there.”

Track bikes look like your average road bike from afar. Up close the differences are considerable. Like brakes. Track bikes don’t have any.
You get the sense Govoni has handled the logical next question many times before. Wait, no brakes?

“With practice, I think it’s not really any harder to stop a fixed gear bike than a bike with brakes. It’s just a matter of developing the skill for it,” he said.
People ride it around the streets “if you’re good at it.”

Track bikes also differ from their cousin the road bike in not having any gears or a coasting mechanism. So when your legs speed up, the bike speeds up. When your legs slow down, so does the machine.

“I feel like you’re more connected to the bike,” Govoni explains. “It’s a very smooth form of racing because there’s no jamming on the brakes.”
Sprint Club expanded as more people in the Richmond area bought track bikes.

John Emanuel, who rides a track bike and was involved with Sprint Club from the start, explained the growing trend.

“I would dare to say they’re the new skateboard: Something different and dangerous in a sense and quote unquote cool. They’re the new thing.”

In fall of 2004 a couple of things happened that made Govoni want to get serious about track racing and race promoting. He and a couple of buddies went up to Trexlertown, Pa. and raced in a real velodrome. The experience was an eye opener.

“We were all like wow that was awesome riding on a real track. I wish we had a track,” he remembered. “That’s when I heard about the Southside Speedway. I heard that years ago they had road races down there. We contacted them and they were really open to the idea.”

That was the second break. The folks at Southside Speedway opened up their facility to let in pedal pushers of the two-wheel variety. Govoni figured Sprint Club was pushing against the edge of its underground limits. Now with a place to ride, it was time to get serious about track racing.

“Go Fast. Turn Left” is Govoni’s attempt to take local track cycling legit. It’s an officially sanctioned race series out at Southside Speedway. There are races for both track bikes and regular road bikes. There were two races in 2005 and three in 2006. Three were scheduled for this year but one was rained out. The final race of 2007 will be on Saturday.

Govoni said that at the first race at Southside Speedway maybe 50 people showed up. Now it’s grown to close to 200. “So it’s growing. It’s not huge, but it’s continuing to grow.”

Emanuel spreads the credit around for the rise of track cycle in Richmond, but, he said, “Braden has been a big influence on the cycling community. He’s done a lot. I would say he’s gotten a lot of people into racing and racing track bikes.”

Govoni was surprised at how quickly the organized races grew, but he doesn’t want to push the sport too much on Richmond’s cycling community before its ready.

“Now it’s more just letting it grow at its own pace. More people are coming out. More people are doing the sport.”

But he also has other goals, and now as a bike shop owner he’s better positioned to pursue them.

“By bringing more people into the sport, I think the next logical step is to start a team. A little bit more of a structured program. This fall we’re making a pretty big push to start a development team for riders under 25.”

Govoni said he misses the easygoing days of Sprint Club. The challenges of running a business, promoting races and working on starting a cycling team don’t leave him much time for late night rides.

But local office park security guards beware: Govoni handed over the reins to the underground racing scene to Emanuel and others. Sprint Club lives on.

Go Fast. Turn Left.
Races start Saturday Noon at Southside Speedway
12800 Genito Road

http://www.carytownbicyclecompany.com