ASHEVILLE - Janet Trubey is a respectable adult with a grown-up job. But the 31-year-old Rugby Middle School teacher in Hendersonville has a bit of a wild side.
For the past year, Trubey has been riding a bicycle with no gears and no brakes, whipping around a track with walls that slope so steeply, she can almost reach out and touch the ground while riding.
"It's very, very scary when you first get there," Trubey said. "It feels like you're riding on the side walls of your tires. But after 10 to 20 laps, you get the feel for it. You need a little adventure-seeking spirit in you."
The spirit will be with Trubey and dozens of other cyclists this Tuesday when they hit the French Broad River Park track for the second annual Asheville Track Racing series. The races are run every other Tuesday and last for 11 weeks, incorporating several types of road cycling, including fixed-gear bicycle racing.
Trubey first started up bicycling after taking a spinning class two years ago.
She began road racing with the Asheville Bicycle Racing Club last year and tried out velodrome racing at a track near Atlanta.
"I had so much fun that I came back and bought a fixed- gear bicycle in January," she said.
Velodromes are tracks with high-sloping walls, or banking, similar to an auto racing oval. The tracks are used for racing fixed-gear bicycles -bikes with one gear and no brakes.
"If you're moving, you're pedaling," said Chris Kamm, 47, who together with fellow fixed-gear enthusiast George Riedesel, 36, started the Asheville Velodrome Group. The organization is co-sponsoring the race series with Asheville Parks and Recreation and is the driving force behind bringing this form of biking back to Asheville.
It's making a comeback, he said, because fixed-gear biking is actually the original - the kind of biking that spawned the road bike, the mountain bike and all of the more recent incarnations.
"It's a purist form of racing," said Kamm, a custom woodworker who lives in Asheville. "Prior to World War II, track bike racing was the biggest spectator sport in the United States."
The fixed-gear bike has been around since the late 1800s, said Riedesel, who teaches English at Enka Middle School
"When bikes were first made, this is what everybody rode," Riedesel said. "When you think of bicycling in America, you think of Lance Armstrong and Greg LeMond. In the late 1800s, there were American bike racers who were world champions, with no gears and no brakes. In the 1930s, a track racer would make more (money) than a pro baseball player."
Soon after, auto and motorcycle racing took precedence in the rapidly motorizing country, and after World War II, track bike racing was a dying breed.
Today there are only 20 velodromes in the United States, but it is still a hot sport in Europe and is an Olympic summer event. The Asheville Velodrome Group is now trying to revive the thrill of the no-brake style of racing in the States.
"When I moved here (from San Francisco) I put my track bike away because there's no place to ride," Kamm said. "When the speedway became a city park, we seized on the opportunity to develop track racing. As a training facility, it's phenomenal."
The French Broad River Park's track cannot be considered a true velodrome, which have banking of about 38 degrees, but it is good for training. Riders that use it for fixed-gear racing have nicknamed the track the "Mellowdrome," for its relatively tame banking.
Kamm says track racing is a great sport for everyone, from kids to adults. He and Riedesel contend it's fun for both athletes and spectators, who get to watch a complete race from start to finish, unlike in road races such as the Tour de France, and they say track racing is actually safer than other bike racing.
Really? With no brakes?
"It's almost like being in a video game," Kamm said. "It's fast-paced, intense, more maneuvering, accelerating and decelerating. Tactics play out at a faster pace. It looks more dangerous to the outside eye, but actually you have much more control over your bike."
On a fixed-gear bike, the only way to speed up or slow down is by pedaling or resisting the pedals since there are no gears or hand brakes to mess with. And everyone around you is going at much the same speeds, since races are on closed tracks - about 30 mph.
Also, you are racing on a flat surface - no hidden rocks or roots as in mountain biking - and there is no vehicular traffic as on a road race. The bikes have special tires called sew-up or tubular tires that are glued to the rims.
The race series will have a fixed-gear class, and four other classes for road bikes, including a women's class and one for A and B levels. It is sponsored in part by the Asheville Bicycle Racing Club, Hearn's Cycling and Fitness, Liberty Bicycles, Dr. Steve Miller and Asheville Family Health Center.
Mike Smith, 54, who works at Liberty Bicycles in Asheville, has been track racing for more than a quarter- century. He has ridden every kind of bike, but feels there is only one true bike for him - the fixed gear.
"It's the absolute essence of biking," Smith said. "There's nothing there except your legs, nothing to worry about but the pedals."
He admits that when you first try riding the bikes in a velodrome, it can be a terrifying experience.
"It's hard to believe the tires will stick to that banking, but at that speed, it steers you automatically," he said.
Since there is no separate division for women fixed-gear racers, the women who ride fixed-gear bikes will have to race alongside the men. Trubey will give it a go Tuesday.
"It's a little intimidating because they are putting the women in with the fastest guys out there," Trubey said. "I'm hoping to attempt it. It's a little unnerving, but once you get going, the excitement takes over."
Contact Chávez at 236-8980 or at KChavez@CITIZEN-TIMES.com