On a hot and stuffy Friday night 40 specially invited riders made their way down to the Olympic Forest to take part in a hotly anticipated Criterium race, with many of the competitors in town for the weekend’s Fixed Gear Open 5.

The Fixed Gear Open decided not to run a Criterium race for this year, so in order to fill the void an unofficial one was organized. Just high quality riders were invited to participate in order to keep the level of competition to a good standard. Hundreds of spectators lined the streets ready for the 10pm start, braving the humidity, heat and pollution to see the 3 lap race of the 6.4 km course, congregating near the start finish line so they could catch a glimpse of the winner as they crossed the line. This meant, however, that most were unaware that the south part of the course was wet from a shower earlier, which came as a surprise to all when the riders went on their preparation lap. This was done to give the riders from outside of Beijing an equal opportunity to know the course as well as those whose home race it was. With humidity levels not dropping, the bottom half of the course remained wet for the duration of the night, and with the anticipated exertion nobody wore face masks to protect themselves from the polluted air, instead opting to go without in order to take in as much oxygen as possible to gain any possible advantage.

At 9pm everyone met at the Olympic Forest to confirm their attendance and pick out their wristband in order to determine which heat they would be competing in. Natooke had 2 sponsored riders competing, Luke Winger and David Erwin, both of whom were drawn into the first heat, and Natooke owner Ines Brunn, the only female rider in the field, was drawn into the second heat. The 5 fastest from each heat went through to the final making competition fierce, but with such a high number of spectators it created a very friendly atmosphere for all involved.

The first heat of 20 went off, containing both Natooke’s sponsored riders, Luke and David, with accomplished cyclists Jiang En Bo and Tang. Immediately noticeable was the sheer pace, they all set off at a remarkably high speed, pushing themselves to the limit. The field was immediately split into several peloton’s and in the first lap Luke, Jiang and Tang were in the first peloton of about 5 riders, David found himself in the 2^nd peloton. By the second lap David was growing more and more concerned about not making it through to the final. On the last lap David went off at a sprint making his way through the field and edged his way into one of the qualifying positions for the final, along with Luke, Jiang and Tang. Other friends of Natooke, the likes of Andrew, were adversely affected by the heat, humidity and smog and as such was unable to bag himself a qualifying position.

The second heat got underway quickly after the conclusion of the first, this heat contained the only female rider present, Natooke’s Ines Brun, as well as Ben Wareham and Zhang Nan. This heat started similarly to the first, setting off at a high pace, however this time the majority of riders tried to stick in the first peloton with about 15 of the 20 in it after the first lap. As they neared the end of the second lap a few sprinted away from the peloton leaving Ines and Ben behind, watching people sprint away from you is inevitably a de-motivating moment, but Ines managed to get herself into 11^th place, just outside of her pre-race goal of getting into the top 10.

There was another quick turnaround between the 2^nd heat and the final, putting those that had qualified from the previous race at a bit of a disadvantage. But once again the pace was high in another brilliant race which had a strong, competitive feel to it with the riders involved giving their all in the final. The longer rest that those from the 1^st heat had paid dividends as Luke Winger went on to win, with Tang 2^nd and Jiang 3^rd, all from that first race. Also a notable mention to David Erwin who came in a very respectable 8^th place. Natooke are proud to say that both their sponsored riders put in very strong performances and came out with fantastic results, with many congratulations to Luke for coming out victorious in this tough event.

The crowd and competitors hung around until the conclusion of the event, around 1am, and even from there many stayed later. On the cycle back towards Beijing almost everywhere you looked you could see a group of fixie bike riders either standing around or cycling. The enthusiasm surrounding such an event is brilliant to see, getting people to come from all over China to compete shows how influential the fixie scene here in Beijing is becoming.

Some more photos from the event can be found here: Criterium Race Gallery