How Physically Fit Do You Have To Be To Ride Speedway

[manchesterpaul]

Just caught glimpse of an online comment by Tai Woffinden ahead of the Cardiff GP where he says

 

"It is a physically demanding sport. If I cycle for an hour I will burn 400 calories; if I ride five races I’ll burn 1,500."

 

Riding a speedway bike for five races takes more out of you than a one hour cycle ride! Is this really so? I can see how clearly there are physical demands made on the body but to such an extent as in the comparison above?

 

Can anyone who has ridden speedway give us a breakdown on the exertion that takes place and on which muscles, also the cardio vascular demands made. It's great that after much hankering TV channels and magazines are giving us technical information so it would be very cool and informative to hear of the physical aspects involved.

[dukes]

Everthing Tai has stated is true, ask anyone who has ridden.

 

If you dont beleive it visit the Scunthorpe training track and have a go, no one who has been will dispute how tiring and hard it actually is.

[AndyJ]

Whilst I don't doubt that racing speedway is physically taxing methinks Tai is exaggerating somewhat! A heavy person running at 8mph for an hour would burn less than 1500 calories. 5 minutes of speedway racing would burn far less than a tenth of that.

[Matt Davis]

I'm always blowing like a steam train after 4 laps. Probably down to the fact that I'm unfit and only ride a handful of times a year but i do only go about a third of the speed that Tai does

[Dave_minall]

When you're proper going at a fair pace, you'll need to be pretty fit. You probably won't notice out on track but when you get off the bike you will know how fit you are. I rode in the (what was the conference league) and at no point ever went to a gym or watched what I was eating. I was about 9-10 stone though, and I probably took about 2 minutes to catch my breath.

[SCB]

As mentioned, go to Scunthrorpe and you realise how hard it is as slow speed on a small track. I can only imagine it's really hard work on track. But 1500 calories in a meeting? No chance. The riders who are riding 4 or 5 meetings in a week wold be wasting away.

[berniev123]

I would have to go with Tai but until it is calculated we will all have different opinions. Down the years it has been said in the Cradley area that a rider does more energetic work on a bike in 4 or 5 races than a professional footballer does in a full game! The exact calories burnt over a night of racing would be large and the rougher the track I would imagine more would be burnt when controlling the bike. I have never ridden but logically what Tai says sounds right as a Biologist and my experience with competition Ice Skating. Pity a top rider who has nutritional advice can't help us out on the question.

[AndyJ]

No matter how hard a speedway rider works it is surely impossible to burn 1500 calories in such a short period of time. Perhaps if a speedway rider rode continuously for an hour then this figure would be believable - but 5 races or 5 minutes of effort?! No chance! A boxer apparently burns in the region of 1100/hour!

[The White Knight]

How Physically Fit Do You Have To Be To Ride Speedway?

 

In answer to the above question - a hell of a lot fitter than me. :sad: