The Madison: Track Racing's Team Event Comes to Ride Cave

Of all the races on a velodrome, the Madison is the one people stop and stare at. Two riders make a team. One races while the other rolls around at the top of the track getting their breath back. Then the resting rider swoops down, their hands meet at full speed, and one throws the other back into the race. From the stands it looks like chaos. Once you see what is going on, it is the best race on the track.

It is now on Ride Cave. You can race it on your trainer, on any of our 22 velodromes or a track you built yourself, with a bot partner against bot teams, or with real riders in a live Group Race.

Why it is called the Madison

The race takes its name from Madison Square Garden in New York, home of the six day races where it began. Riders paired up and took turns, and the turns became the point. Today the Madison is a world championship and Olympic event, and the best elite men average around 55 to 60 km/h for just under an hour.

How the race works

At heart it is a points race for teams. Sprints come round every few laps, and the first four teams over the line score 5, 3, 2 and 1. The final sprint pays double. Gain a lap on the main bunch and your team scores 20. Get lapped by it and you lose 20. The team with the most points at the end wins.

We follow the UCI rules for how often the sprints come, and that depends on the track: every 10 laps on a track shorter than 333.33 m, every 8 on a 333.33 m track, and every 5 on anything longer. They are counted back from the finish, so the last sprint is always the finish line. You can pick a Short race of about 10 km, a Standard race of about 20 km, a Championship race of about 30 km, or set your own laps.

The exchange

This is what makes the Madison different from every other race we have built. While your partner races, you soft pedal up by the boards and recover. Your badge says REST. As your partner comes round, the camera turns to show them coming and the badge becomes a speedometer over your head. The right speed is at 12 o'clock: left of it you are too slow, right of it you are too fast, because a partner who cannot catch you cannot sling you. Get it right and you come down the banking to just above their line.

Then your hands meet. Powered by Cave Motion™, the racer reaches back, the relief rider reaches down, and the sling does its work. The rider coming in surges clear, and the rider going out drifts off the back, then heads up the track to rest.

How much speed moves depends on how well you matched. The race radio grades each one as a Perfect, Good or Late sling. A perfect one is a real kick. A late one barely moves you. If you are too far apart in speed, or too far up the track when your partner comes by, you miss, your badge says MISS, and your partner has to ride on until they come round to you again. We made the speed window wider than it would be on a real track, because a trainer is slower to change speed than a bike on the boards. It still takes a few goes to get a perfect one, and that is most of the fun.

A bot partner, or a real one

In a race with bots, you get a partner at your level and race 2 up to 15 teams, depending on the track, at Easy, Normal or Hard. Your bot partner always comes down for your exchange, so you can concentrate on racing. When it is your turn to come in, the timing is yours to get right. The other teams race with real tactics: they exchange, go for the sprints, and attack when a fresh rider can carry a move.

To race with real people, host a Group Ride from any velodrome and make it a Madison. Up to 30 riders can join. The race room pairs everyone up, a rider without a partner gets a bot at their level, and a race always has at least two teams. As the host, you choose how: Balanced teams puts the strongest with the weakest so every team has a chance, Matched partners pairs riders at the same level, and Random is the luck of the draw. Both partners get the same place and XP in the official results.

Know who is who

A Madison is a lot to follow from the stands, so we worked hard on making it easy to read from the saddle. Every team has its own jersey color and pattern: Team Red, Team Blue and so on. The rest stays yours: your body, hair, helmet, bibs, shoes and bike. The leaderboard shows teams rather than riders, and every team's exchange gets a burst of light in its color, so you can see the race changing from across the velodrome.

Every format now has its own page

Alongside the Madison, each of our track race formats now has its own page, with how it works, how to race it and what you can set: the Madison, the scratch race, the points race, the elimination, the tempo race, the keirin and the time trial. If you have never raced on a track, they are a good place to start.

Getting started

Open Tracks, pick a velodrome, press Next, choose Race, then pick Madison as the format. Start on Easy with a Short race, and get a feel for the exchange before you worry about the sprints. The Madison is free for everyone, like the rest of our track racing. All you need is a smart trainer or a power meter, and a partner, which we can provide.