West Suffolk’s 15 year old Alan Trolove was recently selected to ride at the big Revolution Track Meeting at the Manchester Velodrome. This meeting is one of a series of four held each winter, with top international track riders competing in a variety of events, and supported by the country’s very best ‘Future Stars’ ~ promising young riders hoping follow in the wheel-tracks of the established riders.

A capacity crowd of 6000 was there to witness the action and the line-up for the meeting included current world champions Ed Clancy and Leigh Howard as well as umpteen major medallists, including West Suffolk’s own Olympic and World medallist Ross Edgar, who dominated the Sprint races and was unbeaten all night. Alan Trolove was one of 24 ‘Future Stars’ selected from the country’s most promising young riders including those on British Cycling’s Talent Team, which feeds the Olympic Development programme. Most of them had taken part in the three earlier Revolution meetings this season, and Alan was one of a handful of debutants and at 15 years of age one of the youngest there.

The main evening meeting was preceded in the afternoon by the National Madison Championships in which riders work as a pair throughout a 200 lap race, with one racing and one circulating at lower speed, waiting to be relayed back into the race by his team mate, by means of a ‘hand-sling’. Alan rode in a supporting race at this meeting, taking part in an 80 lap youth version of the same event, riding with Ollie Plumley from Welwyn Wheelers and finishing ninth.

In the Revolution meeting itself Alan first rode a 5 kilometre scratch race and maintained excellent pace in the bunch, even after several strong attacks, when the speed rose dramatically to chase down breaks. The race was one by Chris Latham, (MaxGear Racing), with Alan officially 16^th in the bunch. The pace was even more fierce in the next event, the 6 Lap Dash, which saw an average speed of over 30 mph. Despite his lack of recent short-distance track events Alan maintained his position in the bunch and again finished mid-field.

But in his third ride, the Elimination Race, otherwise known as the ‘Devil’, Alan surpassed expectations. In this race the last rider to cross the line each lap is eliminated, making for a very hectic event, with mad sprints each lap to avoid the chop. Although boxed in at the back for the opening laps he survived and eventually found his way out into space and survived 16 eliminations which saw many fancied riders out. He did eventually succumb to the pace to be eliminated, finishing very creditable eighth.

He is now hoping that his promising debut performance will be enough to secure an invitation for the whole series over the 2011/12 winter series.