There’s a good reason why you haven’t seen REDLINE’s SHANAZE READE at a BMX track for the past month. Her and fellow British Cycling teammates had been putting in some “track” time of another kind. At the Track Cycling World Championships being held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Shanaze was paired up with Victoria Pendleton to compete in the Womens Team Sprint.

TRACK, you say? It’s not what you think–this one has no dirt or jumps, but does feature high banked berms. Like a mini Nascar, you only get to turn left. But with quick, high speed sprints being to key to winning, the Cycling World has discovered that BMXers (such as Jamie Staff, Chris Hoy and Shanaze) have what it takes to win Medals on Velodromes.

With just over a year to go to the Beijing Olympics, the world’s best track riders gathered on the Spanish island of Majorca, for what will no doubt an indicator of what’s to come in 2008.
This year saw the introduction of the Women’s Team Sprint, where 11 country teams (made up of two riders each) went up against each other. Last month, Shanaze entered her first ever track race in Manchester, where she took 2nd place to the Dutch pairing of Yvonne Hijgenaar and BMXer Willy Kanis.
In Spain, the British duo of Pendleton and 18 year old Shanaze Reade delivered the fastest time in qualification and were again quicker than the Dutch team in the final of the women’s team sprint. They netted gold in the first running of the race as a full championship event; going 0.34 quicker than their Dutch rivals. Their winning time was 33.63 seconds.

“In Spain, I competed in Team Sprint and the 500 time trial,” Shanaze explains. “Both events went really good for me and I became World Champion in the Team Sprint, along with my teammate Victoria Pendleton. In the 500-TT, I was a stand by for the (British) team. I had never before done that distance because I’ve been focusing on doing 1 lap for the Team Sprint. For the 500, there were 25 girls entered and I was second up to race. I posted a time of 34.6; which surprised me and a lot of other people. It was a good enough time to finish 5th in the World. The 4 girls in front of me were a World Champ, an Olympic champ, World Cup leader and a World Record holder. So I was extremely happy to place 5th and only be 1,000ths from getting bronze.”

Now that the Track Worlds are done, Shanaze will be back on her Redline Flight Pro XL, and plans to start hitting the dirt surfaced tracks. The 6-race European Championship series kicks off April 21st in Belguim; where Reade will be going after her 9th Euro Champ title.

There’s a good reason why you haven’t seen REDLINE’s SHANAZE READE at a BMX track for the past month. Her and fellow British Cycling teammates had been putting in some “track” time of another kind. At the Track Cycling World Championships being held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Shanaze was paired up with Victoria Pendleton to compete in the Womens Team Sprint.