- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
Scalextric GB cycling set (pic courtesy Pocket Lint)Scalextric launch London 2012 track cycling set
If you want any more evidence of how far Team GB's success has brought track cycling into the mainstream consciousness – over and above seeing the team's stars hawking various healthy foodstuffs on the telly – then look no further than quintessentially British toymaker Hornby, who are releasing a track cycling Scalextric set to coincide with the London Olympics.
That's right: come Christmas day you'll be fiddling with connectors and filing contacts not to rant a Formula 1 car round a tiny Silverstone but to pit a plastic Matt Crampton against a plastic Chris Hoy in a living-room sprint heat. And all for a very reasonable seventy notes. What aspiring track star could resist?
Actually there's a few reasons why you might want to. For all that the track cycling bandwagon is an interesting one to jump on from road.cc's point of view, it doesn't actually look like it'd be that exciting to play. The track is less an oval, more of a rectangle with rounded corners, and there's no overtaking. It's a pity there isn't a crossover piece like there is on the Digital Pro GT racing set (okay, that is £299...) which would make for some interesting racing. As it stands you've got one rider on the blue line and one on the black, and we all know how that'll end... Whether or not you'll be able to port your riders to your standard Scalextric track for a bit of criterium racing is unconfirmed, and Hornby aren't planning a road racing version so far as we're aware.
.preview_500.jpg)
The riders (from Pocket Lint)
The riders themselves are powered by a kind of sidecar affair; obviously there's no room in the model bike for a motor, unlike Cancell[snip! ....Ed]. It looks a bit odd, but once you got into the heat of racing you'd probably forget all about it. The riders are taller than cars, but given that all the heavy gubbins is still down by the track they're probably not that much less stable. The set comes with two GB riders; whether you'll be able to buy some Aussies or Kiwis to pit your wits against remains to be seen.
The set will be avialable to buy from the Summer, and you'll be able to get it from the offical London 2012 shop, www.london2012.com/shop, when it lands.
Thanks everso to the nice chaps at Pocket Lint for letting us use their photographs of the set from Toy Fair 2011.
Dave is a founding father of road.cc, having previously worked on Cycling Plus and What Mountain Bike magazines back in the day. He also writes about e-bikes for our sister publication ebiketips. He's won three mountain bike bog snorkelling World Championships, and races at the back of the third cats.
Latest Comments
- Hivizalways 1 sec ago
So the double yellow lines are in the middle of the road? Trouble is the people who are paying for these softie cyclist 'enhancements' are the ones...
- quiff 11 min 51 sec ago
I would guess Jem PT, below, might also have been thinking of one of the fully reflective ones (happy to be corrected), but didn't get the same...
- wtjs 11 min 55 sec ago
Surprising- Honda drivers are usually careful, although prone to confuse the brake and accelerator in EVs and smashing down the public toilets (I...
- DeelitedManchester 16 min 31 sec ago
I can't resist asking this:...
- wtjs 20 min 19 sec ago
The driver claims he "accidentally stepped on the gas too hard"...
- OnYerBike 1 hour 22 min ago
Unfortunately I can't recommend the Magicshine Seemee DV - I have one and am currently in the process of trying to have it returned and refunded as...
- slc 3 hours 35 min ago
TBH the west (Barton Hill) part of the scheme looks like a much larger change than the east (Beaufort Rd) part. Some drivers living in the west...
- Owd Big 'Ead 10 hours 19 min ago
You need to get out of Derby then. Go somewhere else, because while not perfect, Derby is streets ahead of the vast majority of places I've lived...
Add new comment
21 comments
It IS Forrest Town!
Actually, they had a few 'cross races around Forrest Town too. Maybe that's how Hornby could expand on this - a wiggly green and brown track outside the velodrome.
I WILL get one but only if their little legs spin round.....!
Ooh that must be fun - have you ever ridden it?
Yes I have, I raced in the league there in 2009. Hard work but fun.
I'll try a find a link to some pics later.
Looks like forest town track. This is most definitely not the first rectangular velodrome.
Looks like it would make a very functional cycling themed dinner tray.
Nice.
So negative Mr Bendy. It's Friday: why not put on your happy pants and cheer up.
Agree with he Whirly Wheelers though. Check out the little guys in action:
I liked the idea of the scalextric velodrome when I first heard about it. But it looks like the legs and wheels don't rotate, if this is the case the riders are gonna look pretty wierd gliding around more like speed skaters than track riders.
Anyone remember Whirly Wheelers?
http://www.cyclingboardgames.net/x_whirlywheelers.htm
This was pretty good but was more design to get you into becoming a full time gambler when you were older.
Hmm - looks cute, but for £75 you could get a reasonable 2nd-hand bike, or even a supermarket shonky special.
My Raleigh folder cost £60 (up North), and has given me much more fun than this Scalextric could. Yesterday morning it also saved the day, when my girlfriend had a flat tire and an exam to get to. She rode the "clown bicycle" and made it on time.
Is this toy, then, aimed at kids whose parents won't let them out on a bike?
Bit disappointed by the shape of the track. The real track is a thing of beauty.
But I am looking forward to the sidecar event in the Olympics. I guess it is a handicapped event, where the stronger rider gets a fatter UCI commissaire in his blazer sitting in the sidecar.
These will be popular once Team GB fail to reproduce the result of Beijing , let alone exceed it as a lot of people seem to think is a foregone conclusion.
Sorry to be negative and I do support the squad, however I do think "we" are back in the realm of English national football where the general populace think that because "we" have done well once that "we" are now a major world power and will dominate, in this case, cycling for the rest of time.
Agree to a point on the expectations andy but at least our cycling teams win something on a consistent basis at Olympic and World level which our overpaid and underperforming footballers have failed to do since 1966!!
The biggest hurdle they have to overcome is the equalisation of opportunity for male and female riders by giving them 5 events each. I'm not against the increase in womens events but a more effective option would have been to increase the number of women's events to match the seven the men had; Oh, and then they changed the rules again to allow only one competitor per nation per event.
A lost opportunity to increase the revenues for the cycling events by cutting the numbers, typical blinkered thinking by the men (and women) in blazers.
Topical !!!!
They might actually be less cliched than Phil and Paul
I think you put an additional "a" in there...
Isn't that the Red Bull Mini Drome?
I can see it being great fun... for all of five minutes. And for only seventy-squids
Male cyclists only though? Bit sexist, isn't it anyway? 
Comes with a little commentary box containing Andy Gray and Richard Keys.
It would make a great tea tray
Like the TA Story.....
"As it stands you've got one rider on the blue line and one on the black, and we all know how that'll end..."
Back in my TA days (many moons ago), at a battalion sports day I was anchoring my company in the 4x400m.
We were allocated the outside lane, and were told by the Regimental Sergeant Major that all runners had to stick to the lane their teams started the race in.
I took it upon myself to point out the obvious disadvantage this would put all teams other than the one on the inside under (and particularly my team), and learnt three valuable life lessons that day:
1 - Never argue with the RSM
2 - Never argue with the RSM and
3 - Never argue with the RSM
We'd have won it, too, if we hadn't had to run what was in effect an extra lap.
ps Not that I'm bitter (recalling the race with total clarity a quarter of a century after it happened)
I
am
so
getting
one
of
those...