gummee

Thanks for posting the Info.

There are many more velodromes than I had assumed in the good old USA.

Not all of em are as active as say SoCal or T-Town.

M

I could see that!

Looks like the Mellowdrome in Ashville, NC was an Old half mile paved oval race track converted to a velodrome type bicycle track (good use of resources to make a great and safe place for bicyclists to ride)

Flashbacks ...
 

Skibum69, Hi!

I was there too. My best recollection is I was in the Pace Car for that race. It was the circuit race, on the downhill, very fast, less than a mile from the sprint finish, everyone was looking for position at the front. A local friend who was riding for Killington-Pico Cycling Club went down in that crash too, broke his wrist/arm.

Things that I seem to remember:

I saw in the rear view mirror, the whole pack suddenly take up the whole road and bicycles flipping in the air. It was a Cat 3 or Cat 4 men's race (no Cat 5 existed then). Things got complicated because we still had at least two other Categories on course racing while the emergency vehicles and officials were on the course. It was in 1997. That crash probably had the worst outcome of all the KSR events over the years with a small handful of people ending up at the ER.

I will say though, that stage always had some great sprint finishes.

Did we talk about this before? :D

Enjoy,


Liz

I think it's the first I piped up about it, I'd go volunteer if I had the time. I never was any good at road racing, not dedicated enough.:lol3

I grew up in the shadow of this track. It was a shithole, we used to ride down one of the turns and build jumps in the middle on out BMX bikes. They redid it a few years back, and i is much nicer now. There is a twilight series one night a week there but it doesn't get used much at all.
That said it is just in a park, and you can ride on it anytime which is nice.

go check out the 'Forest City Velodrome' it's fairly new and has been getting a lot of attention in that area.
forest city velodrome

What an asshole.

Have you seen how happy those fuckers look, how fit they are, and how quickly they get around the city while everyone else is stuck in their mobile phone boths?
They must be stopped! :lol3

They make the rest of us look so fat. Evil bike riders.....

Mike Magnuson is blogging.

I mostly blame him for my little bicycling problem because of his book Heft On Wheels.

When he's not posting King Missile videos and ripping on academics (topics which I enjoy as well) he writes some pretty funny shit about cycling.

you were being sarcastic I hope....?:huh

Nice. Just "followed" him. I scrolled down and read the post about his old cowbell. Funny shit!

Ya think?

M

I live just down from the Alpenrose track here in SW Pdx; it is private property - a Dairy. They have several venues that they make public for organizations to run - a quartermidget racetrack, the softball and little league fields [the Little League and Softball World Series play here] and they used to have a BMX track [until curmudgeon neighbors and liability issues raised their heads]. They also host a cyclocross on their property. Alpenrose Dairy folks are really generous and are long standing supporters of the neighborhood.

Anyway - I've ridden on the track a few times - okay, I took the road bike on it to see what it was like. It is not such a weird shape as it is a compact track with steep banking - steepest in the nation I believe at over 40 degrees? They say you have to go a minimum of 13 mph to stay up on the banking without sliding down. That's not far from the truth. The track is steep enough you really just ride the thing and you will turn. The spectators can watch from the ends and peer down on cyclists. It's a great place and they have a few large events there in the summers - free spectating and some big names come out.

The track is concrete and a number of years ago was falling into disrepair - there was a big bump/crack at the entry to turn 3. They did a good amount of refurbishment on it and restarted the racing. OBRA has some info on the work and the racing. They [OBRA racers] also have classes during the summers - show up and someone will teach you track cycling fundamentals.

There is a big push to get another velodrome in the state - indoors. They are trying for Eugene or the old Memorial Coliseum in downtown Portland. Unfortunately, that would seal the fate of the Alpenrose track.