joshpants

https://303cycling.com/rip-boulder-velodrome

I only found out about this last night at their Casino Night races.
I've put thousands of miles on that track - hopefully something is figured out.

mcafiero

I've never been to the track, most of the people I've talked to don't really like it. But I would have liked to have ridden it. Too bad it's closing.

That said, maybe the velodrome in Erie will make up for that? https://www.facebook.com/bvvelodrome

joshpants

It was definitely a unique experience on such a short track. I loved it - things happened so fast and although it is a rule everywhere - even more so there you have to know where EVERYONE is at all times. It really accelerated some skills, but a lot aren't transferrable.

I'm excited for Erie, but I actually see Erie cannabalizing CSprings more than it would have BIC - that's my next worry. BIC was crazy all winter long.

carleton

How was it going from Boulder to COS? What skills transfered and what did not? How differently did you have to gear your bike between each track?

I really don't get the short velodrome thing. Don't get me wrong. I really, really appreciate the hard work that people put into building and managing these facilities, but why 180M tracks?

Brooklyn just got $40 million for a new facility which will include a 180M track. This is cool for Madisons on short gears but not much else.

carleton

On the other hand, there is a newly renovated 333M velodrome in Baton Rouge, LA that is (as far as I can tell) virtually unused.

David Broon 

I agree with carleton on short tracks, The nearest indoor track is 200m, and when you really get cranking it almost forces you up the track. Very different feeling than the 333 that I'm used to.

bitingduck

Mass start in general on short tracks is pretty cool. Forest City is a total blast to ride, and even though I didn't race there (was only there for an evening) it would be fun for any kind of mass start stuff. You can have a lot of fun playing with the banking for attacks, and it's more spectator friendly than watching a bunch of guys spread out on an oval like a NASCAR race. Watch some of the 6-day videos from the Ghent 166-- it's not all madison events, and it's fun to watch.

And you're a big guy who spends a lot of time working on max speed and power-- short tracks aren't good for that.

I'm mostly a mass start racer-- I don't particularly like shallow 333s...

carleton

Ahhh...that probably explains it!

Yeah, I've seen some of the videos from Europe, and yes, it's very exciting.

joshpants

I thought the transition was kind of tough. My experience was the exact opposite of what David Broon describes. After many hours and many miles on the 142, going to the 333, I couldn't stay on the banking and didn't dare ride less than about 25mph at first! I have seen guys from CSprings come up to BIC, and they would be forced up turns riding hard - when I hit CSprings first few times, I was forced DOWN and really nervous about that. On the short track, it becomes such muscle memory to pre-lean, and you lean WAY over on turns. I've only been to CSprings once this spring and I feel all twisted up trying to convince my body to ride slow on turns.

I think before racing at CSprings, I went down there for 3 open sessions and just spent about 2 - 2.5 hours of solid riding each session just getting a feel for the banking. MarkWmTyson was there coaching a buddy of mine - I went to complain I couldn't "stick" - and his advice was to just ride it like a bike. That's why I'm not being facetious / cutesy / etc when I say that after BIC, riding at CSprings feels like a road race.

In terms of skill transfer and such - if you're working on a particular skill (like the max speed and power - as mentioned), it isn't the best place. A flying 200 on a 142 would be dramatically different from a 333, obviously, as is a kilo.

I run a 76-80 up there (48x16 or 48x17) and typically 90 (50x15) at CSprings - and obviously guys go up way past that, but I'm not so strong and can't get it moving on a chariot, for example. Using the 50x15 @ BIC feels really heavy and unsafe to me, so it was a summer-only when the track is empty sort of proposition. You just can't scrub the momentum in such tight confines on the turns.


The turns on a short track are awesome for Madison exchanges if you can hit them just right. You can get leaned over even farther as you ready to throw your partner, and use the turn for extra momentum. There are a lot of fun races that are really sweet on the shorter stuff. Team Scratch were especially fun.

I hope we can save this - but I'll mostly miss the opportunity to work out there - summer or winter. It is tougher on the body, but way more fun than rollers in the basement, that's for sure.

David Broon 

I'm the opposite to you. Your evil twin. The yin to your yang. My home track is a 333, and every so often I go over to a 200.

carleton

Thanks, joshpants. I've felt a similar feeling before going from DLV to the Superdrome. The muscle memory was off. The radius of the turns are similar, but the transitions are different. High speed efforts at the Superdrome would push me to the apron coming out of turn 4 if I didn't pay attention.

I think we all deal with that going from track to track. But, going from 142-333M is really extreme. Could be worse. The longer track could be Marymoor (400M) where Team Sprint is an endurance event, hahaha.

MarkWmTyson

Because the Boulder Indoor track had it's design "fixed" when it was built, it is a track that you truly have to drive the bike down in the turns...i.e. counter steer the hell out of it. The Springs is a pretty benign track to ride with the exception of a couple of inconveniently placed bumps! It also will dump you out of turn four just a bit. Anyone having questions about the track prior to masters natz, please post...was trying to figure out just how many thousands of laps I've done on it on a motorbike yesterday...

miwoodar

Boulder...2 hours of driving round trip.
COS...2 hours of driving round trip.

Neither of these are (were?) practical for me. I really, really, really want to try track but it's tough to deal with a 2 hour driving tax on the day. It takes me only 20 minutes to ride my bike to the base of Deer Creek...investing 2 hours up DC opens up a ton of great routes. Bring a track to somewhere near Denver proper and I will be there.

carleton

Dude, I drove 3.5 hours EACH WAY from VA to TTown last season. Don't complain about driving 1 hour each way. Seriously.

miwoodar

7 hours? Yikes. That is crazy.

2 hours round trip...let's say I get the opportunity to do that 6x/year, maybe 8. I'm starting from scratch...total noob. What is that worth? At the end of the year I'm no smarter/stronger than I was at the start. I will get more bang for my investment by attending more pickup rides instead. Or more climbing.

carleton

I drove to TTown 2-3 times every month of the season last year.

At DLV in Atlanta, I was talking to a new racer from Tennessee who drives down whenever she can to race.

With that attitude, you won't be. If you want to do it, you'll make it happen. Nobody's begging you to race

To put things into perspective, a 1 hour commute to work is normal in Atlanta and other major cities. That's 5x a week, 1 hour each way. So, 1 hour every week to do something fun really isn't much. Heck, it takes me 45 minutes to Drive to 6 Flags, another 20 minutes to park in the HUGE parking lot and walk to the gate, 30 more minutes to get through the line to buy tickets, 10-30 minutes in line for each ride ... see my point?

carleton

Man, I know guys who plan flights to other countries 2-3 times a year to ride on a velodrome. And you are complaining about a 1 hour drive.

miwoodar

I'm not alone. Lots of people I ride with feel similar. Perhaps the Boulder track would still be open if it were more centrally located on the front range. Just saying.

I've averaged ~15 hours/week so far this year. This isn't a dedication thing. It's me making sure I get the most of the time that I invest.

Dalai

I guess it depends on how much of a priority racing on the track is? Fitness will unfortunately only get you so far. Some race skills and tactics can only be learned by racing on the boards...

I agree it is nice to be able to head out the door and be training straight away, but regular track time really helps!

mcafiero

I make the commute to the Colorado Springs velodrome from Denver all the time. I have the busiest work schedule that I look forward to the down time. I turn up some music and enjoy the drive and it's a nice, scenic drive, too. Hit me up if you ever want to carpool. Although often I bring my '72 Bronco, 302 V8, bikini top, so you would have to appreciate the noise, wind, and smelling like fumes afterwards.

David Broon 

Sounds like I'm the lucky one. It's a ~30 minute ride from downtown to the 333, and about two hours drive and a ferry to an indoor.

joshpants

I'm not convinced. If you look at the fields for ACA (or BRAC or whatever it is now) road and cyclocross events, in my observation only, participation is directly proportional to proximity to Boulder. The farther from Boulder, the smaller the field, in general, with a few exceptions.

I've heard your thought a lot this week, but of the serious core group of users who'd be in there all summer long, I was in the minority not living in Boulder, and they'd act like Golden was a trip across the Ocean. (For the non-Colorado folks, it was 20 minutes from my house).

x2 - did it all last summer.
I'm blessed to have a job / boss who doesn't care if I float out of town a little early on race nights and I look forward to it all week. 90 minutes down, less than that on the way back.

I've done that more times than I can count, but I probably rode Deer Creek once in the past 2 years. It all depends on what you want to do and what is fun for you. DC seems like a huge PITA to me given the location of so many nearer climbs that are the same idea.

When Erie opens, I'll do that too. I'm assuming that will be ~30 minutes by car.

joshpants

Incidentally, here's a nice article on Erie:

https://m.dailycamera.com/camera/db_3...tguid=J7cKIOs2

carleton

This sounds like people from "Inside the Perimeter" of Atlanta who loathe the thought of going OTP (outside of the perimeter). The same goes for people who live inside the beltway of Washington DC. I could get to Virginia faster than they could get to the other side of DC, yet to them Virginia was on the moon. SF, too. To people in SF, Oakland was another planet...2 miles away.

As I told two very talented friends who were not motivated to train or race: "I'm not going to beg you to ride your bike. Either you want to or you don't. The rest are just details."

joshpants

Yep, totally. There are certainly some barriers that are potentially higher for track such as location (for some) and finding a bike to borrow, etc, which I get. Another thought I heard echo'd this week a few times was how crazy the banking looked from the ground. After -sincerely- thousands of miles and 10s of thousands of laps there, that was still true for me on my last night at BIC.

That said, Denver is 30 minutes away, they had a whole fleet of free rentals, and a weekly "try the track" class for $30 where they set you up, taught it well, got plenty of riding, and by the end found yourself comfortable above stayer's line. The first thing they told us was - trust me, it looks completely different from behind the handlebars, which it does.

I don't know - the barriers in Colorado seem minimal. Maybe higher now that this is gone - but I agree completely - you can lead a horse to water, if you're strong you can even shove his face in the water....but you can't make him drink.