Reflections on Jens Voigt's Hour Record

Who Can Save the Hour?

A bike rider, a pole lane and a watch.  

Those parts never change.

Yesterday, in the final chapter of a storied career that has been defined by daring raids, Jens Voigt claimed what may just be his greatest coup: the Hour Record.

He certainly had some outside help, as the UCI’s bizarre muddying of their own waters meant that to join the Hour’s Hall of Heroes he had to beat not one of cycling’s greats but rather a shady Czech who hadn’t had aero bars.

While Voigt’s record is certainly a worthy capstone to his career, you do get the impression that even Voigt knows he has snuck his way onto the record book.  Fitting, as so many of his great victories were accomplished in hail-mary moves that few believed would succeed.

But the Hour Record used to be something more, something better.  For most of the men who have held the hour have been the sports greats. Titans who rode the hour to confirm their place amongst cycling’s Pantheon. Coppi held the Hour.  Anquetil held the Hour.  Merckx defined what it meant to ride the Hour. Public demand pretty much forced Indurain to ride it in the 90’s- his legacy was not complete without it.  It is no accident that of the five time tour winners, three have held the Hour (if I ever meet Hinault I will ask him why he has not)

How I imagine the response

If the Hour Record seems close to my heart it is because the period when I was first getting into cycling in the mid-nineties saw the Hour under assault on an epic scale.  At an age when sporting heroes and deeds have greater shine and luster Boardman captivated me in particular, but equally astounding was the wild-card nature of Obree who dared to assault Cycling’s Mount Olympus not once but twice. 

Such was the furor raised by these two Brits (perhaps forbearers of what was to come for British Cycling) that two of the biggest names in the sport at the time were eventually lured in to restore order: five time tour winner Miguel Indurain and Tony Rominger.  Rominger was perhaps the best modern rider to never win the tour and he in particular assaulted the hour with meticulous detail.  Such was Rominger’s confidence that he became the first rider since Moser to attack his own record: establishing the bar dizzyling high at 55.29 km in 1994.

At the time most of us believed that the fireworks were over, that surely Rominger had put the record out of reach for years to come and that order had been restored to the Hour.

But less than two years later, Chris Boardman, at probably the height of his physical powers smashed that record, riding the improbably distance of 56.37 km.  In doing so he averaged 4:15 pursuit pace for 60 minutes.  Each of those 4km splits would have been good enough to qualify for the World Championships gold medal pursuit final that year- more than 14 times in a row.

This was clearly the biggest concern of the UCI in '96

To say the UCI panicked would probably be accurate.  They banned the superman position, and they banned Boardman’s Lotus designed frame.  But they made a false assumption- that the machine made the man.  In doing so they felt they needed to move the goalposts so that the record would ever again be attainable.

So they pulled their woolen berets over their eyes, pretended it had all never happened and reset the clock to the great Eddy Mercx (ironically whose attempt at altitude had been the culmination of the science of the day). 

And in doing so they ruined the Hour.  It lost its prestige, its very defining characteristic as the leading edge of the sports progression of man and machine.

Sweet fixie man

The Hour had always been a magical mix of applied science and preparation and sheer simple brutality.  As Obree put it “There is you, a black line, a watch, and nothing else.  Succeed and you are a legend, fail and it will haunt you for years.”

Riders like Moser had pushed the ragged edge of the sports boundaries (in more ways that one as him and Dr. Conconi saw it as the ultimate application of science, medicine and technology).  No longer was this the case, and the lack of interest in the record for 15 years has shown.

The great Chris Boardman was wheeled out to again set the record, and valiantly pushed the mark a teensy smidge past Mercx’s old mark.  But this wasn’t just Boardman without the bike, this was a Boardman in the shadow of his own career- neither man nor machine were what they had been in 1996.

Hopefully Voigt’s ride will inspire a new generation to again try and push the sporting limits of the hour- and in doing so push man’s own limit.  But it is hard for me to be inspired by Voigt’s ride when he failed to even beat the 30 year old mark of Moser- set outdoors, on a concrete track and without aero bars.

Conconi aside this can't have been a faster set up

But at least under the new rules the door is open.  56.37km is there for the taking for he who would dare.  Boardman’s pursuit record of 4:11, set on the same bike and the same track as his Hour eventually fell.  And so two will his Hour.  Man and machine will continue to march forwards despite the best efforts of the UCI.

I just hope a rider emerges to push the new “unified” record past the historical marks and return to Hour to its former glory from the sham it has become.

 I'm partisan who I think it should be

Caveat: there is a women’s Hour as well, currently held by Van Moorsel that is also now ripe for the taking under the Unified Rules.

Caveat 2: it’s been pointed out there is also an unlimited funny bike Hour Record- but I would contend that not being set by the sports stars (unless their is a huge underground recumbent racing scene I am ignorant of) makes it void of the Hours romance and prestige.

Ottawa Cycling Celebration Fundraiser!

Please join us on January 25th at St. Anthony’s Hall for a Dinner and Silent Auction in support of the Stevens Racing Program and the Ottawa Velodrome Project.   Proceeds from the evening will go towards helping the Stevens women and U25 men attend BC Super Week and the UCI sanctioned Delta road Races, as well as the long-term funding of an indoor velodrome in the National Capital.

You can't win without a little community support

One of the evening’s center-points will be a silent auction featuring items donated by some of Canada’s top cyclists.  The racers have reached out to support up and coming riders through this initiative. Unique items include a signed World Champions jersey from Catharine Pendrel and an Olympic skinsuit worn in the time trial at the London Olympics by Denise Ramsden.  Not all items are cycling kit however- for example, massage treatments from Re:Form Body Clinic are some of the other items up for grabs.

There will also be a “Domestique For A Day” sale in which dinner- goers can bid on a ride with their favorite Stevens rider.  The winners will have a team rider at their disposal to do the ride of their choice with.  This past summer’s Champlain’s Folly Ride was exceptionally hot- what better way to beat the heat than having a Steven Rider carry all of your extra bottles!

 

Guns for Hire

Stevens presented by The Cyclery aims to be a stepping stone for future cycling talent that helps fill the gap between junior and international racing.  Without organizations like Stevens Racing, young Canadian cyclists have limited opportunities to develop their talents, learn how to be an elite athlete, and develop the skills they need to turn professional.

And Stevens Racing is succeeding: Over the last two seasons the team as graduated a rider into the professional ranks, placed others onto the national team and earned Canada Games and Canadian Championships medals.

 

Tickets are $75 per person or $400 for a table of six.

 

We look forwards to seeing you for an evening of cycling celebration!

 

Please contact Chris Reid at chrisreid13@hotmail.com for tickets and more information.

For more information on the Ottawa Velodrome Project see: http://ottawavelodrome.wordpress.com

In a word: Credible.

In a book on the rise of British Cycling, I came across a phrase that has stuck with me over the past few months.  Describing the decision to focus on the track events Peter Keen, the originator of the modern British Cycling high performance plan, said they chose to aim their efforts at the velodrome because he felt that the winning efforts in these disciplines were “credible.”  At the time at least, the capacities needed to win on the road were outside of what he considered the boundaries of credible performances.

Despite the moody lighting, he's a pretty credible guy.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the question of credibility is one that we can apply to a lot of the challenges that face cycling’s growth in this country.  It’s not a grandiose word, it is not “excellent” or “greatness” but it may be the word we need in order to move towards those concepts.

When I look at where cycling in Canada is at the moment I can’t help but think we might be in the same place Great Britain was 20 years ago.  We have had some notable successes, but you cannot help but feel that we haven’t yet realized cycling’s full potential in this country.  And while I don’t believe that cycling will ever be mainstream in Canada I do believe that we can move further towards excellence in it.  Take rowing for example.  It is not a mainstream sport in this country and yet Canada has a history of excellence in it.  We also have a history of excellence in cycling- but we have not to date been able systematize it.  There is no doubt we have had excellent athletes- but have they had an excellent structure?

That is what I want to talk about in this blog post, not the athletes themselves, but the larger landscape that they operate in – from clubs, to trade teams, to events. Essentially everything that makes up the tapestry of this sport in Canada would fit under this umbrella.

Good things are in development for bike racing in Canada- this fall will see the opening of our first World Cup standard velodrome in Canada (at least since the UCI moved the goalposts on the track in Victoria).  We have a rapidly expanding track program. We have some fantastic new UCI events for the men- including the fantastically organised Tour of Alberta. Delta has taken a great step in adding a UCI Women’s event for the coming season.

But recognize as well - we stand at a crossroads at the moment.  We could just as easily remain stagnant or erode.  We are posed to either break new ground, or keep doing exactly what we have been doing for the two decades I have been involved with the sport.

Milton could be a game changer for cycling in Canada- if we make it one.

We don’t currently have a UCI professional team for either men or women.  We have had, by my count 8* doping infractions or scandals in the last three seasons. Eight.

While the number of UCI events in Canada for men has expanded, the women’s side has contracted from ten days of racing to three – and with it we lost the single best development tool we had for women in this country.  Last year an event was introduced at Road Nationals solely for men and not for women. For no valid reason as the sprint event is a non-UCI novelty format already.  That action alone erodes our credibility when it comes to our claims to be trying to advance women’s cycling.

 Credible is a simple word that I think can be used as a litmus test for many of the cycling initiatives in this country- and a test that when applied we often come up short on.

If we want to increase youth participation in this country then we need to be as credible as the mainstream sports we are competing with for talent.  When we send co-ed teams of young athletes on trips without female chaperons, or use coaches with dubious track records simply because they are available, we are not credible.  Parents will, and do, recognise this and will steer their children towards other avenues as a result.  Avenues with chaperones, proper insurance and accredited coaches.  If we do not seem as credible as, say swimming, then parents will put their kids in swimming instead.

 If we want to change the perception about doping in cycling then we need to take actual action.  Make no mistake there is an increasing stigma about Canada’s doping culture outside of this country, and that stigma will hurt our riders trying to advance into the professional ranks.  We cannot be lassez-faire about who we associate with. We need actions with weight.  We need educational programs for young riders by which we foster an environment in which clean sport is presented as the only truly viable avenue to success.  We have some fantastic role models for clean sport in this country, let’s try and make the most of them.  Continuing to turn a blind eye is not credible.

 In my mind if we collectively ask ourselves the simple question: “Is this credible?” as we move forwards, and if we answer this question honestly then we can begin to push the boundaries for cycling excellence in this country.  On my part I want to try and make a pledge to apply it to my own actions in the sport: to help run the Stevens-Cyclery program in an honest and ethical manner.  This means not promising our riders more funding or material than we can actually deliver, and to be fair and transparent in our internal selections. I want to be credible in my approach being a Board Member of Cycling Canada.   Neither of these things are my “job” but I want to endeavour to approach them in the most professional manner that I can, because I honestly believe that this is part of how we will achieve cycling excellence in this country.

And I believe that we can be excellent.  We just have to be credible first.

 

*Papillion, Martel, Agreda, Hesjedahl, McGrath, Sheppard, Barry, Cavanagh

Youth Racing at Nationals:

 A Modest Proposal*

*Don’t worry, no one is getting eaten. Also there are actually two proposals.

So the topic of youth racing is one I touched on back around cross nationals when there was a bit of a tizzy about having a cadet or U17 event at nationals (Which were held as recently as 2002).  The proponents argued that these races are needed, that the kids are old enough, that it would motivate them, that Holland does it, ect.  I've been meaning to go off on a half-cocked rant about it ever since, and here it is.

Cyclling skills are transferable.

Sadly Voss level talent, not so much.

While some of these arguments are valid, others are just the product of impatient parents who can’t wait for their little Cav or Vos to bust out and dominate.   Given the geographic realities of Canada versus many other cycling nations the truth is we can’t just try and imitate what other countries do just hope it sort of works out.  The truth is young racers benifit more from having plentiful and affordable grass roots racing available to them than they do having a single one shot deal called Nationals (with no outcome for these age groups I would add- there are no cadet worlds, or national team projects ect).

 If this guy hadn't wasted his youth riding mountain bikes

 he might have won a Grand Tour one day.

Attending any national championships for a U17 is an expensive endeavour for any kids that are not from the host region- so in the past these championships have tended to have very few riders from out of province, and the result is they end up being regional events anyways.  Road and track at least feature multiple days but for MTB and cross Nationals are generally a one shot deal (though some cadets certainly race both DH and XC- Geoff Kabush for example).

One way to change this is to create more value for the racers who attend Nationals by changing the nature of the event. This includes road nationals as there is currently talk of adding U17 events.

Instead of having a shorter, but otherwise carbon copy of the senior events,  instead we could create something different and more development focussed.  I have two largely similar proposals.

1)      Hold Discipline Specific Talent ID Camps after Nationals

MTB and Track lend themselves well to this, simply invite most of, if not all of the cadets (depending on field size) to attend a 3-4 day training camp after the racing is over at the venue that held the event.  This camp could focus on skills and developing proper training habits, as well as give CCA coaches a chance to see the riders coming up the development system from across the country.  Often time there isn't a lot of time in a season to focus on core skills- like team pursuit exchanges or madison fundamentals (or whatever it is mountain bikers do...).  This would be an ideal opportunity for this.

Additionally being on the back end of nationals it should be possible to get some of the top senior riders to stay and mentor the camp- what could be more exiting for young riders than training both with their peers but also with their heroes?

Mentorship matters.
Also I am now apprantly recyling pics.

2)      Cadet All-Stars Camps

My other option, and in many ways my preference, would be to host one or even two “Cadet All-Star Camps.”  These would require some coordination with the provinces, but the idea would be for a week long multi-discipline camp in August.  Riders would qualify via their provincial series (giving them additional goals for the year) and 8 or so riders (4 boys/4girls) would be nominated by their respective provinces.

The camps would ideally be help somewhere like Victoria or Bromont where there is access to mountain biking, good road riding and a velodrome, and over the week riders would be exposed to all three.  At the U17 age group the riders need not be specialised on just one discipline and this type of environment will help expose kids to other avenues of cycling (that might suit some better than what they currently know).

Somewhere right now the next Curt Harnett might be flailing around on a mountain bike

thinking he sucks at climbing.

While the camps could feature mini-races (such as mid-week track or mountain bike races) part of the goal of these camps would be the chance for riders to meet their counterparts from across the country – something that is important if in future years many of these same kids will race on National Teams together in a far more pressure-cooker environment.

In my mind one of the advantages of this camp is the chance to both cost share between the CCA and the provincial federations (as a side benefit this would help integrate these two levels of organisation). While presumably the athletes would still pay much of their own costs- just as they would have to attend nationals- they are now getting far more value for the trip.  Depending on the number of potential athletes and costs, it might be preferable to hold two Camps- an East and a West camp.

Kids won't know how much fun other disciplines are if they don't get the chance to find out!

Such a camp gives coaches more chances to see athletes from across the country at an early stage of development than just a single race. It also gives provincial staff a better idea of how their system compared to otehr provinces. 

The athletes have increased learning opportunities in quality training and racing habits to take with them as they move up the LTAD.  While making a four rider team from Quebec will doubtlessly be harder than making a four rider team from PEI, the riders from PEI also stand to gain the most as they will have had less exposure to high level racing than their Quebec, Ontario or BC peers.

Oh yeah, and it would be a whole lot of fun.

Johnny T knew how to have fun.  And win on the road, xc, dh and bmx bike. 

Oh and he had timeless fashion sense as well.

Why do we devalue our own events?

The Importance of Nationals                       

So this blog idea has been ruminating in my mind for a few years now, but at its crux it’s about the intersection of development, opportunities and our own domestic evens- specifically Nationals.

A few years ago when there was the potential for a Men’s National Pursuit program the powers that be began entering composite national teams in the team pursuit at nationals.  Now the event was never super deep to begin with in Canada, often struggling to put together 4-5 teams, but this move effectively killed the event.  This is too bad because for a lot of racers it was pretty much their only chance to be exposed to team pursuit, and it is doubly true for juniors.  I thought it was an odd choice at the time, and it didn’t exactly sit easy with me, but I also figured at the time I was too close to the subject matter to be effective as I was still quasi-racing.

Flash forwards a year or so and I am reading in a number of mainstream news articles about how Heather Moyse, a very successful Canadian rugby player is going to try and make her third national team.  This was quickly followed by Moyse complaining bitterly to the media about how she wasn’t given a chance to race World Cups.  She did eventually get to go to Pan-Ams where in all fairness to Moyse she rode commendably well given her lack of experience.  She commented; “I had never raced head-to-head with someone else on a track before, something that requires handling skills and strategy.”

More time was spend on photo ops than racing.

Her entitlement grated me, as did the fact Moyse instantly was given opportunities other cyclists (actual cyclists not sliders looking for a novelty to add to their resume) would never be given.  For example Moyse appeared to do all of her track racing on a CCA* Look.  Not a bad starter machine.  Especially given that at the same time Moyse was gripping about not getting to ride World Cups for Canada she was proudly posting video blogs of how she was grappling the challenge of riding rollers.  Logic might dictate that if you don’t have the skill to warm up for the event you maybe shouldn’t do the event…

 But to Moyse it was a tragedy that she wasn’t allowed to represent her country at track cycling’s highest stage, especially after she conquered those whirling steel drums of death. 

Not a bad starter bike. In all fairness I'm sure IO's are tough on the rollers.

It was safe to say that at this point I was not a Moyse fan.  She came across as entitled, self-important and she was speaking ill of a federation that had done her nothing but favours.  Flash forwards to the fall.  Moyse has ridden in the Pan American Championships and Canadian Nationals are in Dieppe.  Moyse is MIA.  I am sure she was focusing on bobsleigh- which is fine, except for the point where she had now wasted CCA resources for nothing.

And this is where we get to the core of my argument.  If you want to do national team projects- ESPECIALLY development projects participation at Nationals should be an absolute given.  Non-negotiable.  Proven World Cup performers are a slightly different ball of yarn but even then their participation (and I am not saying they have to be on peak form) should be heavily encouraged unless there are extenuating circumstances.

In not showing up Moyse not only underlined her lack of commitment to pursuing cycling as anything other than an ego boost.  It meant that the time and probably money that went into her training at LA and competing at Pan-Ams had ZERO multiplier effect.  Had she gone to nationals she would have helped increase the depth of the sprint tournament and keirin – helping to create a deeper event that every other female racer riding sprint events in Canada would have benefited from.  Instead she dinned on international competition and left the CCA to pick up the cheque.

Part of why these young women rip is becasue their skills were honed at the state level

 long before they went to an international competition.

  That and they are super colour coordinated.

And while I have used Moyse as an example I will point out that she is not the only offender in this category- several juniors who competed in the Junior Pan-American Championships failed to attend nationals last year – for no valid reason to the best of my knowledge.  In my mind participation at nationals should be the bare minimum commitment level for juniors that then want to represent their country in international competition.  If a kid goes to Pan-Ams and Worlds and then skips Nationals there is no way they should be considered for the pool the next year. Bottom line, bike racing is a sport that demands commitment and these kids need to show it.

Nationals are one of the few chances that coaches get to see developing athletes in direct competition, and one of very few domestic racing opportunities for development.  As I’ve said before if the miss-and-out is our Country’s collective Achilles heel then we can’t put enough emphasis on the quality racing opportunities these kids get.  We don’t need the Carletons or the Pelletier-Roys to be on top form at nationals, but having them there adds a value to every developing racer at the event.

Collectively as a cycling country we need to be working to ensure that nationals are as deep an event as possible since we have so few opportunities for our track racers to compete in deep and quality events.

British kids fighting for a shot.

In the next week a team will race the women’s Team Pursuit at Pan-Ams.  Of these one is a speedskater who has never competed in a track race let alone at nationals.  It is impossible to say if she is actually quicker than the tier of women who went to nationals last year.  What is clear is that she is being afforded opportunities that are not available to most Canadian track racers.  And in giving her the opportunity the CCA risks eroding what transparency they have build up in the track program over the last few years (though why they continue to refuse to publish trials times in what should be an imperial selection is a mystery to me).

I know nothing about this rider/skater, I’m just hoping that for track in Canada’s sake, she’s not another Heather Moyse.

*CC – how terribly this rebrand has been handled is a topic for a whole other blog post

Reasons for a Grass Track #1

 Or Why Laura Trott is a Great Big Bully

In my last blog entry I promised to talk a bit about an initiative to bring grass track racing to Ottawa.  I’m pretty fired up about it- in part because I had an absolute blast the only time I raced grass track at the Southern Games in Trinidad in 2006, but more importantly for another reason.  I think it can be a valuable tool to help develop international riders with robust skill sets- skills that as a nation we currently lack at the international level.

The Canadian track team has collectively taken huge strides in the last 4 years.  More riders are getting exposure to international track events than at any point since I’ve started racing (Note: You will never find me gripping that a rider was taken to an event that was over their head, because I pulled my hair out for ten years as Canadian talent had to stay home because our federation wouldn’t commit to supporting a program). 

The entire track program has shifted its orientation to LA to be near the only international standard 250m in North America.  Because clearly our riders can’t be competitive unless they are riding on pristine Siberian pine.  Yet for our top Olympic track contenders this past year their limiting factors had nothing to do with speed, or training facilities or exposure to top notch international racing.  Rather what they lacked was the sort of fundamentals that many of their competition were exposed to from a young age.

Olympic Lesson: Our top riders lack the soft-skills of their competition

 I’m going to pick on Zack Bell and Tara Whitten in this blog.  For a couple of reasons, the first is that they are both exceptionally nice, role model athletes.  So the chances of them taking it personally against me and executing revenge filled counter-strikes are pretty slim. I hope.

More importantly to my argument, they are both World-Class, fruit of the genetic-freak-tree physical talents.  Both riders went from novice racers to either Olympians or World Championships medalists WITHIN an Olympic cycle.  Give that a second to sink in.

And while both riders are utter mutants when it comes to the physical metrics of track riding (speed, power endurance ect) the chink in both their armour internationally has been their bike handling.

By bike handling I mean, not just their abilities to manoeuvre their machines but also the larger process in which they read (and more importantly anticipate) the race and make split second tactical decisions.

I’m not suggesting that either Zach or Tara are BAD bike handlers.  Bad bike handlers don’t win World Cups.  They more than hold their own at the top of the result sheet against the best track riders on the planet.  However, having both come into the sport in their twenties, they concede an advantage to their rivals in this area.  At the risk of sounding Brailsfordian you simply cannot afford to concede that sort of marginal difference at the top flight of elite sport.  Both these riders are well aware of this fact, and both have worked exceptionally hard to improve this element of their riding.

Nowhere is this gap so flagrantly highlighted than in the Miss-in-Out, a cycling event that combines all of the worst elements of a bar room brawl and tax evasion.  And it is here that I would introduce two riders with physical talent similar (though perhaps not as exceptional) to Zack and Tara- Laura Trott and Bryan Coquard.

These pint sized racer are arguable the two best miss-and-out riders on the planet at the moment.  Seriously – they are nasty.  Youtube any-miss-and-out that they’ve won over the last two years and argue otherwise.  Heck let me do it for you:

According to a friend of mine, a few years ago at Junior Worlds Coquard was riding the wall at the guardrail on route to winning the points race. 

Trott absolutely muscled her way around in the bunch this summer in London.  She shot gaps that may not have been there and she shoved Kristin Wild around like a playground bully.  Wild is a top flight rider, roughly twice the size of the diminutive Trott.  And Trott owned her like a sub-prime mortgage.

Both Coquard and Trott are fast, quality bike racers that make instinctive decisions and commit to them.

Where the Grass Track Fits In

My hope is that by running fun low key grass track races for Ottawa’s cycling youth is that we can develop the next generation to have these innate skills. Because skills, like most things (excluding organic chem and cleanliness) come easy when learned early.  Skills are much harder to come by as the athletes get older.  If we have a bunch of 13-17 year old kids riding chariots and miss-and-out then hopefully they will develop the soft skills that will help them out years down the road should they both chose to pursue elite cycling and happen to have the physiology to do so (and even if they don’t it should be a whole lot of fun along the way).

We can build fast tracks. We can train with power. We can do all kinds of fancy wind-tunnel testing. 

But in the end it is still bike racing, and we need to make sure we are giving kids coming up through the system to tools to race their bikes, not just be fast on them.

Disclaimer 1: I have no idea if Trott or Coquard raced grass track.  I know Trott started track cycling at a young age as an alternative to swimming.  Two top British riders who did get their start grass track racing are Victoria Pendleton and Craig McLean.

Disclaimer 2: Despite having raced from a young age, and having done a fair bit of track league as a junior some of you are likely aware that I am a fairly shoddy bike handler. I like to think it’s more because I am a Safety Bear than actually a bad bike handler, but that might just be denial.  Meh, we’re not all diamonds in the rough.

Thoughts on an Ottawa Velodrome

The recent announcement of a velodrome initiative in Ottawa has me pretty excited.  And not just because I have a bet on how long it will be before everyone in the city has Stevens Arenas and Mavic Io’s for Friday Night Racing.

I predict this will be a hot look in Ottawa fashion for 2015

A big percentage of the time I’ve spent racing bicycles has been on a track bike.  The first time I raced track was on a borrowed steel bike in 1999.  One of my dad’s students lent me a steel framed track bike (back then they were all steel frames) he’d brought back from Australia and my dad and I drove down to the Win-Del Velodrome – a 250m asphalt track in Delhi Ontario.  Later that summer the Ontario Team took a bunch of us up to Bromont to race on the outdoor 200m track there.  That track had started life indoors as a 160m track in Copps Coliseum in Hamilton, when they moved it to Bromont they just lengthened the straightaways by 20m a side. It would later be moved to Quebec City, where it eventually fell into disrepair.  The jump from what was essentially a paved depression in a field to the steep wood walls of Bromont was slightly nerve-wracking to say the least!

One of the big attractions to moving to Victoria was that they had a then international level 333m outdoor concrete velodrome.  To this day this remains one of my favourite tracks in the world.

Since then I’ve raced and trained on tracks in: Australia (I raced on 6), Trinidad (4), Portland, Calgary, Washington, Bromont (a different one), London ON, Detroit, and Burnaby (which became my home track for a number of years).  I also fluked my way through grad school by writing a thesis that directly related to building large scale sports facilities.

I thought I would jot down some of my initial throughts on things the Ottawa cycling community might want to keep in mind going forwards:

1)      What type of track do you want?

Obviously this is the first and primary question any potential velodrome builders should be asking themselves.  I’ve written before here, and on Pedal, that chasing World Cups is a fruitless and potentially undermining activity (also it is now redundant since there will be a World Class facility in Milton).  So the obvious answer is that Ottawa should build a cost-effective facility to be used by grass roots, provincial and potentially national level competitions, as well as providing a suitable training venue for athletes developing up to the international level (keep in mind that Burnaby proved a suitable training venue for 2 of the 3 Canadian Olympians in LA prior to things being based in LA).  Because of the Ottawa climate the track should also be indoors to maximize its impact and usage.

2)      Length matters.  But don’t forget about width.

Someone will get upset when I say this but: Don’t Build another Forest City.   That track is a fantastic model of a group that came together, championed by the incredibly passionate Rob Good, and built a great training and racing facility on a shoe string budget with vision and passion.  However the basic design of the track leaves a lot of things wanting.

While it is too short to be an ideal racing and training surface it is also too narrow – a variable that is probably as significant. The plethoras of crashes that plague that track are largely the result of a narrow racing surface that gives racers few options to escape tumbles.  Crashing is a reality of racing bikes in general, and racing track in particular, but they seem to happen with far more frequency than is usual at Forest City.  I’ve seen an ambulance called to a track meet maybe a half a dozen times in all the years I’ve raced track- three of these have been on the three occasions I raced at FCV.

Burnaby has considerably better dimensions, both in length and width and in general design.  While shorter than an international standard 250m the design of Burnaby means that it rides exactly the same way- without the awful transitions from too-flat straightaway to banking that defines London. (Alpenrose in Portland has similar issues- however that track is longer negating some of the effects).  Allegedly Burnaby is modeled on the Rotterdam Track- and it is a design worth emulating.

Another key advantage of the extra 60 odd meters is that it allows for more riders to be up on the track at one time.  Any track will need active programming to survive; the ability to have an extra 5 riders in any learn-to-ride or training group can make a big difference to the bottom line over time.

A two-hundred meter track could be the ideal length as it is large enough to host national and provincial level competitions on, small enough to emphasize technique while large enough to provide a proper training surface (read: you can motor pace on it).  If we have the room by all means build a 250m track but a 200m can work just as well.  Any shorter and you being to make serious trade offs.

Look how much fun everyone can have chasing

after a Welshman on a beachcruiser!

3)      Put money aside for stormy weather.  You’ll need it.

Any fundraising for the track should simultaneously be looking to create an operating/incidental fund for after the track is turned on.  Once the lights go on a facility like a track is likely to be running a narrow budget to keep its books balanced.  Such a fund could potentially be a life-saver for such an operation.  It will also be far harder to the board to find time to think strategically and fundraising once the whirling dervish of daily operations begins.

Random shot of me looking glued at the 6 Day in 2008.

Mike Friedman looks nervous.

4)      It needs to be a turn key operation

As I just mentioned, the financial viability of the project will be tested right out of the gate.  As a result the board needs to make sure that programming is lined up from day one as soon at the lights turn on.  This means having a plan to bring riders up to speed through learn-to-ride programs, as well as having a pool of riders that have already been exposed to the track and basics of events.  Thankfully the Ottawa Bicycle Club has done an excellent job in recent years in taking down van loads of kids to ride the track in London (see I told you I thought they were doing an awesome job of something).

5) Grass Track

Building on Point #4- Another great way to introduce more people in Ottawa to track racing in advance of the launch of a proper velodrome is a simple, low tech and (pun-intended) grassroots option.

 Turns out some of the Brits success has to do with lots of kids having fun on track bikes. 

Who'd have thunk.

Building up this user base before we build a track will help make the track viable once it’s built.

Before she was on Strickly Come Dancing she came up grass track racing. 

Oh yeah and won a boatload of World and Olympic Titles in between.

Up Next:

Field of Dreams: Grass Track Racing in the National Capital.