Great to see.

The Mattamy Velodrome in Milton, ON - just west of Toronto, and the site for track cycling at the 2015 PanAm Games, has been a game-changer for cycling in Canada at the micro and macro level.

Michael Foley, a local kid from Milton, walked into the track 3 years ago, and joined in with the Learn-to-Ride program and now he's just been named to the Canadian U23 "Next Generation" Team! He's part of a pool of young endurance cyclists, who from which the team for the 2020 Olympics will come!

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Having moved to the area for work I'm excited. Wondering when public/practice sessions will be.

it's a short track... will be interesting (and hopeful) to see if with it and Milton if there will be enough interest to bring 6 day racing back to this side of the pond.

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

I went to the races over the weekend and it was packed in there. Great atmosphere.

The website is light on details, but the announcer guy said they're open every day starting at 6:30 a.m.

Good for Detriot, but where did they get $4 million?

this just in....$4 million velodrome in Detroit closed... no, that sounds pretty cool!

An anonymous donor put up the money. It was build in a City park so that is where the land came from and I think there were some park funds used for some of the infrastructure but the bulk of the cost was picked up by some nice person who loves cycling.

The first public races were this weekend. It was a packed house!

Anonymous private donor.

it's a short track... will be interesting (and hopeful) to see if with it and Milton if there will be enough interest to bring 6 day racing back to this side of the pond.


I'm optimistic because I'm a fan of cycling and I work indirectly in the business, but I know that in North America, we don't have a culture that respects and appreciates sports like cycling.

We got kind-of close to this (The Euro feel), recently at the Milton Velodrome for the UCI World Cup back in December. For the key, Saturday night session, the building was close to sold-out with about 2000 spectators. That was the first time, that the building had, had over a couple of hundred since the PanAm Games. I've worked at the Track doing the Announcing and/Live Streamed Commentary for the Provincial and the Canadian Championships, which have had FREE entry for spectators and only about 200 people show up.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

They will have a liquor license soon which should help! The bar and taps are already installed. This will be a decent place to go have a beer or two and watch some bike racing even if your plan is just to hang out for an hour or two then go out for dinner downtown. It gives every appearance it will be a pretty fun place for even non cyclists to go watch a race.

The Detroit indoor velodrome appears to have a core group of people involved who are seriously interested in promoting races. There is an outdoor velodrome in the area so there is a decent group of local riders with track racing experience. This weekend they brought in a couple pros and there are enough good local guys to put on a great show of racing (one advantage of a short track is you don't need very many racers to put on an exciting show). I had the impression that much of the crowd had never seen a live bike race of any kind and they seemed really engaged. The local track community already puts on local races almost every Friday evening at the outdoor track in the summer and they appear seriously interested in making the indoor track a racing venue, not just a training venue. They were supposed to have the US Madison championships at the track last fall but construction was delayed.

Who knows... maybe the day will come when we have a Madison in the Garden again ;)

we can hope this is all good things!

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My Blog - http://leegoocrap.blogspot.com

Could it be that Lexus donated some money?

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I tried to get out there but I had to work all weekend :(

Looking forward to trying it out.

Lexis is paying a sponsor fee (I don't know how much) but the funds to build the facility were in hand, and in fact much of the construction was done, long before Lexis was publicly announced as a sponsor.

I don't know the details but it is clear the $4M was not just for construction (this thing cost some money but not that much). There are operating costs too plus other activities going on. They have formed a foundation that is going to run a number of community fitness programs out of the facility. The area outside the track is a running and inline skating track and there is a fitness facility. They have serious plans to run a youth cycling development program. They have even stated publicly they have a goal is getting a local on the the US Olympic team by 2024.

I think quite a few American cities with decent fitness participation levels could now support at least low level track cycling, indoors. The %'s follow as the cities grow in size.

I even think somewhere like where I live, Raleigh, has enough interest these days to support something. It's a lot larger area than I grew up around.

I live in the area, am a part of a local club (Midweek), and I like watching cycling. Perhaps I was oblivious, but this event never entered my radar. You can open the doors to anyone that shows up, but if people don't know about it in the first place...

I think this is true of a lot of races put on / supported by OCA.

Six posts in before making fun of Detroit - must be a record.

I went Saturday and had an absolute blast. Friday was apparently even more packed. Official website is here if you're nearby and want to stay in the loop.

Enjoy my crappy phone pics.

Edit; Oh for god's sake, I am having pic issues. Standby.

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http://mediocremultisport.blogspot.com

Detroit, London, Milton series? Thinking out loud...

Wow, this places looks great. Very effective use of the space. The most fun I've ever had on a bike was racing on the 250m veledrome in Frisco, TX back in the day. It's still there, but as an outdoor track with a wood surface, upkeep has been a pain.

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http://mediocremultisport.blogspot.com

Detroit, London, Milton series? Thinking out loud...


Yes - the "401 Track Cycling Series" !

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

One thing Detroit has going for it is there has been a velodrome of one sort or another in existence since at least the 1960's (maybe a lot longer, I don't know) so there is a core group of people around here who know how to run one, get people trained, put on races, etc and there is also a relatively decent number of people who have ridden on a track, even if they don't race.

Probably the main reason this got built here is it also turns out that there is a local guy who has designed and built something like 20 velodromes around the world including the Olympic track in Atlanta. He build both this indoor track and the current local outdoor track in suburban Detroit. I have no idea how this thing got off the ground but this is one of the few places in the world where it could be just as simple as a rich cyclist hooking up for a couple beers with a local dude and cooking something like this up.

Dale builds most tracks and one this size costs way under $4M to build. Usually it's the land and the operating costs where you need the funding. I'll have to make a trip up to check it out.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

They sold 17 city blocks of real estate and borrowed the other $3.9 million from the bank. 😁

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