istepinyards wrote:Megan Dunn from Australia just won 2 gold medals in the Commonwealth Games coming from a country town with a 444m flat track that goes around a rugby/cricket pitch. The closest veledrome is in Sydney around 450kms away

Dude, Sophie Monk drove for 9 hours to make it to the auditions for Popstars. And now she's like, Australias most popular person, ever. Beat that.

hmm but most elite trackies (endurance) spend most of the time on the road anyway and go to track camps
Sprinters are a bit different and need track craft and best on the types of tracks that elites will race on. having looked at the boulder indoor tracks website, thats a power of timber in that also so not exactly cheap either. Also would a 145m track be that useful?

johnL wrote:having looked at the boulder indoor tracks website, thats a power of timber in that also so not exactly cheap either. Also would a 145m track be that useful?

The Boulder "Velodrome in Warehouse" is better than nothing. It shows innovative thinking. And as Kiwi's we pride ourselves what can be done with limited resources.

The South Island might have lots of tracks, but in the North Island many provinces don't have anything such as Taranaki, Hawkes Bay, Warirapa, and Whangerei.

50 years ago or so Councils were able to put simple concrete tracks in small towns everywhere. For example, in the Manawatu, we have them at Foxton, Shannon and Marton (but no longer rideable) ... so why has it got too costly and too hard?

And these would be public facilities that could be used by everyone from the average person who wants to cycle just for fitness through to racing.

in rotorua we have a hardly used 333 concrete track that cost around $250k to build. It is certainly not a case of if you build it they will come. Taupos track gets more use than ours (They have lights as well)

Gemz wrote:50 years ago or so Councils were able to put simple concrete tracks in small towns everywhere. For example, in the Manawatu, we have them at Foxton, Shannon and Marton (but no longer rideable) ... so why has it got too costly and too hard?

And these would be public facilities that could be used by everyone from the average person who wants to cycle just for fitness through to racing.

- Higher costs of resources, compliance costs, etc.
- Fifty years ago you had town councils rather than regionals.
- Everyone seems to want an olympic-quality velodrome rather than making do.
- Competing interests vying for green space.
- Less people with the time and interest willing to take on the responsibility of running it (yup, you can't just plonk one down and walk away, you have to have community buy-in.)

I could keep going.

I'd also be surprised to see anyone riding round and round a new velodrome just for fitness, though I'd be happy to be proved wrong.

it's something for the communities themselves to fund, not SPARC.

LOL yes i can imagine the fun of riding a veldrome for 1hr for fitness.

lets face it, a velodrome is about racing, need to be realistic as to where they can really get suitable attendance (and run). vs BMZ tracks which are run really well and attract families etc etc.. and the other disciplines (ie. track, mtb and road) benefit from those BMX tracks attracting kids during their formative years.

Joel wrote:LOL yes i can imagine the fun of riding a veldrome for 1hr for fitness.

Well maybe we need some off those Crit Tracks in NZ that are 1-3km around like they have in Aussie, like the one they have by the Dunc Gray Velodrome.

Gemz wrote:Well maybe we need some off those Crit Tracks in NZ that are 1-3km around like they have in Aussie, like the one they have by the Dunc Gray Velodrome.

Dual-use Nascar tracks

You may think that sounds silly, but I investigated using a car track down here for a 24 hour teams bike race...

Gemz wrote:

Joel wrote:LOL yes i can imagine the fun of riding a veldrome for 1hr for fitness.

Well maybe we need some off those Crit Tracks in NZ that are 1-3km around like they have in Aussie, like the one they have by the Dunc Gray Velodrome.

That is so under used that it looks like the government's concerned will no longer fund its upkeep?

For what it is worth Dunk Grey hasn't made money since it was built for the Olympics. It almost went bankrupt twice in the proceeding years.
Yep awesome idea funding a sport like this from a tax payers perspective.

You can hold a perfectly good crit on the road.

MTBers make their own tracks, usually without any gubbiment funding and with volunteer labour. Three cheers for people that build their own tracks rather than talking about how somebody else should build one for them.

local rowing club does an equipment supplied, coached, commercial (ie you pay) business house training and race programme to fund raise. track clubs could consider this as fund raiser/profile raiser >> more users >> more use >>better economics>>better facilities

Scotty wrote:You may think that sounds silly, but I investigated using a car track down here for a 24 hour teams bike race...

Back when I was at school the secondary school road nats was run at Manfield

j2hyde wrote:You can hold a perfectly good crit on the road.

MTBers make their own tracks, usually without any gubbiment funding and with volunteer labour. Three cheers for people that build their own tracks rather than talking about how somebody else should build one for them.

some mtb clubs get grants to pay people to make tracks!!
and the taupo club races on the car track over summer

Scotty wrote:

its that guy wrote:

Scotty wrote:oh, and Haitaitai velodrome is fine. Sure, it's not perfect but it's more than enough for someone to get a taste of it.

But then what?
Move to Whanganui if you want to become national champ?

How badly do you want it?

Hate to break it to you champ, but if you want to make it you will probably have to go a hell of a lot further out than Whanganui.

Obviously... Around Christmas I'm going there nearly every weekend from wellington, for a Velodrome that isn't even covered. I reckon they should go ahead with the one in palmy.