Gemz wrote:

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.

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.

(From a former Boulderite)
One thing to recognise is that the Boulder track is a private track - the city doesn't pay in at all for any sort of cycle training tracks - there is a mountain bike park going in as a partnership with the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance, but you wouldn't believe how many years it took to get to this point. The other big difference is that the Boulder track is aimed at the entire Front Range, not just Boulder, and there are about 2 million people living within an hour of the track. Two other factors are weather - some years there are 2 to 3 months that you can't ride road/mountain at all due to snow or ice and lastly Boulder is freaking crawling with sponsored riders who can someone else to pay for their track time as well as rich retirees who have nothing better to do with their cash (except pay for climbing gyms)

Conners wrote:

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

It still is, even after aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllll those years.

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.

Who owns the land all these mtb tracks get built on?

Craig you homo. Go fuck your uncle

Back to the subject and in light of the stories of champs without 'Dromes. Possibly a thing to do for better track performances is to look at racecraft camps or training days at the better Velodromes, (or even the concrete ones).

Train the physiology on the roads or trainers, even sprinting, and work the skills on the tracks. Just like MTBers:)

get all the kids into BMX.

I concur in principle. Although I tried that with my boys, they got bored with the sitting around, and I got peeved at a fair proportion of crazy parents barking at their kids when they didn't win. I'm positive it's not the case in every club, but it's been the case for the one's in my area.

Also the format of multiple races lends itself to these parents pressuring for better performances in following races. We all want our kids to give a good effort, but...

So, I take them to play at the tracks, outside of the racedays.

On the positive side, they found the MTB religion more funner

Hey you all have really good arguments, from all your points of view! But the sad thing about this country's ability to nurture young sports people,trak, bmx or road, it still boils down to the time their parents are prepared to put in to support them, whether it is transport, voluntry work at the track, marshalling on the road, billeting visiting riders etc and of course how deep your pockets are. if it is a hand out for $$$$$$ it needs to put to the development of the young, not fancy tertiary perceived management programmes which suck a shit load of dosh from the actual sport people it is intended for!!!! yes we need the young to enter the sport, but at the same time it has to be at a realistic cost, and enjoyable and fun to keep them interested, once they are hooked then its the comps, the pb's teh nz records, the junior worlds and beyond, $10,000 this year for the junior worlds in italy, then oceanias in adelaide, oh then the age groups in invers in march again $$$$$$$$$$ and so on. If there is any money in the bank next year there will also be the junior worlds again. And just may be a womens elite sprint programme to follow, just may be? So a drome is a drome as long as it is rideable, in New Lynn waitakere there is what is left of a drome (filled in to make a soccer pitch) it is public, is used by the public, it was used by Sam , Ethan, Steph,Hetty all for their starts and flying efforts before they went off to their junior worlds, Saint kents use it for school team time trial training!!! and it is only half the width it was in its hey day. so u do not need a fancy track to train, but yes a fancy one for the main champs, but at the end of the day year in and year out paying to go to invers in those weeee things they call planes, and the amount of damage caused by handlers trying to fit soooo much gear into soooo smalla planes the costs mount!!!!

Oli wrote:

Conners wrote:

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

It still is, even after aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllll those years.

I'm so out of the loop....

sprint supporter wrote:Hey you all have really good arguments, from all your points of view! But the sad thing about this country's ability to nurture young sports people,trak, bmx or road, it still boils down to the time their parents are prepared to put in to support them, whether it is transport, voluntry work at the track, marshalling on the road, billeting visiting riders etc and of course how deep your pockets are. if it is a hand out for $$$$$$ it needs to put to the development of the young, not fancy tertiary perceived management programmes which suck a shit load of dosh from the actual sport people it is intended for!!!! yes we need the young to enter the sport, but at the same time it has to be at a realistic cost, and enjoyable and fun to keep them interested, once they are hooked then its the comps, the pb's teh nz records, the junior worlds and beyond, $10,000 this year for the junior worlds in italy, then oceanias in adelaide, oh then the age groups in invers in march again $$$$$$$$$$ and so on. If there is any money in the bank next year there will also be the junior worlds again. And just may be a womens elite sprint programme to follow, just may be? So a drome is a drome as long as it is rideable, in New Lynn waitakere there is what is left of a drome (filled in to make a soccer pitch) it is public, is used by the public, it was used by Sam , Ethan, Steph,Hetty all for their starts and flying efforts before they went off to their junior worlds, Saint kents use it for school team time trial training!!! and it is only half the width it was in its hey day. so u do not need a fancy track to train, but yes a fancy one for the main champs, but at the end of the day year in and year out paying to go to invers in those weeee things they call planes, and the amount of damage caused by handlers trying to fit soooo much gear into soooo smalla planes the costs mount!!!!

I agree with everything you say here and awesome post

But insert any sport to that equation. It still doesn't change the fact the funding for a velodrome could be better spent in other area's ie hospital's, social welfare ect.

Once upon a time, here in the the great western city of waitakere, there was a young man who was a mayor, who towed his concrete mixer behind his mayoral daimler,to the disgust of the old school elected members of chambers. This young far thinking (in those days labelled a radicle)mayor lost his seat and eventually popped up in Invercargil . Well if this young man had had his wish Waitakere and or anyone else would not be having to look for funding for new zealands second indoor velodrome, cos we would have already had one in wiatakere city, many,many many years before ILT
Now as time has caught up with this wonderful sport in this country, the lack of quality facilities has become apparant. Now a regional club alone can not raise the funds to establish (like invers and (ILT)) a quality velodrome.
As all trackies must admit it is getting a bit tedious and costly to fly to the most southern velodrome in the world every time you need to train,race, qualify etc

But like Invercargil, Waitakere has its licensing trust too, its unitec affiliations, and a host of awesome behind the scenes companys who support Sport Waitakere and its ventures to get, and keep kids in sport and education, for the betterment of society with kids in sport they tend to stay out of trouble:-)
Like the ILT, there are many many uses for a velodrome, from post orthopedic recovery (hip replacement theropy on adult trikes, to aged fitness progammes on trikes,not just the obvious. With the close proximity of Waitakere Hospital,West Wave, The Douglas track, The Trusts Stadium,and the central hub of henderson not that far away. the preposed and in some areas the completed western loop motorway making access easy from airport, train station,from whangaparoa, te awamutu,hamilton,and south auckland a breeze. And of course 747"s and a380's can land in auckland, Not Invercargil!!!!

And then again almost all of that applies to Hawke's Bay. While we also have much less traffic and many great options for training rides! And our airport is being extended to take jets - not A380s though.

there are many many uses for a velodrome

I think if you actually bothered to read the thread you'll find that isn't the case.

Anywhere but Palmy. That place needs to be left alone to die a quick, quiet and natural death. Putting good shit there just prolongs the agony.

Whats the cost of a velodrome anyway (including the cost of the land its on)? And assuming there is a finite amount of money available in NZ for cycling development (including creating cycle lanes etc) where should the funding be cut to pay for it?

as an aside whether its a benefit or not I'd be getting used to sport funding getting cut year on year here on in, the country can't afford it any more - we're borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars a week....

The beauty of road cycling and to a large extent MTB is it takes place on land who's costs are fully recovered elsewhere, MTB especially as an activity is pretty much marginally costed.