Back on track: A shot in the arm for US track cycling

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The top of the banking goes in.(Image credit: Greg Page)

Tales from the velodrome, May 11, 2004

On June 1 of this year, if the final construction you see in these photographs is finished on time, US cycling will get a facility it has needed for years: a covered, indoor track close to a major centre of population. When it's finished the 250m-long track in the ADT Event Center in Dominguez Hills, California will provide a world-class facility for US track cyclists to train and race, within easy reach of the populations of Los Angeles and Orange County.

It's apparent that lack of a covered track has been one of the factors limiting the development of track cycling in the US. Dominance in track cycling and access to velodromes go hand in hand. Of the top track nations, Australia has five indoor tracks with another under construction; Germany has almost a dozen; France has six and Britain has five. Riders from those countries can train indoors during the northern hemisphere winter and come out flying for the World Cup track series, which usually fits into the first few months of the season. It's no wonder that US riders have been behind the eight-ball in the World Cups.

And as any track specialist will tell you, board tracks are different. There'll be about 35 miles of Siberian pine planking in the track at the ADT Center - the same surface as used in tracks such as Manchester and Sydney, which are considered among the fastest in the world. Having a covered board track will not only give US riders somewhere to train year-round, but increase their chances of setting Olympic and World Championships qualifying times.

As well as a venue for top-class international events, the ADT Event Center will provide a focal point for high-level track racing and training. Pat McDonough, USA Cycling's new director of track cycling was frank about the likely direction of the track program will build around the new velodrome. "In a nutshell we are going to steal ideas from programs that have been successful in other countries," he told Cyclingnews. "Of course we'll do that within our limitations. We don't have a National Lottery like the British do and we don't get government funding like the Australians and in terms of funding we are going to have to come up with a solution. Now at least we have the facility."

Bisceglia agrees that, "We need to get heavily involved in program development. We need to get young kids out there on the track, teach them and remove their fears. We want to use the track to create a situation where it will be used for residential athletes, either through the Home Depot Work Program or through the [California State University] in Dominguez Hills or simply for cyclists who decide to relocate to California to use the facilities."

And the quality of the riders that come out of other countries' track programs hasn't been lost on McDonough. "We are going tie our program in with the existing road teams," he said. "There are a number of American trade teams that we want to get involved. The track endurance program in Australia has worked really well as a feeder to European trade teams. We already have a good development program in Belgium for potential road racers, but we want to add to that and open up another way to do it through our track endurance program."

The first step, according to McDonough, is to rally the troops. "The first thing is to get the cycling community together and build up good relationships between the facility, the athletes, the teams and the coaches," he said. "One of the things with track cycling is that it is a very regional and local sport by nature. You can't just pick up a track and move it around. We want to work on that so that track cycling will be more widespread.