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The Club Track
I am going to teach you how to build a top quality indoor wooden
velodrome for next to nothing while destroying a number of myths
about bicycle tracks and sports management.
Myth 1: Board tracks are extremely
expensive.
This is false and is caused by the fact that all board tracks are
built in very expensive buildings. At some point in time, we
developed the stupid idea of getting our idiot politicians to build
our tracks for us instead of using our clubs to build our club
tracks.
The politicians always hire architects who get a percentage of the
cost of the project so they naturally will find the most expensive
way to build the facility. These architects always insist on putting
200 to 250 meter board tracks in 10 to 12 million dollar buildings
to increase the architects’ income. This greatly decreases the
potential for those tracks being built and decreases the number of
tracks which will get built.
It also has caused another problem which is that most people believe
that board tracks are very expensive to build. People tend to
believe that the track is a large portion of the cost when it is
actually only about 5% of the cost.
For example, the indoor velodrome facility built in Aigle,
Switzerland cost 11 million dollars US but the 200 meter board
track, fully homologated or UCI certified, only cost 400 thousand
dollars, which includes the track, electronic timing, photo finish, lighting
(both training and competitive), announcer’s sound system,
computerized score board, access tunnel, and UCI certification. The
remaining 10.6 million dollars was the land, building, and
architect’s fees.
If you use steel I-beam construction for the building, you can
build, fully constructed, a 300’ x 200’ steel free span building,
including the stem walls, which will be large enough for a 200 meter
board track, 3,000 seating, and support facilities for about 400 to
500 thousand dollars which is a huge savings over 10 million
dollars. This normally also includes doors, windows, skylights,
lighting, insulation, and other such items but will not include the land, a concrete floor, and the
support facilities such as grandstands, rest rooms, concessions,
offices, and such, though you may be able to get a few of the latter
tossed in to the deal.
But for about 800 to 900 thousand dollars plus the land you will
have a fully homologated, world class indoor board track on which
you can train and race 24/7, year round with no worries about
weather or an all weather track.
BUT, if your club members show up and do the construction, this same
building and track will only cost about 500 thousand dollars plus
the land. This is because the construction is about half the cost of
the entire facility. Oh, the building won’t be as pretty as the 10
million dollar building but it will be nice looking and you will have a world class indoor board
track to promote track racing on for almost nothing. Which is more
important, the track or the building?
Also, for an additional 40 to 50 thousand dollars (including
construction), when you purchase the main building, you can build a
300’ L x 40’ W x 10’ H add-on along the outside of one 300’ wall for
the main building you can use to build support facilities in, such as
showers, lockers, offices, storage, exercise/weight room, class
rooms, athletic training facility, and others as you get the money.
You can have the athlete, staff, officials, and tunnel entrances in
this add-on building with the spectator entrance at another location
in the main building near
the concessions and grand stands.
If you are really smart, in one end of that add-on, you build a
small apartment complex for a few (maybe half a dozen) aspiring bike
racers or college students who race bikes to live in so they will
keep watch on the facility and be there as track monitors so people
can train on the track any time from about 6 am to 10 pm, Monday
through Friday. These track monitors can do their home work in the
announcer’s booth on top of the grand stands while monitoring the
track. Their rent will be managing the facility plus they will get
free use of the facility and maybe even a little pay.
Most likely, for very little, if any extra cost, you can have sky
lights built into the roof of the main building to save you on
lighting expenses for training during the day.
For the grandstands, you just need some 2x12’s, 2x6’s, stainless
steel screws & bolts (no nails because they work loose and rust too
easy and destroy the wood), tools, and club elbow grease plus, if
you build your rest rooms as part of the grandstands (under the
stands), you will save money on materials and construction and have
the rest rooms conveniently close to the fans, right under them. A
little more lumber, some wiring, and a few kitchen appliances and
you can build a concession stand along a wall or two to increase
track revenues with food sales. A little more lumber and you can
build a merchandising stand along one or two walls to sell track
merchandise such as T-shirts and cycling caps to increase your track
revenues even more.
A hint here is to not subcontract your concessions because they will
be from 1.5 to 2.5 times your gate receipts and your second largest
single income for the track. Get club members and their families to
volunteer for the concessions to keep that money for the velodrome
development and maintenance.
For athlete registration and spectator gate entrance, you use a few
folding tables and folding chairs next to the entrances with pencils
and paper.
Some gravel, a rented or loaned tractor, and some light poles will
give you a decent parking lot without a lot of mud when it rains and
you can pave the parking lot when you get the money. You should only
need about 5 to 10 acres of land for the entire facility.
Now, I have shown you how to build a really great indoor board track
for only about 500 to 600 thousand dollars and some club elbow
grease plus the land with
growth potential which you can use to promote track racing and for
great indoor winter training for everyone including roadies.
How do you pay for it?
First, since it doesn’t cost that much, it
will be much easier to pay for. Second, you use some good marketing
imagination like naming the track after a major sponsor such as “The
Brand X Velodrome” (at this price, that may pay for everything). You
can have some fund raising events like bicycling lunches and sales
like T-shirts and cycling caps. For continued funding, you will have
the gate receipts, concessions, membership fees for riders training
on the track or using other facilities, event sponsorships and
possibly other things like radio and TV rights for special events.
Use your imagination. Most US clubs should be able to build an
indoor board track like I just showed you, especially if two or more
clubs work together. Start with one club track and build more as the sport
grows.
You don’t have to have a 10 to 12 million dollar building to have
a great track.
Myth 2: 200 and 250 meter tracks
are too short for club tracks, especially kids.
The truth is that the most commonly built club tracks in Europe
are 200 meter indoor board tracks. They are so successfully using
these 200 meter tracks to train up kids that Europe dominates global
track racing. They have learned that, if you train kids up on 200
meter tracks, they can race on anything but, if you train the same
kids up on larger tracks such as 333.3 meter tracks or larger, they
can’t effectively race on the smaller 250 meter tracks commonly used
for Olympics and World Championships, which require much better
handling skills than the larger tracks.
Myth 3: Outdoor concrete tracks
are less expensive and last longer.
An outdoor 250 meter concrete track will normally cost from about
4 to 6 million dollars including the land because it isn’t easy to
pour wet concrete and keep it in place on a 45 degree banking. It
kind of tends to run downhill for some reason. You will only be able
to train and race on this outdoor facility when you have good
weather because even dew condensing on the track as it cools in the
evening or during the fall and winter makes it unrideable and dangerous.
Also, an outdoor concrete track lasts about 50 years before it needs
to be rebuilt for millions of dollars and an indoor board track,
that is properly taken care of, lasts about 50 years and will only
cost a few hundred thousand dollars to rebuild. Suggestion, pay
less, get more with wood inside.
An important note here is to be sure you are getting a lumber
track and not plywood because plywood doesn't last as long and
doesn't resurface as well. Pay the little extra to get the
better track.
Myth 4: The championship events
and omniums are the best races for track racing.
When bicycle racing was the most popular sport in the US, the
activity which drew the largest crowds was a form of pack racing
called Six Day Racing, not omniums or championship events. If you
sit in the stands at any velodrome and watch the fans, the new fans
will lose interest in all but the pack races, start talking, go to
the rest room, and buy concessions. When this happens, you lose
those new fans because they probably won’t come back.
The truth is that the different forms of pack racing are the best
“bread-and-butter” events which will draw and keep the largest
crowds to track racing. They need to be the main stay of your track
racing program.
Only the old, die hard track cycling fans will enjoy the other
events enough to keep coming back for them, except at the
championships themselves. Those trackies are crazy just like us roadies, what
can I say?
You also have to understand that you need to keep your "bread and
butter" program to between 2 and 2.5 hours and must keep the program
moving with as little time between events as possible. New
spectators kept staring at an empty track for 10+ minutes at a time
won't be back.
This means that one of the most important people for your "bread
and butter" races or, actually, any races is your staging director
who is responsible for keeping riders staged in time for the next
event and onto the track as quickly as possible. Riders who
just finished their event must get off as quickly as possible.
A very important rule is no empty track and no long times between
events. A good staging director will keep things really moving
and interesting.
Suggested Basic Track Program
Saturday
8 am- 12 pm Olympic Development Program with sprint
events on odd weekends of the month (1st & 3rd) and
endurance events on even weekends of the month (2nd & 4th). Spectators $.50
entrance, kids free (you get the kids’ money with concessions, they
will want breakfast and lunch)
1 pm- 6 pm Family, college, military, police, and other
pack racing. Spectators $1.00 entrance, kids free (more concessions,
dinner)
8 pm- 10 pm Bread-&-Butter racing with pack racing for
the faster men’s & women’s groups such as points, scratch, M&O, and
Madison racing to draw crowds and pay the rent. Spectators $3 to $4,
kids $.50 (lots more concessions, really good fun stuff plus late
dinner)
Sunday
10 am- 6 pm Classes and Clinics, especially
beginners
Monday
6 am-10 pm Open training, evening structured
training of one hour
Tuesday
6 am-10 pm Open training, clinics 1 to 2 hrs
Wednesday
6 am-10 pm Open training, evening structured
training of one hour
Thursday
6 am-10 pm Open training, clinics 1 to 2 hrs
Friday
6 am-10 pm Open training, evening high school pack
racing 2 hrs
Note:
You can have a very effective youth program from about 2 pm to 5
pm Monday through Friday when the kids get out of school and before
most adults get home from work. This program should focus on high
school and junior high school with intensity on Monday and Wednesday
because of the high school racing on Friday night and short, easy
riding and classes and clinics, especially for beginners on Tuesday,
Thursday, and Friday. Your tack monitors living at the track,
can run this program for a little extra money.
Note:
Don’t let the clubs lease track time for private “secret”
training, especially during the evenings, because that will limit
the track to a maximum of six clubs being able to use the track for
training and will prevent promoting track racing in other local
clubs. I find it absolutely amazing at how many track clubs can’t
figure out why they can’t get riders from other clubs to try track
racing when riders from those clubs can’t get any training time on
the track because all the available time is taken up by a few clubs
leasing the track for private “secret” training. You will find that
riders who can’t train on the track, won’t race on the track. That
is why you need a structured open training program. Anything else
will greatly limit the potential growth for track racing in your
area.
It is also important to understand that, as track racing grows and
more clubs get trackies as members, more clubs will build these very
good but much less expensive indoor board tracks helping to support
the growth of track racing. Therefore, it is important to not freeze
out other clubs by permitting a few clubs to hog all the training
time by leasing the track.
By now, we should have hundreds of tracks around the US but only
have a handful. It should only be common sense the current methods
are not working.
Concessions Myth
There is a myth in sports and entertainment that you can gouge
the spectators on concessions because you have what is called a
“captive audience”. This is the reason why almost all forms of sports and
entertainment gouge on concessions with really high prices. My
research has shown this myth is false and actually causes those
forms of entertainment to lose money because the fans are not truly
captive and do have other options.
First, the fans can usually sneak
in other food and drinks in a variety of ways, trying to stop this
forces you to spend that extra money made by gouging concessions on security. Second, they can also
eat before or after the event causing the facility to lose
concession money (this option is very common among those who do go
to the events, i.e. tailgating which causes huge loses in
concessions). Third, and worst, they can simply not go to the event
costing the facility not only lost concession money but to also lose
gate receipts, sponsorships and decrease growth potential. I found
that a lot of people, especially with children, choose option three,
the worst option for the sport. For long term growth, you need to
get the kids there regularly because they are tomorrow’s customers.
What really kills me is the sports facilities gouging on concessions
to increase their revenues and then spending that extra income
purchasing and giving away things like hats, jackets, and other
things to get people to come to their events because the people
don’t want to come because of the gouging. They are clueless.
Lesson
Don’t gouge on concessions. As a matter of fact, I would make my
prices & quality competitive with local food and merchandising
prices & quality to increase the potential for people coming to the
events. You have to compete with all other forms of entertainment
and food. There is no such thing as a captive audience, it is a myth
promoted by greedy managers who don’t have any common sense because
the people can simply not come.
Summary
Before we started this idiot idea of getting our politicians to
build our tracks for us, we had over 100 velodromes in the US and
bicycle track racing was the most popular sport in the US. If you
want to promote track racing, you have to have affordable tracks for
people to train and race on. Do it the club way, it worked before,
it will work again. Go build some tracks.
Track Builders
I have decided to add a small section with links to some of the
better quality track builders' sites. I am not getting any
kick backs from any of them. If you know of a site for other
track builders, send me a link, I will check the site out and add a
link to their site. Who knows, maybe they will send me a nice
e-mail thanking me for sending business their way. :-)
More important to me is that, maybe, it will help get more good
quality tracks built to better promote the sport. Tell them I
sent you.
SCHUERMANN
ARCHITECTS
http://www.velodromes.com/
This is a German business which builds some of the best board
tracks in the world including a lot of indoor 200 to 250 meter club
tracks. They will build a club track inside your building.
Coach Carl Club Tracks
Let me know if your club builds a club track this way along with
the general information about the facility such as length of the
track, spectator capacity, concessions, showers & locker, athlete
housing, and other support facilities. Letting me know the
location & club name would be a good idea too. :-) When the facility
is finished, e-mail me half a dozen decent size pictures (about 200
to 300 pixels on the sides - not too large) showing your club
constructing the building and the track, riding on the finished
track, and a picture of the outside showing the primary sponsor.
Also send me a link to your track site. I will set up a page
on this site to post that information. It will be nice to know
I helped some clubs.
When I was a kid, they still did house and barn raisings here in
New Mexico. That is where a person would save enough money to
buy the land and building materials, all their friends, family, and
neighbors would come over with the men bringing tools and the women
bringing potluck for lunch and dinner, and they would build a barn
in one day and a house in one or two days pending the size.
That was without using any power tools, it was all done using muscle
power. We are going to call these club track construction
projects "Track Raisings" because they will be based on the
same inexpensive concept, a community working together to build
great quality but inexpensive sports facilities. Let's get
those Club tracks built and some kids on them.
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