International Omnium at Penrose Velodrome!

This will be a BLAST! Details HERE and/or HERE.

Penrose Velodrome Race Nights

More info HERE and HERE. See you at the track!

'Sup Fools, I'm Back!

Just a few pics, out of the blue, of the racing last week at the completely rebuilt and absolutely fantastic Penrose Park Velodrome in St. Louis. It is smooth an fast AF! All Chicago/Kenosha/Midwest trackies need to take a trip down to STL some week to race. Details HERE.

VELOCITY 2011

GET READY BECAUSE IT IS HAPPENING! DETAILS HERE.

Scalextric Velodrome

For the 2012 London Olympics, Scalextric are releasing this track cycling set. Pics and details are at Pocketlint. Thanks for the heads-up, Val!

The Youngest Stayer

Film from 1928 of a young stayer and his pacer. Probably the greatest thing you'll ever see on Hipster Nascar.

Thanks to Jon Raleigh for the the heads up! Seen first over on TRACKO!

Ride Track

So, Prolly and Tracko have already mentioned this, but apparently there's a chance that Brooklyn could get its own velodrome. Like I need another reason to want to move to there. Anyway, in a post about the Brooklyn plans, Tracko posted this vid from British Cycling, which has me excited about track season... and it's only November.

English vs Hoy

A brilliant photo of Irish track racer Felix English beating Chris Hoy in their Matched Sprint at the Euros recently. G'wan de b'oul Felix, wha'?!?

Thanks to BenVC for the heads-up on the photo, which he saw here and which is taken from British Cycling's flickr here.

British Cycling Videos

Men's keirin from Revolution 29 last weekend. Bit of a weird race, this one, as the field looks well beaten by Kenny before Hoy destroys him right at the end...


British track national championship highlight. How fast is that men's team sprint!?!?


Halo British Downhill series, round 5. I would definitely die trying something like this.

Thanks to mindtron for the heads-up. Check out more videos on British Cycling's Vimeo page here.

Revolution 29

Revolution 29 just happened at the Manchester Velodrome, and TrackCycling was there to take a few photos. Great to see track racing happening in front of such a huge crowd. More photos here and report here.

Dutch Quarter Book

Pretty cool cover of a Dutch children's book about track cycling from the 1930s. These were apparently sold for a quarter, which is how they got their name. More images from the book and a lot of classic track cycling photos over at Erik Wiersma's excellent Flickr page.

Chicago Velo Campus

Now this would be amazing. A group of Chicago cyclists and sponsors are in the early stages of planning what would be a world class cycling campus for the Chicago area. The campus would include:

- State-of-the-art indoor 250m velodrome track
- Outdoor and indoor BMX tracks
- Outdoor and indoor mountain bike tracks
- Outdoor cyclocross track
- Triathlon training center
- Wind tunnel facility
- Olympic-size swimming pool
- Running track
- Fitness center
- Coaching and educational facility
- Olympic development program
- Youth, beginner, elite and masters programs
- Community center
- Physical therapy and sports medicine center
- Sports retail
- Cycling museum
- Restaurant and cafe
- Health and juice bar
- Commuter hub

Like I said, the plans are in the early stages, and I'm not sure if they have a site in mind yet, but it would be great to see something like this in the city. An indoor velodrome in particular would be incredible. Their website is here.

Colorado’s Third Velodrome Coming Soon

Colorado will be getting it's third Velodrome soon.

The track in Erie will join Boulder Indoor Cycling, a smaller indoor velodrome that opened less than two years ago in east Boulder, and the 333-meter 7-Eleven United States Olympic Training Center Velodrome in Colorado Springs, which was built in 1982, according to the Daily Camera.

Text from BRAIN.


Hey Colorado, take it easy alright? We get it- you're into bikes... How about letting some other states get a single track before you start working on backup velodromes, ok?

More info here.

American Women Set World Record

The US Women's Pursuit team of Sarah Hammer (pictured), Dotsie Bausch and Lauren Tamayo set a new unofficial world at the Panamerican Championships in Aguascalientes, Mexico recently, with a time of 3:19.569, almost two full seconds faster than the previous team pursuit time. More details over at USACycling.

More Art

I love this painting by Steve Dennis of Velopaint. It's of a British track racer at the UCI Track World Cup event in Melbourne last year, head down and going for it. It really nails the speed and excitement of track racing, in my opinion. Keep up the good work, Steve!

Giovanni Pettenella 1943-2010

Vanni Pettenella was a really important figure in Italian cycling- he won gold and silver medals in the 1964 Olympics and was the last Italian track champion to do so. He held some pretty amazing records too. During the semifinals of the Tokyo
Olympic track sprint against Pierre Trentin, he astounded the crowd with a 21 minute trackstand before finishing his adversary with a blindingly fast sprint. At the 1968 Italian National Track Championships, Vanni set the world trackstand record of one hour and five minutes, a record that stands to this day. Here's a description of the event:

"In Varese on that hot August day in 1968 the commentator covering the
event for Italian national television ran out of people to interview,
and a crowd of curious spectators slowly started flocking to the
velodrome to witness the event. Pettenella's adversary on that occasion
was that same Bianchetto of the Tokyo Olympic sprint final, a rider who
after one hour and three minutes of trackstanding under the fierce
summer sun collapsed to the ground, unconscious. In a drawer of his
office desk Pettenella still has a photograph of the final minutes of
the race. Bianchetto is lying unconscious on the track with Vanni still
trackstanding and waiting for the doctors to validate his victory in the
first sprint."

His passing is a real loss for cycling.

Camilla made a great little memorial video for Vanni. Really interesting stuff. There is some really cool footage of his Olympic win in there too.

VANNI PETTENELLA GOLD AND SILVER MEDAL 1964 TOKYO from camilla candida donzella on Vimeo.

Here are Camilla's words about the video:

SORRY FOR THE BAD SUBTITLES I MADE...
BUT I DID IT JUST IN FEW HOURS...
(and from a shooting i did 5 years ago when i start my documentary about frame builders here in Italy,i thought to never use this but i like people see him :))..
VANNI WAS A CHAMPION VANNI WAS A FRIENDS HE PASSED AWAY SATURDAY,
TODAY 23 IS GONNA BE THE HIM FUNERAL...
I WANT THE WORLD KNOW ABOUT HIM...
IN ITALY PEOPLE BARELY KNOW WHO HE WAS...
HE WAS WORLD CHAMPION ON THE 64 IN TOKYO ,
HE STILL HAVE THE WORLD RECORD FOR SURPLACE (TRACKSTAND) DURING A RACE 1 HOUR AND 3 MINUTES...
THEY USE TO CALL HIM THE FLYING POULTRYMAN BECAUSE HE USE TO SELL CHICKEN BEFORE BEING A RACER ...
I USED TO GO TO VISIT HIM AND SPEND SOME TIME WITH HIM...AND EVERY TIME I WAS LIVING HE WAS TELLING ME "YOU KNOW I M GONNA MISS YOU" ...
HE HAD A LOTS OF STORY

Rollercoaster

There's something really great about how certain wooden velodromes resemble old rollercoasters and fairground rides, because really, racing around a wooden track with a bunch of friends, feeling the gravity when you're right in the turn, the roar and noise of the pack as it passes the crowd, is there another sport which so perfectly evokes an old-fashioned thrill ride?

Photo by James Deavin, available here.

Thanks to AndrewFY for the headsup!

Obree Hour Attempt Off

Sad news over on Bike Radar, where cycling legend and multiple world record holder Graham Obree has confirmed that he won't be making a new attempt on the World Hour record after all. The Scottish cyclist said that after his homemade bike, which had been performing excellently on the road, proved too uncomfortable to ride on the banking during trials at the Manchester velodrome, he was forced to concede defeat. Still, the guy is an absolute legend, and deserves way more recognition than he gets.

UCI Track World Cup Manchester

The first round of the UCI Track World Cup is happening at the Manchester Velodrome this weekend. Can the British track squad continue their dominance on home soil, or will the squads who did so well at the world championships this year, especially the French sprinters, put up a decent challenge? Check out all the details here.

Photo by: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images

Bradley Wiggins Interview

Just off the bike after an amazing performance at the Tour de France, British track legend, Olympic champion and Mod revivalist Bradley Wiggins gave a great interview to the Guardian newspaper, wherein he talked about out of body experiences on Ventoux and the spirit of Tom Simpson. As he says himself "When I reached Ventoux on the second-last day it felt as if Tom was waiting for me. As I began the climb it felt as if his spirit was riding with me. It started on the early slopes and I imagined how Tom must have been feeling, riding towards his death, and the feeling grew as I climbed." Read the rest here.

Photo by David Levene for Guardian Sport.