Fahrenheit531 

I'm skeptical of its long-term viability, but I do think it's appropriate to note this evening's groundbreaking on an actual velodrome here in Tucson. Not much else to offer at the moment. We'll see how things develop.

urbanknight

That's awesome! I recall them holding Arizona state track events at San Diego, so hopefully that means there will be substantial participation.

RCMoeur 

Over the past 40+ years, there were several efforts to build a velodrome in Phoenix. It's good to see that somewhere in the state has finally gotten as far as groundbreaking.

cyclezen

Awesome ! Don't be skeptical... It'll be great ! I remember when Rodale started building Trexlertown, I went out 2x to watch progress...
If they get a good youth program going, especially with local schools, and have regular evening racing - back at T-town it was Tues & Fri.
they'll get regular great attendance.
Ride On
Yuri

Steel Charlie

Some backstory
https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/...t?oid=34663189

Fredo76

Wonderful. I wished there was one in Tucson, back in the seventies.

_ForceD_

I hope the velodrome in the OP works out. But I’m skeptical. The skepticism is simply because I see the (outdoor) Major Taylor Velodrome from the air, a couple times a year when I’m flying into/out of Indianapolis when I’m going back to visit family. For twenty years I’ve been doing that and I have never, not once, seen anyone on the track, nor even in the facility.

Dan

Fredo76

Are you assuming your 40 minutes, give or take, in the air over the velodrome are a representative sampling of 20 years of velodrome usage? You observed the velodrome empty for maybe two minutes every year. There are 525600 minutes in a year, and 10 1/2 million minutes in 20 years. You have observed the velodrome for 0.000038 th of its existence. I'm skeptical that your sampling is representative.

_ForceD_

Thanks for doing the math. Yes, of course there are many more minutes of the day that I haven’t observed (forgot to include driving past it on all those occasions too.) I’m just saying that on all those occasions, I haven’t even seen a car in the parking lot, let alone anyone using the track. But, after all these years, it’s still there. So evidently it does get used. By comparison, numerous times flying in/out of Indy I have seen cars doing laps at the IMS. Even in Indianapolis, there are probably more bicycles in the area than race cars. — Dan

79pmooney

I hope this flies. Here we had the Portland Velodrome Heartbreaking. The privately owned park containing the velodrome (Alpenrose) got sold to become, no doubt, homes, condos and apartments. The park had been dairy land (dairy is still there but has imported the milk for many years) then a wonderful park for kids containing a first class (and lit) softball field that hosted many World Series, a 1/4 midget race track, rodeo, a theater house, hosted CX events, etc. A gift to the community. That Portland couldn't see that its worth was way, way more than the tax dollars of a few more dwellings - well I just shake my head. The city didn't have to buy it. Just figure out a way to allow the family to keep doing what they had been doing for decades without being complete fools $$-wise.

Fahrenheit531 

They're building this one southeast of town and well out of the way, where the fairgrounds and the race track/drag strip are located. Downside to this is it's quite distant for a lot of folks and really only sees traffic when an event is happening at one of those places. Upside is a lot of the development currently occurring around here is in the far southeast section of town, which means it's only about a 15 minute drive from where the growth is, while still being in an area that's not really desirable for developers. (Wrong side of the interstate.)

Find the green highlight in the southeast corner of this map for planned location:

urbanknight

Looking at their online calendar, it's similar to most other velodromes in the US. There are training sessions many weeknights and events most weekends. Comparing race specific cars to all bicycles in the area is probably useless since you're going to see almost exclusively track bikes on the track just as you see mostly race cars on the speedway.
https://indycycloplex.com/schedule?v...&month=08-2023

I suppose the key difference is you're likely to see race cars on a professional motor circuit almost any day because that's where they spend much of their time training. Track cyclists, however, still ride more miles out on the open road than on a velodrome.