there arent any bathrooms on the infield...
the tunnel goes out of the track to an access road and not to the parking lot...
the seats are uncomfortable and you cant lean back in them...
there isnt an easy way to get from the stands to the infield without crossing the track...
there are no showers or locker rooms...
the place is depressing and there isnt any ambiance...
i would rather race at t-town or encino anyday... or some nice place that is good to be at.. with some grass or something.. or some palm trees... and natural light...
yeah sure.. its a great track.. but the building that tehy put it in is retarded...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
and don't forget how freaking cold they keep it there.
and its COLD
It was freezing out there this morning!
I wish they had turned on the AC when I rode there. It was hot in January when I went. During Worlds it was hot because the AC could not handle 2500 to 3000 people in the building.
WAAA... WAAA... WAAA... WAAA...
someone pass saunders the tissues!
Whatever dude. If he wants to complain about something being shitty, then so be it. It's his site, it's his training going into it, his effort... if the federation whose job it is to put on the best event possible does a crappy job, then better to complain and MAYBE get some changes eventually as opposed to just sitting silent and cycling of all disciplines in America never reaching the potential, and definitely never coming close to resembling European cycling. - Graham Slater, Greensboro, NC.
I will point out some high points, though:
Events started on time, and there were no unecessary delays.
Event staff bent over backwards (at least for me - Thanks Justin Rogers!) to help where they could.
They've done a good job at getting some fairly big-name roadies to come out an race. This had the side benefit of having (some of) them showing up at our track to pick up / dust off some experiance before Nats (Hi, Tina!) - so some of them didn't do so well. So what? There's next year, and they now have some experiance in the bag.
There were several new, young, excited officials who seemed eager to help and learn. It was a good chance to interact with and get to know the next generation of folks who will be making our lives a pain in the ass (kidding). You should get to know the officials whenever possible - not for ulterior motives, but just because they are human beings and should be treated decently - especially if you want the really good ones to hang around a while.
Think about the type of person that becomes a cyclist, now think about the type of person that becomes an official. They may be nice now, but just wait a few years. Some officials are very nice, and those are usually the ones that raced, but they are few and far between. The rest have no idea what it takes to race your bike 90 times a year.
who are the officials at natz?
the event side of things went really well...
whatever building they put a track i will come race it if there is a race...
but woo is right... i can say a building is dumb if it is... that place is a hassle to host big events... i dont know how they pulled off worlds there.. or a world cup... its just a really bad building compared to other world class tracks...
its not as good as t-town... the track is fast but thats about it...
for me that track is like SD or encino... i sit in the infeild on a chair and i gotta haul in my crap from far away and i gotta go outside to use a crappy port-a-potty(sd has a crappy park bathroom though, so it s a bit better)... and there are no showers...
SD and encino actually have races though.. so that makes them better in my opinion... they dont race at the indoor track... there is a lot of training time but not any races...
i am just not impressed is all... dont let people tell you how awesome that place is... its not all that.. its mediocre man... what makes a track good is the riders on it... its not cuz that thing is wooden and inside that its any better than any other track that has dudes who out there riding hard on it... shit.. they dont even have any races on that thing anyway...2 worlds, 2 nationals, world cup... one offs, all of them...sounds good.. but there are tracks that have 3 nights of racing a week.. and full training schedules...
notice how it's name is "adt event center" and not "adt velodrome". i'm thinking that they skipped the infield bathrooms and locker rooms so the track would be easier to remove when they found out that people still didn't care about track cycling. pretty sad.
and what was up with brad huff yelling and hooting through the whole madison? that was too much. . .
if you aren't a cat 2 or higher you have to PAY to take a class just to ride the thing! no other tracks have to do that, that i'm aware of. the classes aren't cheap either!
i think the hot track is the mellowdrome from what i hear... they have competitive races on it...
and its in a nice park
when i move out there i plan to go and do some races there...
and at dick lane in atl
the "introductory" class you have to take (unless yer cat2 or higher) actually costs $62. it involves you sitting in and listening to Roger Young talk to the newbs and then he watches you a little to see if you've paid attention to the track rules and whether you can get on/off the track. that's about it. is it worth it? definitely. the feeling of your eyes about to pop out as you're hitting 38+ mph doing a 200m through thru turn 3 is very much worth it.
we have a beginner's track class at the blaine (mn) velodrome which is almost an exact copy of ADT. I would say that if you're going to ride a 250m or shorter track, you'd probably want to have people be taking this rather than not. blaine's beginner class is $75 and well worth it.
fwiw blaine is a great place to come. saunders, consider coming out early or staying late for nature valley next year and race our track (thursdays).
Post a Comment