IL Masters State Championships postponed

Originally scheduled for Saturday July 11th, the IL State Masters Championships have been rescheduled for August 8th.

Track Cats!

Haven't seen The Warriors in a while, or ever? I can't think of a better place to see it than at the Track Cats showing at Goose Island (1800 N. Clybourn, Chicago) on Sunday June 7th from 6-9PM. Suggested donation of $10. Support the Track Cats and see a great movie in the process. Costumes encouraged.

Opening Night!

Cuttin Crew's Jeff Perkins takes it at the line
Photo by Ed White

Last night was the opening night for the 2009 track season at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome. About 75 riders showed up, basked in the sun and raced under the lights. What a great way to kick off the season!

Photos by Ed White

Next week there will be a Cat 1/2 and Cat 3/4 Madison. If you're a Cat 3 or 4 make sure to attend next week's Monday and Tuesday clinics to get your Madison certification.

Also there are rumors that the giant grill will be making an appearance next week, grilling up delicacies such as brats and burgers for spectators and racers. Bring your appetite!

WOMEN! Every night you race your name will be placed in a drawing for a Blue track Frame. So if you race 15 times you have a 15 entries. Woohoo!

Northbrook Season Schedule

It's up!

(click for larger image)

Northbrook Women's Clinic - May 30th

Francine Haas' popular introductory track clinic for women is returning for 2009! The clinic will take place from 830AM-noon on May 30th at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome in Northbrook. The cost is $15 without a USAC license and $10 with a license. If you are a woman interested in track racing or know a woman who may be interested in track racing, then come to the 2009 Women's Clinic! Francine is not only one of the strongest local racers, she is also one of, if not the, nicest racer in Chicago.

Here's a link to the flyer.

The Keirin - Dick Lane Veldrome - May 9th

Image from No Brakes

Local racer Josh Ryan (Bouledogue Tout Noir) has been invited to a 12-rider Keirin Invitational, sponsored by Kazane and local Atlanta shop No Brakes, being held on May 9th at the Dick Lane Velodrome in Atlanta. Josh will be racing against some of the best locals (Elite and Masters National & Masters World champion Steve Hill and Joe Eldridge) and other standout riders from across the country (Lanell Rockmore and Collegiate National Sprint Champion David Espinoza). Josh will also be competing in Friday's Need For Speed Sprint Tournament. Flyers here for Friday and Saturday.

Josh has been overheard saying that he's still in strength phase and not to expect too much from him. Despite Josh's performance caveat, we here at Chicago Track Racing want to wish him the best! Go Josh!

Hellyer - American Velodrome Challenge

Elite Women/Men and Masters Men
June 26th and 27th, Hellyer Velodrome - San Jose CA.

$1000 first place races:
Women's Points Race
Men's Keirin
Men's Points Race

$14400 in prize money guaranteed (and maybe more!)

See attached flyer and check out Hellyer's page for prize breakdown and contact info.

Chicago 2016 - Velodrome Part of Park Legacy?

If Chicago gets the Olympic bid this October, we will potentially be able to boast of a world class, permanent indoor velodrome within the city limits. Unfortunately not everyone shares our enthusiasm for track cycling.

From Chicago Public Radio's coverage of a Chicago Park Legacy forum (full coverage here)
TRANTER: The legacy projects as they currently proposed are going to be harmful to the parks. A velodrome in Douglas Park - I mean who is going to use - number one, no one uses a velodrome in the city of Chicago.

There is a comment section for this piece.

Why not state your belief in person? There will be additional meetings (thanks Jeff for informing us):
Douglas Park meeting April 21 @ 5:30p.
Washington Park meeting is April 18 @ 9a.

If anyone knows the locations of the meetings let me know and I'll update the blog.

2009 Track Worlds - Men's Sprint Final

Came down to the final ride.

2009 Track Worlds - Women's Sprint

Final ride between Pendleton and Kanis. So good!

2009 Track World Championships

Here's a link to the starting lists and (eventually) results page. Last year they even included a few podium pictures.

2009 World Championship Results

Let the excitement begin. (Go USA!)

2009 Northbrook Women's Program

I previously mentioned that Blue is sponsoring the Women's Program with a very generous donation of a track frame. And I am now quite excited to say that this year's frame will be going to a woman based on participation rather than placing. We still have details to work out but the general idea is this: if a woman races a certain percentage of Thursday nights, her name will be placed in a drawing for the frame. So all women, no matter what age or category will have the potential to win a really awesome frame!

I've also been talking with Kevin Perez, who is leading the Monday night practices this year, about having a separate women's group once or twice a month on Monday night. This will allow women to ride with each other rather be thrown in with the men. No offense guys, but you can be a little intimidating at times. I'll post more once Kevin and I hash out the details.

And don't forget to cheer on Shelley Olds next week at the Track World Championships. She's racing in both the Scratch and Points Races. Go Shelley! Here's a link to the program. The Scratch Race is on Friday evening, Poland time which means it's Friday afternoon for us and the Points Race is on Sunday afternoon (morning for us). Shelley is the only woman representing the US. There are 3 men on the US squad, Taylor Phinney, Daniel Holloway and Colby Pearce. No sprinters this year. If you want to watch the action, apparently there may be free coverage here. Of for $20 you can watch it on cycling.tv.

A few videos

Momentum Cycling (2007)
Now Hawk Relay Cycling ( and now defunct as of March 2009). Kind of an inspiring video, especially when Adam, Travis and Jennie are all toast after five efforts.

I haven't heard anything about Jennie Reed lately. I know she was considering retiring before Momentum started up. Perhaps she has? Too bad, but understandable given the state (or lack thereof) of support for a National track racing program. She's one tough cookie.

Momentum Cycling



2008 World Championships - Women's Keirin
Inspiring performance by Jennie Reed.


2009 UCI Copenhagen World Cup (Feb. 2009)
Keirin Final -
The wreck that took out Hoy. He subsequently withdrew from the World Championships.


2009 UCI Copenhagen World Cup (Feb. 2009)
Women's Points Race Final (last half of race, edited to show points only) -
Go Shelley, she lapped the field early on and accumulated 23 points. And those were all the points she managed to get. But that was enough for 3rd place and a trip to the podium.



Rebecca Romero (2008) -
Talks about the pursuit and preparation for the Beijing Olympics. It's reassuring to hear she gets crazy nervous before racing. Like Jennie, she's been AWOL since the Olympics as well.

The Future of the Major Taylor Velodrome

Here is an interesting article about Marian College's possible role in the future of MTV.

This is an issue that certainly has had its fair share of debate. It was recently a hot topic over on Fixed Gear Fever.

Hopefully everything gets worked out and the outstanding racing continues at our neighbor to the south.

(And to MTV, please keep your Saturday night racing! We will come en masse from Chicago to race this summer on Saturdays, I promise!)

Thanks Jeff for the head's up.

Videos from Kenosha

Thanks to William for bringing these to our attention!

2008 Junior Track State and National Championships

Here is a great note from Chuck Martin about the 2008 Illinois Junior State Championships:

"Illinois State Track Championships were held today (July 12th) at the Northbrook Velodrome. It was great to see so many riders out there enjoying the fun of competition. Seeing the Track Cats out there made me very proud of Marcus, Nicole, Brean and all of the others associated with getting this team together.

I went out there this morning to watch. but as has been the case in the last two years, riders bikes were not prepared. That's when competition was thrown aside and sportsmanship resoundly announced its presence. While coaches were helping athletes, and team members helped former teammates get ready, there were two coaches that showed all of us what the races were about.

There was rider who did not pass rollout. The officials let him have as much time as he needed to make his bike "legal." So he borrowed some tools to make his bike compliant. No matter what he did it wouldn't work because the chain was too short. So Coach Steve Thordarson of Smart Cycling borrowed a chain tool and started to perform the delicate surgery of adding links to the chain so that a larger cog could be used. Well sorry to say I had only road chain links in my box (note to self... get some track chain links). So that effort did not prove fruitful. That's when Coach Brean Shea of Track Cats offered his track bike to the rider. Two Track Cats and the rider started a ballet of borrowing tools and swapping pedals and swapping wheels so that one rider who was not a member of either Smart Cycling or Tack Cats could compete.

In the spirit of full disclosure, my son is part of the Smart Cycling Team, I help the team where I can and some of my tools were borrowed.

My apologies because I was not able to stick around to watch who won the medals. But I do know that each of the competitors and Junior Track Cycling were all winners. Coaches, officials, parents and athletes regardless of team affiliation, all operated toward one objective: seeing everyone who wanted to ride could get on a bike and compete. "


Juniors at Nationals!
Please extend a (belated) congratulations to the following juniors who represented Chicago and Kenosha at the 2008 Junior Track National Championships at ADT in LA. Congrats to all of you!

Katie Antonneau
Aaron Harrison
Andy Harrison
Sammy Huang
Sarah Huang
Kaleb Koch
Chazz Martin
Jessi Prinner
Adam Spitulnik
John Tomlinson

Sorry for the glitch

To everyone that has sent us an email over the past months, I'm sorry I haven't responded. I've now forwarded all emails to my personal account so I won't miss anything in the future. Continue sending interesting news, please!

Another lesson learned by this newbie.

Northbrook Pursuit Series

The Allvoi Cup has the potential to bring some great riders to Northbrook this summer. A three weekend summer series -- June 20th, July 18th, September 5th -- the Allvoi Cup has generous prizes to top Men's and Women's finishers and consists of a weekly kilo/500M (M/W), a 3K/2K pursuit (M/W) and a mass start race. Prizes also go to the top 4K team time trial.

Do your part, Chicago, and mention the race whenever you're at a race. Perhaps even print out a few fliers and hand them out.

Click on the image for a larger version of the flier. Also visit http://wdtcycling.com/ for updates.

Shelley Olds and Taylor Phinney at the Copenhagen World Cup

Shelley Olds, the 2008 US Scratch Champion, has been making quite the stir on the international scene. She took 7th in the Scratch race and 3rd in the Points Race at the World Cup in Copenhagen. Back in January she finished 6th in the Points Race and 8th in the Scratch Race at the Beijing World Cup. Shelley is just one of those people you can't help but to root for. Way to go Shelley! I can't wait to see what she does at the World Championships, March 25-29 in Poland.


As for Taylor Phinney ... what can I say? From USAC:
U.S. National Team member Taylor Phinney shattered the U.S. national record in the men’s 4,000-meter individual pursuit Friday at the UCI Track World Cup in Denmark. Phinney, clocked a time of 4 minutes, 15.223 seconds in the qualifying round, surpassing the previous mark of 4:19.800 set by Mariano Friedick in 1996. In Friday’s evening session, Phinney turned in a time of 4:19.119 in the finals to beat Ireland’s David O’Loughlin and register his first World Cup victory this season.

T-Town 2009 Schedule

For those of you who can make the trek. Remember, Friday nights are Cat 1/invite only ... best to call ahead before trying to race on a Friday night. Tuesday nights (Pro-Am) are for Men's Cat 1-3 and Women and Saturday's are self explanatory. (click on image for full schedule)

Encino Velodrome Schedule 2009

Swiped from the Encino Velodrome website. This is a really fun track with a great atmosphere and good turnouts for the larger events.

2009 AVC - July 17-19, Portland, OR

2008 Alpenrose Challenge

Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge (Promo video)

I was mad when I couldn't go last year. I'm not making the same mistake this year. Who else is going, Chicago?

Blue Competition Cycles to Sponsor Women's Program

Good news today!

Blue Competition Cycles will continue to sponsor the Women's Program at the Ed Rudolph Velodrome in Northbrook, IL. Blue has agreed to donate a frameset. In the past the frame was awarded to the overall cat 1/2/3 female top finisher.

Thanks Blue!

The Track Season is Starting to Take Shape

Edit (3/20/09): The Speed Rebellion Challenge has been canceled and the Hellyer AVC has been moved to June 26-27, with a payout of (so far) $14,400.

Looks like velodromes are slowly releasing their big events for next year.

Encino Far West Championships - Los Angeles, CA May 23-24
Hellyer AVC - San Jose, CA June 19-20 26-27
Alpenrose Six Day - Portland OR June 29 - July 4
Alpenrose Challenge - Portland, OR July 17 - 19
Marymoor Grand Prix - Redmond, WA July 31 - August 2


Of note this (post from fixed gear fever). Expect the big guns at this one. If they set it up like the Revolution series, it may be invitation only.

Speed Rebellion Challenge - $20k prize list, June 12 - 7-11 pm Hellyer/SanJose.

one night $20,000 that might be the best prize list all year. I don't know all the details yet. I know there will be a keirin focus and some top notch womens racing. The promoters have been studying the 'Revolution' races and are going to emulate that as much as possible. This will be good.

This is 7 days before the Hellyer AVC (june 19-20) race which is also a big prize money race with 2 days of races.

Spend 10 days in Cali and do 2 big events? plenty of track time and road riding and road events to keep you busy during the week.

CANCELED!