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.