ERIE —The lights are bright. A bell is ringing. A colorful parade of frenetic pedalers are spinning hasty circles around the
The track’s owners, Frank Banta and Doug Emerson, are all grins. They’ve made it.
“This is everything we hoped for,” Banta says.
Two years ago, almost to the day, Emerson was using headlamps as he and Banta tunneled into the wreckage of their decade-old velodrome dream.
A microburst during an Aug. 3, 2013, storm — Emerson calls it “the floodnado” — had uprooted the nearly finished track, scattering meticulously measured trusses like matchsticks. The underground tunnel entrance to the track was under four feet of water. The devastating floods that ravaged Boulder County were still a month away.
“We had dark days,” said Emerson, the owner of the 31-year-old University Bicycles shop in Boulder, recalling the effort to save his shattered velodrome. “No one spoke. It was the gulag out here for a few months.”
No need to talk about the storm anymore, Banta says. It’s time to celebrate the future of track cycling in Colorado, a horizon that shines thanks to the pair’s effort to ignite the venerable sport with a world-class facility at the edge of Erie.
“Quit was never in our vocabulary,” Banta says.
On the last race of their first race season, the two were ecstatic.
Several dozens of racers in the pit in the middle of the track were joined by even more spectators. Elite riders mingled with amateurs, studying bikes, talking strategies and generally extolling the thrill of track racing.
When Banta and Emerson in 2006 they didn’t want an experts-only track — like most of the country’s other 28 velodromes. They wanted a venue for members, clubs, teams, classes and training. They wanted an everyman’s track where all comers — with required training — could enjoy the thrill of banked speed on a fixed-gear bike.
Barely three months after the first race, the duo was feeling the reward for their efforts, which took a mighty blow when the 2013 storms delayed their plans by a budget-crushing 18 months. The Thursday night races — the final of a weekly series that started in May — saw intense pro-caliber racing and equally thrilling contests between athletes who aren’t aiming for Olympic glory.
In the five-lap Snowball Sprint race, a 14-year-old eked past an accomplished college athlete, who, Banta noted, spent the afternoon training with his University of Colorado teammates for the USA Cycling Collegiate Track Nationals at the U.S. Olympic Training Center Velodrome in Colorado Springs a few weeks away.
The next race — a thigh-burning, 80-lap relay known as Madison — featured two teammates flinging each other for sudden bursts of sketchy speed. The 10 racers wore jerseys with logos. Each whirling lap was greeted with cheers from fans. A ringing bell spurred aggressive, point-harvesting sprinting every 20 laps.
It feels like bike NASCAR.
Not far off, says Banta, who envisions a time when his 250-person spectator area is packed with fans rooting for specific racers spinning on the 250-meter oval. Seventeen sponsors — banks, chiropractors, gyms and bike makers — have banners on the track.
Those sponsors, along with 250 velodrome members, many who signed up before the track opened, are supporting the scene. About 300 first-timers paid $100 for the venue’s Day At The Track introductory program. All of those people, hooked on the thrill, have gone on to take the $185 certification course required for regular riders.
“Once people come out and try it, they want to keep doing it,” Banta says.
“It feels like we built the first hockey rink in Canada,” Emerson says.
The venue is drawing attention far and wide.
Varun Maharajh, a 23-year-old Olympic-caliber cyclist from Trinidad and Tobago, said elite racers will flock to Boulder because the track is so fast. With the less dense air at altitude, the Boulder Valley Velodrome could become the place to set speed records, he said.
“It is considerably faster here,” he said. “Plus coming to altitude is a huge advantage when you head back to sea level.”
At the end of the night’s races, Maharajh notched a win in the traditional Shoe Race, a fun season-ending contest that pits unshod pros and amateurs digging through a pile of their cycling shoes before racing a single lap with their own shoes.
“What Frank and Doug have put into this, not just financially, but the love and energy really makes this a special place,” said Neal Henderson, a longtime Boulder track cyclist who now coaches Maharajh. “He’s getting an experience here he can’t get at home.”
Henderson expects the venue will spawn champions. Not unlike the world-class terrain parks at Colorado ski areas that are fueling a growing generation of slopestyle and halfpipe Olympians, the Boulder Valley Velodrome could make Erie a seeding ground for Olympic-level cyclists.
“Some of the fruit from this track … I think we could see in Toyko in five years,” Henderson said of the 2020 Summer Games. “Plus there are younger kids who may be doing something different right now but they may find this in a year or so and move up to do great things.”
A local, Olympic-level track definitely can help develop new talent, said spectator Australian Rohan Dennis, the who also won the first stage of this year’s Tour de France. Only a few years ago, he was a track superstar. Now he’s on a bigger stage as one of the world’s top cyclists — with a tenacious skill at explosive sprinting — in road racing.
“This can give you skill that can take you to the next level,” Dennis said. “You can take everything you learn here to the road. It’s made me more versatile.”
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasonblevins
