Comment 68712

By mystoneycreek (registered) - website | Posted August 30, 2011 at 16:06:55

I imagine the councillors are worried about building a massive, rarely-used building for a catastrophic amount of money. That's what I worry about with the Velo.

Apparently Ryan is geting in touch with Greg Mathieu, CEO of the Canadian Cycling Association, who gave a presentation at the GIC meeting yesterday. (For the record, it was entirely out of place: this stuff SHOULD have been 'sold' to Council at the beginning of this entire process, back in the last decade.)

He was thorough, he was extensive-yet-pithy-and-personable...and he provided a context for this facility. Here are a few brief points:

-There is ONE international-calibre indoor facility in North America, the Carson City Velodrome in Los Angeles. http://ci.carson.ca.us/content/departmen...

(And for balance, check this out: http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2010/... )

This means that all Americans and the Canadian contingent have to train here, because...

-The season was recently changed to October-March (I apologize if I'm off here.)

So. As far as it being 'unused', this simply isn't true. While indoor cycling isn't really understood in mainstream Canada, there's a huge opportunity here. I'm not saying this is a great opportunity to 'make money', I'm saying that this velodrome-thing is far more of an opportunity to provide Hamilton with something unique, something to build on, especially with the changing face of the city and local greenery, far moreso than...a rebuild of an extant stadium.

yawn

You could well see quite a number of cyclists moving here. And managers and coaches and trainers and mechanics...their families, teams visiting, yadda, yadda...

But this shouldn't be about money-spinoffs. This should be about vision. A visionary opportunity for Hamilton to have something nobody else in Canada has...and to become the centre of indoor cycling in Canada...and a centre for North America...and a place where regular international competitions are held.

Look; we have rowing. We have some great road and mountain bike offerings, courtesy of the Niagara Escarpment. The idea of a velodrome is a natural fit for us.

It's just too bad it's become this 'tag-on' item, it's too bad that so much energy and effort was spent on that horrid débacle that surrounded the PanAm Games Stadium Site Selection Process....and it's too bad that even this time around, we've got a mess unfolding.

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