Team GB Exceeds Expectations
Date 27-Feb-2013
The championships in Minsk provided a number of pleasant surprises for UK fans. Not only did GB top the medal table, but it did so with a new young team. And Becky James became the new cycling star for the media to chase with her four medal haul from the nine medal team total. But it was not just the UK riders in the Union Jack colours that had success. Martyn Irvine from Northern Ireland took gold and silver wearing the Emerald Isle green and became the first Irish track world champion since the 19th century. BBC TV coverage and even a follow-up interview on the Breakfast show this morning pushed up the sport’s profile that bit more.

Season Finale - Minsk World Championships
Date 16-Feb-2013
The 2012-13 track season ends on its high as the World Championships take place and decide who will wear the rainbow jerseys for next season. And this year the BBC have extended coverage on radio, TV and online from the Belarus venue starting on Wednesday 20 February. Recorders at the ready ...

Glasgow Velodrome Draws The Crowds Again
Date 3-Feb-2013
Last night’s staging of the 40th round the Revolution Series at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow was another well deserved success. Even though there were no big draw names the evening was sold out - and the racing was first class. Being the first of the series away from Manchester there was some concern about it’s financial success - but they proved wide of the mark; with even the English fans making the trip north. For Glasgow tourism the prospect of nationally televised sports events during the winter is good news - and the spectators are happy that they can watch in comfort and warmth no matter how bad it is outside.

But that’s the end of the Revolution series for 2012-13 so now there needs to be some promotions to fill the big gap until the Junior Worlds due here in August. And Revolution need to consider how they can expand the series in 2013-14 without loosing their Manchester fan base - especially if London Velodrome does reopen early in 2014 as now planned (It was late 2013 before). The Track World Cup should also be a good prospect for a repeat next season; given that the UCI only managed to find three venues - including Glasgow - this season.

More on flickr ...

ps Roubaix Velodrome hosted the French National Championships last weekend as well.

Another Full House for Glasgow?
Date 17-Sep-2012
Scottish Cycling and Braveheart have set-up three days of racing to launch the Glasgow velodrome at the end of October. The idea is to combine the racing for 14 championship titles with a one-off 2 hour exhibition for invited international riders on the Saturday called the Thunder Drome. For those that thought that the Scottish track championships had already been held - outdoors at Meadowbank in September (after being washed out in June). These events are the ones that were not held then [but not sure if that was by accident or design]. Anyway all the days look like being sell-outs - like the Track World Cup and Revolution events in the months ahead. A pretty remarkable result considering that I was probably not alone in having repeated EntaConnect Gateway failures when trying to make an online booking!

The invited Thunder Drome riders are being grouped into four three-man teams - Team Scotland (Edgar, Mitchell, McLean), Team England (Daniell, Queally, Hindes), Team Europe (Forstemann, Levy, Crampton) and Team Braveheart (Paul, Skinner, tbc).

So could this be a first step towards the return of the Glasgow Six Day? Certainly the three day events promoted so far have sold out faster than pop concerts - so stretching the racing to six days would not be short of paying spectators ...

From Silence to Full House for Glasgow
Date 22-Aug-2012
“Whatever doubts that may have existed as to the ultimate success ... were effectually dispelled on Saturday, when the second day’s proceedings were entered on at Celtic Park”. These words were taken from the Glasgow Herald for 2-Aug-1897 as it became certain that the World Cycling Championships in Glasgow that year would make a “handsome profit for division among the nations comprising the I.C.A.” despite earlier doubts and concerns.

And it seems that history does indeed repeat itself as the tickets for the Glasgow round of the Track World Cup, at the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome by Celtic Park, were snapped up within hours after their release earlier today. Quite a success when you consider it was only a week ago that nothing much seemed to be happening. Now the organisers must be wishing the venue had more seating. However all is not lost, the organisers have said that “there is likely to be a small release of [more] tickets closer to the event”. And there are still some tickets for the Revolution Glasgow Round in February - but they may not be around for long. This track is on the way to being a real success!

UCI Track World Cup History
Date 18-Aug-2012
The recent successes of Team GB on the track is mainly down to hard work by the riders and a top-class support team. But is it possible that a programme of competitive events also helps? And if so, does the UCI World Track Cup series provide any possible clues?

Just look at this list of World Cup venues from 2004 onwards and see if you can spot some rather obvious statistics -

The first must be that Australia and Britain have already hosted 6 events each within the 7 seasons checked. And Glasgow will add another for GB in season 8. The second must be that France has not held any at all. Now this is not unique since this shortfall is shared with Germany, Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. And true Germany did host the world championships in 2003 followed by France in 2006, Spain in 2007 and the Netherlands in 2011. But the wider track programmes may help explain why the USA and Colombia have improved their position relative to these countries in recent track championships. And Colombia will host the Worlds in 2014 so more improvement may come. But thinking back to 2009, even then it was a touch ironic to see the farewell honours for French world champion Arnaud Tournant being held at Manchester velodrome’s Revolution 24 meeting.

At the 2012 Olympics the French were again complaining about British track successes - but their energy might have been better spent promoting some of these World Cup rounds themselves. In fact, there seems to one meeting short in the upcoming World Cup season - so they have a great opportunity to make a start towards 2016.

Silence from Glasgow
Date 14-Aug-2012
Is it me? I keep trying to get some confirmation that Glasgow’s UCI World Cup, the first international cycling event on the new velodrome, is actually going ahead as scheduled on 16-18 Nov. But so far there has been no reply to the e-mail and nothing on the official web site - glasgowlife.org.uk. There are rumours that info and tickets will be available “soon” - but other sports for late this year (Gymnastics, Badminton, Netball and Athletics) are already listed. There are still three months to go - so time yet for action but it would have been nice to take advantage of the Olympic enthusiasm.
Update 16-Aug-2012
British Cycling have announced priority access to the Glasgow UCI Track World Cup here and that tickets will go on general sale 22-Aug-2012. The new Glasgow World Track Cup website is also now online here. With most of the priority tickets already sold out there could be a real rush for the rest next week. Now that’s much better news - this track could be a real success!
[ps the UCI website lacks the web links for the Glasgow round and still has the city spelt as Galsgow on their more information page]

Revolution Season 10
Date 26-Jul-2012
The dates for the 2012-13 season of the Revolution Series have been published - and, as predicted, London will not be amongst the venues. The four rounds will be 27-Oct, 1-Dec and 5-Jan in Manchester plus 2-Feb in Glasgow. Perhaps if the Glasgow ticket take-up is high then there will be a chance of adding one or two more dates for Scotland. Tickets will be on general release after the Olympics - but BC, Rouleur and Revolution newsletter readers are getting early chances.

UK Indoor Track Plans
Date 22-Jul-2012
The earlier article covered the international track scene for 2012-13 - but there is now a big interest in UK domestic track racing; at least for the high profile indoor meetings. And if anyone is wondering why indoor racing takes the lead here - then just experiencing the British weather should answer all questions.

The leading UK domestic track events form the Revolution Series - which started in Manchester in 2003. Back in Feb it was announced that the 2012-13 series would remain as four events but be split over the London, Glasgow and Manchester tracks. This caused concern among the Manchester fans - who had been supporting their events in growing numbers - due to the obvious effect of halving the racing in their region. And so the hoped-for new fans in Glasgow will have a Revolution Series that lasts just one night - and then it’s the end of “series” until next year!

Quite why the organisers of the Revolution races felt they had to chop two of the Manchester dates is not clear. Perhaps it was part of the co-operation deal signed between the three velodrome operators - Manchester, London and Glasgow. It certainly seems unlikely to be due to any falling of support in Manchester. All four of last season’s events were reported as sell-outs.

But this is not the only issue causing concern amongst the supporters of UK track cycling. The first is the statement by the operators of the London Velodrome that, after the Olympics, the track will not be available for use until “late 2013”. This puts the first events into the 2013-14 track season. So a London round for the Revolution in 2012-13 seems to have been ruled-out from the start.

The second issue is - will Glasgow attract enough paying customers for a “new sport” in that region? To be fair it would be a risk to start out at a new venue with an extensive track programme - given that the Revolution Series launched in Melbourne a few years ago seems to have had a very limited life. So there needs to be some backing in place just in case apathy strikes. But some of this concern may be answered if the first World Cup event, scheduled for 16-18 Nov, attracts plenty of local fans. However this event has not had the best start since the local sport web site, and ticket agency, has failed to meet its “early July” target for accepting bookings. In fact the three day race programme is not even listed in the “What’s On” section of this key Glasgow web site. But Scotland is going to have to come-up with at least the financial support to back the racing - especially given that 2014 has the dual milestones of the Commonwealth Games and a referendum on independence. And either way some guaranteed paying customers in Manchester are being lost. more as it comes in ....

Track Season Ahead
Dateline 12-Jul-2012
Returning to the track from the media avalanche that is the Tour de France, it was quite a surprise to see that even CyclingNews had a calendar of future track events that was completely blank. So it was off to the UCI web site - who provided the basis for the schedule below.

So there is a current programme of international track racing going on - with today being the second day of the 15th annual 6 day at Fiorenzuola d'Arda in Italy. And tomorrow there are two more international events starting in Germany and Italy.

Of more interest to UK readers is the return of world track cycling to Scotland - with Glasgow down to host round 2 of the World Cup in Nov. If things go to plan this should be a big boost for British track cycling - following up the Olympics in August and the Masters Worlds in Manchester in October. Three international track meetings in four months - and at three different UK venues!

However there are still some causes for concern for the future of track racing. First the patchy reporting, not just in the general media but in the dedicated cycling press, is not good for the sport in the long term. Second the difficulties that the UCI and UEC seem to have in organising events and even event calendars. For example the UCI’s World Cup - the highest profile events behind the Worlds - has just three rounds confirmed; Colombia, Scotland and Mexico. With Mexico being Round 4 there must be at least one more that is yet to be confirmed. But it is hardly a “world cup” without also including at least Asia, Australasia and mainland Europe. And the UEC is in a worse position - with the future elite track championship venues still undecided beyond Lithuania this October.