Episode 52
“I’m the only person in the whole world that’s ever had a velodrome stolen”
Have you ever heard of a velodrome being stolen? Well, it happened to this week’s guest! Joan is joined by track designer Dale Hughes this week. Joan and Dale talk how he got into track design, the status of the Lexus Velodrome in Detroit, returning to racing, Madisons, and much more! If you’d like to donate, head on over to the links in our show notes!
Thanks to B Braun Medical Inc. for sponsoring the Talk of the T-Town Podcast. BBraun is a global leader in infusion therapy and pain management, B Braun develops, manufactures and markets innovative medical products to the healthcare community. They are also strong believers in supporting the quality of life in the communities where their employees work and live.
Transcript
Joan Hanscom:
Welcome to the Talk of the T-Town Podcast, where we discuss all things track cycling broadcasting from the Valley Preferred Cycling Center. I’m your host and executive director, Joan Hanscom.
Joan Hanscom:
Welcome to the Talk of the T-Town Podcast. I’m your host, Joan Hanscom. And I am delighted to have with me this week on the pod legendary track designer, Dale Hughes, Detroit native Dale Hughes, and just general hero of the sport of track cycling. Dale, welcome to the podcast.
Dale Hughes:
Thank you very much. Very generous introduction there.
Joan Hanscom:
Well, we are thrilled to have you. And I’m going to jump right in with asking you to tell our listeners a little bit about your history designing tracks, because there aren’t very many people who can say they are track designers. So, jump in there.
Dale Hughes:
Well, how did I get started? I sort got to go back to where and how I got started in the sport of cycling. I got a college degree from a local university here, Oakland University, had a degree in business administration. After college, wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I wasn’t really a cyclist. I rode my bike a bit when I was a young teenager. But I think I was like most people when they got 16, they got the keys to their car. And that was the last I got on a bike.
Dale Hughes:
My sister was going after school. My sister was going to school in Germany to learn the German language. And that’s where I saw my first real bike race. It was Paris–Nice. And I was just blown away by it. So I came home and asked my dad that I knew he had about $9,000 saved. And I said, I got the neighbor kid next to me who didn’t go to college and wasn’t sure what he was going to do. I say “Get your dad to give you $9,000 and we’ll open up a bike shop.”
Dale Hughes:
So we opened up a bike shop and we had it for not quite two years. And in that time, I met a gentleman named Mike Walden. And Mike Walden was coaching three world champions at a time and had a host of other Olympians that were under his tutelage. We held, I think, in 19… Forgot when it was. Well, anyways, we held the national championships, road championships in Detroit. And he asked me if I had a van that I could sag wagon.
Dale Hughes:
So I did. And that’s where I got to know him. After about two years of the bike shop business, I stopped by him and said, “Hey, I’m not sure I want to stay in retail. What can I do?” He said, “Well, I’ll make you a bike rider.” And I said, “Well, I got little ticker issues. So tell me something else.” And he says, “Well, build a velodrome.” So we closed down our shop, sold our inventory and myself and two other young guys that I knew.
Dale Hughes:
One of them had a bike shop. And we started just building a bike track. We really didn’t know too much about it. But we figured we’d build a portable velodrome that could really be truly portable and would fit inside a hockey arena because we figured those were the sizes that we could fit. So we built a portable 125 meter, 20 degrees in the straightaways, 50 degrees in the turns.
Dale Hughes:
And we traveled around the country in it. It was portable. We could put it up in 24 hours. We could take it down in nine and a half hours. We had three trailers that we had our own tractor, and we drove around and put on races on it. We had quite a few races. We held the first US Madison National Championships in 1976, 1977, and 1978. Then, we got a call from Universal Studios that they were doing a remake of a Shirley Temple movie called Little Miss Marker. And it had a great cast, Matt, Bob Newhart, Julie Andrews, Tony Curtis. Young people wouldn’t know those people. But, my age, I’m not sure yours those were all famous stars.
Dale Hughes:
So we took the track out to California. Santa Rosa was the shooting site of the movie. And we shot a movie out there. We were about maybe a one-minute scene for all that work. But it was a fun thing. Then, on the way back, we held a race at the Denver Coliseum with Mike Aisner who had put on the Coors Classic for quite a few years. He had a big race there.
Dale Hughes:
Then, we brought it back to Detroit and had a race in the Cleveland Arena. And then, we put it away for storage and trucked fees broke into the trailer and tractor, hot wired the tractor and drove off with our three trailers. And I’m the only person in the whole world that’s ever had a velodrome stolen.
Dale Hughes:
We had no insurance. So, we lost everything. So the four partners, myself and three other guys, that pretty much ended our partnership. It’s easy to end a partnership when you have no assets. So then, I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. And I worked with Mike Walden and we put on the Walden School of Cycling for about 22 years down in Florida during February and March. I put on a race series called the Tour Michigan for 11 years. And then, in 1995, I got a call from the Olympic committee and said, “We’d like to have a US builder. Are you interested?”
Dale Hughes:
And so, I designed and built the velodrome for the ’96 Olympic Games. It set all new Olympic records and broke a world run record, which was unusual because that was at sea level. So that sort of gave me my international credentials. And from there, I’ve built or designed probably 20 to 25 velodromes around the world.
Dale Hughes:
I partnered with a German company, gentleman named Walter von Luetcken who’s a tremendous carpenter. And together, we built tracks around the world. But I built them for the Asian games in Korea, Asian games in Qatar, Commonwealth games in India, PanAm games in Toronto, PanAm games in Peru. Right now, finishing up on in Edmonton, Canada.
Dale Hughes:
So then, in 19… What was it, 2017, I got a call from a gentleman who said, “I want to do something for the kids in Detroit. I’d like to build a velodrome.” And he said, “I maybe build an Olympic style one.” And I say, “Well, that’s going to cost you about 30 to $40 million to build an indoor velodrome like that.” And he says, “Well, I can’t really handle that.” And I say, “Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t think there’s too many places in United States that can really a 250 indoor velodrome financially feasible. Not only just from the building of it, but actually even from the operating of it.”
Dale Hughes:
So, my love has always been the Madison. I truly think the Madison is the pinnacle of the kind of track racing that could become a real pro-lead kind of a thing. So the Madison tracks are generally speaking 166s or 200s generally speaking. In the old days, they were a 10th of a mile, which is about a 166.
Dale Hughes:
So I designed a building. I told them what my budget was going to be. At the time, I told them, “I thought I could everything together for about $3 million.” It turned out to be closer to five million. But that’s why we have an air structure and not a steel frame building or a brick building because the cost then would be more than double that.
Dale Hughes:
So we built a 166 with a running track that’s surrounding the velodrome that we use for running, for skating, for fitness classes. Well, actually, we’ve got a little area for fitness classes called Detroit Fit. I’m sort of running on fumes here. But-
Joan Hanscom:
Well, you’ve had a lot going on.
Dale Hughes:
[crosstalk 00:08:15] Our goal is really-
Joan Hanscom:
I’m going to jump in right there though and say, “Dale, you’ve already made this probably the most interesting podcast we’ve had to date just in virtue of the history of what you’ve done up till now.” So we’re going to give you credit for the most interesting first five minutes of the podcast out of the box.
Dale Hughes:
Thank you.
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah, you win on the only person to have a velodrome stolen from that. That sealed it. You were the winner for the most interesting podcast alive on that [crosstalk 00:08:44].
Dale Hughes:
Now, I’m the only person that’s ever had a velodrome collapsed [inaudible 00:08:48]. I think Burnaby said Burnaby has had theirs collapse on them a couple times, they said.
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah. And I know Colorado Springs didn’t have it collapsed. But they came real close.
Dale Hughes:
It come close.
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah. So hopefully, that’s not a repeat for you. I think your project there is tremendous. And I just want to acknowledge right now, thanks to your donor, who was visionary enough to want to do that. I have long held that track cycling has the potential to be the most accessible form of cycling that we can do largely because you can get started with bikes that are not ridiculous. Certainly, you can reach ridiculous heights if you pursue the sport to its fullest broadest extent.
Joan Hanscom:
But it is a sport that can welcome just about anybody in, in a very accessible way. And I think that that’s amazing. And certainly, what you’ve done in Detroit is testament to that. You’ve brought bike racing into the people, and that’s amazing. And I think you deserve a whole load of credit for that and certainly the person whose idea was who conceived of building a velodrome in Detroit should also receive many kudos for that.
Joan Hanscom:
I think our sports struggles with how to bring people in and by bringing it to them, I think when you bring the sports to the people, it’s a lot easier than try to bring the people to the sport, I think. So I think it’s amazing.
Dale Hughes:
But we need more velodromes. That’s for sure. We need more velodromes. Here’s something that I think that is a misconception by most people. Most people think that a 250 track that’s banked… Most 250s are banked between 40 and 42 degrees. And most 166s are 50 degrees or so. And most people think that it’s harder for that young eight-year old or 10-year old to write a 166 that’s 50 degrees that a 250 that’s 40, 42 degrees.
Dale Hughes:
And I’m here to say that that’s really not a true statement. It’s actually easier for an eight or 10-year-old to write a 50-degree 166, that it is a 42-degree 250. And the reason is it’s not that you’re trying to get that kid to write a whole lap. Your first concern is, can you get that kid through that very first turn, turn ones and two? And the length of time that the kid has to put his full power into the pedals is much shorter on a 166 than a 250, how the length of that whole turn is.
Dale Hughes:
So it’s actually easier for a kid to ride a 50-degree 166 track than it is a 42-degree 250, because the max power time that they have to put out for the 166 is half the time that they have to do, because the turn is roughly about half the distance. So I’d like to get the word out to everybody who thinks, “Oh, the 166 is not good for teaching eight year olds, 10 year olds how to ride a track. It can be done.
Dale Hughes:
Now, I agree on what a 333 or even bigger track, well, then, you don’t really have to worry about slipping in the turns very hardly at all. So you could almost come to a full stop in the turns. So I agree a 333 is easier for a young kid to learn on except it’s boring because it takes so long for that kid to get all the way around whereas the 166, they’re around pretty quickly. So their achievement level is much higher. So that’s my statement about people who think that a speed track is not a good track.
Joan Hanscom:
As a grownup, because I lived in Chicago when the South Chicago Track was up. As a grownup, it looks real scary though. I will say the banking is the [crosstalk 00:12:46].
Dale Hughes:
It looks real scary for a little eight year old too. It looks scary for everybody who walks into our building.
Joan Hanscom:
It is definitely an intense-looking degree of steepness, we’ll say. But thank you for sharing that, because I think the point really is true that we need to get kids on bikes. And we need to get kids on bikes on tracks. It’s safe. It teaches great skills. It teaches really great bike handling. And at T-Town with our programming for the kids we really hope to engender just a lifelong love of cycling, whether it be track cycling, cycle cross, mountain biking. I mean, ideally, it’s track cycling.
Joan Hanscom:
But we really want to make lifelong cyclists out of the kids that come through our programs, be it the Squirts or the Pee Wees or the BRL kids. And I think that the track is such a great way to cultivate the skills and the handling ability and just the suppleness that you need to enjoy bikes for your whole life. And if you can convert them as little kids, it’s great.
Dale Hughes:
Well, your programming at T-Town has been a gold standard for 30 years. There’s no doubt that you’ve done better in producing riders, even recreational riders and obviously elite riders than any other track. So kudos to Rodale from starting it and for all the people that have kept it going for these many, many years.
Joan Hanscom:
Absolutely. Bob Rodale was a visionary, for sure. And we are enormously thankful to the partners we have who have enabled those programs to keep going without the contributions of companies like Air Products. Those youth programs would certainly not be thriving the way they do. And so, we are incredibly fortunate as well [inaudible 00:14:35] to have had the benefit of really great partnership support in the Lehigh Valley.
Joan Hanscom:
Dale, one of the things we wanted to talk to you about thought is [crosstalk 00:14:44] Mother Nature was not kind to you and the Lexus Velodrome this past winter. And I know people are keen to get back to racing in Detroit. And they are keen to get updates on the status. Tell us what happened. We alluded to it earlier in the pod, you had some big wind issues. So tell our listeners what happened with that and where you stand right now.
Dale Hughes:
Well, we had wind issues. But the wind issues really weren’t the situation that directly affected us. What affected us is our utility DTE cutoff power or lost power. We lost power to them. And our backup generator failed. It’s a big monster generator. But it had a little plastic gear, the ignition that, for some reason, failed. And that’s obviously then we didn’t have a backup system to the utility. And that caused the dome to then lose air and slowly collapse onto the track.
Dale Hughes:
Our biggest issue with that is that we had built light poles in the track to show to better illuminate the riders. And those are what punctured the dome itself. So those are what punctured through. And we had the dome manufacturers, Farley, the Farley Group, tremendous organization and great manufacturers of these domes. I think really the Lexus standard of dome is the Farley group.
Dale Hughes:
And they sent their guys out here and patched it up. And obviously, I’m in it right now. So we are all up and running and everything looks pretty good. We’re taking this opportunity to repaint our track because we had a lot of wear on it. And we were losing a little bit of grip in turn two. So we took this time to repaint it, give it some more new grip and make it look sharp again. Really didn’t sustain any damage at all. Couple little scrapes here and there. But really, we’re really fortunate. Most of our stuff inside, it was like having a big canvas over everything. Even though it was deflated, it was protecting us from things.
Dale Hughes:
Our challenge is that we had water and snow and obviously the tracks banged on the side. So the material went over our track and then down into the infield. And so, that collected water. Probably a week and a half, almost two weeks of having four pumps pumping water out, we probably pumped out several hundred thousand gallons of water. But we couldn’t get all the water out. There was always a couple inches left.
Dale Hughes:
And so, when they were ready to re-inflate the dome, we had to get rid of that ice that was still in there. So we literally had to break it up into ice cubes, big ice cubes this big. And I know some people have seen pictures. We’ve actually had to cut the dome because you couldn’t take the ice over the track because it was too far, too high. So we had to cut the dome and bring the ice infield of our track.
Dale Hughes:
And then, we pushed it all down into our stairs, which is the entrance to the track. We have a sump pump there. And then, we had to melt it with torches and did some heavy shoveling to take it all out. But all our ice and everything is gone now.
Dale Hughes:
So now, we’re just in a matter of getting our bathrooms up and running, getting all our offices back up, getting all our furniture. Very little was really damaged as far as on the infield. So we had all our furniture and everything because if people have go to our site lexusvelodrome.com, you can see our infields.
Dale Hughes:
We have these suites, and we have tables of chairs. We have a faux bar on the infield, cult spoke easy lounge. All that was really very minimally damaged. So we’re really lucky. We probably lost some TVs. Every suite had of TV. And we had four big TVs in the center. I think we lost maybe four out of… I think we’ve got about 35 TVs in the infield and around our track. So very little damage.
Dale Hughes:
But the cost probably is in the $20,000 range as far as… But things that we lost inside the dome, we still don’t have a bill for what the dome repair was going to be. But I think our total loss is probably going to be somewhere in the 60 to $80,000 range, which is not-
Joan Hanscom:
Not an insignificant amount of money.
Dale Hughes:
[crosstalk 00:19:39] number. But we put a word out for donors for a thousand dollars. We’ll put your name up on the [inaudible 00:19:47] on the top of the guardrail. And we raised $36,000 right from that from 36 different people. And then, we also had a whole bunch of small donors. I think our total donations that we raised in about 10 days was, I think right now, we’re at $46,505.
Joan Hanscom:
Wow. So, our listeners, Dale, who want to contribute, and I’m certain there are people who are listening to the podcast right now who would like to make a donation, we’ll include links in the show notes. So if you’re listening and you miss this, reflect back on the show notes. And we’ll have the information there. But tell people where they can make a donation if they want to give to help support getting the track back up and running.
Dale Hughes:
Well, we have two websites. One is called lexusvelodrome.com. And that’s where you can see all the racing action and what we’re doing in the building. We’re actually a nonprofit. We are the Detroit Fitness Foundation. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. And we own and operate the velodrome, and we operate it as a nonprofit. So there’s no profit-oriented issue any monies that have come in or goes towards operations and in programming For any donations, they just need to go to detroitfitness.org. And there’s a button right there to donate. You can donate $5 to $105,000, if you’d like.
Joan Hanscom:
Right on. Well, I’m certain, you’ll see some donations pour in from our listeners after they get the chance to listen to this podcast. And I know you’re also posting regular updates on Facebook. So into the USA Track Cycling Facebook group, so people can follow along with updates. And I also know you’ve been doing a bit of message control where you have posted consistently. If you don’t read it here, don’t believe it.
Joan Hanscom:
So we’re glad to go right to the source, to get the proper updates, to know what’s going on. And we at T-Town are undergoing a major resurfacing project ourselves this year. So, we’ve scraped the surface off the track. We’ve repaired some cracks that had developed in turn two. And a lovely whoopty section of turn three are all getting corrected and fixed over the winter.
Joan Hanscom:
And so, when we reopened, we’ll have a new surface on. But I know that repainting lines is no joke. There’s quite a serious process that goes to repainting [crosstalk 00:22:20].
Dale Hughes:
I don’t know if you [crosstalk 00:22:20] back there, I don’t know if they’re painting right now. I think they’re taking a break. No, there’s some painting back there.
Joan Hanscom:
So, for our listeners, we [crosstalk 00:22:29].
Dale Hughes:
[crosstalk 00:22:29] back there, you might be able to see some painters.
Joan Hanscom:
We can see. Yeah. And so for everybody listening to the pod, Dale is in the infield at the velodrome. And it is a hive of activity behind him. And it’s good to see it bustling. So it looks like you’re on track to get reopened, which is terrific. But yeah, we understand that that’s a lot of work. The repainting process is not a joke. And it’s certainly with certifications and all of that, there’s a lot that goes into it. It’s not just painting lines.
Joan Hanscom:
So I think that’s part of the education process to folks like, “Hey, look, it sounds easy. We’re just painting lines.” But it’s not the case. There’s a lot in the, more to it. Obviously, track cycling is a very precise discipline. And so, the lines also need to be very precise. So, we are in full sympathy of that effort.
Dale Hughes:
And with your 333 track, you got a long line to go around.
Joan Hanscom:
This is the truth. Yes. Happily, we have the guiding knowledge of Andy Taus who was part of the project. The last time, the resurfacing took place and is, I would say, a professional level archiver of detail about the velodrome. So we are very indebted to Mr. Taus for his assistance on the project, because without Andy’s deep wealth of knowledge, we would probably be struggling a bit. But thanks to Mr. Taus. We are in good hands, I think. But yes, you can’t have the wobbly line, that’s for sure.
Dale Hughes:
Yeah. Well, we’re opening. We expect to have writers on the track next Tuesday, is our first unofficial workout. And we expect to be fully open programming wise by February 1st. In fact, we’re scheduling our first reinflation race for a two-day race, February 18th and 19th. So we’ll go back to-
Joan Hanscom:
It is fantastic.
Dale Hughes:
… doing our big races, try to bring some rider in from out of town and have some good Madison racing.
Joan Hanscom:
That is fantastic to hear. And I haven’t seen, so forgive me if I’ve missed it. Are there going to be Madison Nationals back at your track next year or is it too soon to say?
Dale Hughes:
Oh no, we have masters nationals. It’s November 10th through the 13th.
Joan Hanscom:
Fantastic.
Dale Hughes:
And it’s going to be for juniors. And we’re going to have 13, 14-year old Madison nationals. And we’re going to have 15 through 18 Madison nationals. We’re going to have obviously elite women, elite men. And I understand now we’re also going to have the masters. So if you’re in the Madison racing, get yourself ready at your local track and get some practices in.
Dale Hughes:
I’m actually trying to put together a program where I’d like to see every velodrome. And I know T-Tow does a fair amount of Madison racings. But a lot of other tracks don’t do very much at all in Madison racing. So I’m actually trying to work with our sponsor and develop a plan where we would have a Madison clinic and a Madison race at every track that would be not so much a qualifier to race, but a qualifier to win some money that they had some travel money to come to Detroit in November. We had a fantastic Madison nationals.
Dale Hughes:
We had three days of racing with junior men and women, elite men and women. And then, we did the mixed co-ed Madison. And that was extremely fun. We had elites with juniors. And then, we had men and women partnered together. And actually, I think coed Madison is the most likely track race to be really picked up by major TV because I think the dynamics of mixing men and women in an actual Madison together creates some dynamics that are unlike anywhere and unlike anywhere else in a sport.
Dale Hughes:
So imagine a top male rider getting thrown in for his effort, but he’s at the tail end of his effort. And all of a sudden, elite woman gets thrown in. And she’s at the beginning of her effort and it comes to the sprint, and they got one lap to go. Who’s going to win that race? That elite man that’s been at the end of his run or the elite woman who’s at the beginning of his run? And I think it could be some fantastic finishes.
Joan Hanscom:
Well, yeah, definitely sounds like an exciting format. And it also sounds like an interesting way to just bring more interest to track cycling, in general. I think I personally am a big fan of male and female athletes competing together. We see it in things like gravel racing. Certainly, the men and women, they start together. They race together, the marathons. Yes. They usually break out into groups of gender-based groups. But the running races all start together. And I’m a big fan of creating that type of equity. So yeah, I think that’s an exciting format. And we will tune in.
Dale Hughes:
We have to get more women racing the track.
Joan Hanscom:
10%.
Dale Hughes:
We do not have enough women racing the track. And we’ve got to figure out a way how to incentivize them to want to do it. And I know track racing, especially the steeper tracks, are scary. Like you said, when you first see it, you go, “Oh, my god. Can you really ride that?” That affects both men and women. But somehow, we’ve got to get more women involved in track racing.
Joan Hanscom:
At T-Town, we are 100% committed to that effort. We launched our 50/50 in 50 Initiative where we are really making a strong push to reach 50/50 male, female participation by our 50th anniversary, which is coming up in 2025. And I think we’ve made strong headway towards that goal. But we have a ways to go. But we are blessed with Kim Geist at the helm of that effort for us.
Joan Hanscom:
And I think there’s probably not a better person suited to getting more women racing track than Kim Geist, because she is just a stellar coach. And she’s assembled a stellar crew of other female coaches around her. And I applaud every other track and encourage every other track in the country to also get on board with a 50/50 effort because I think again, going way back to the beginning, I think track cycling has an opportunity to be inclusive in ways that a lot of the other cycling disciplines don’t. And that is inclusive of everything, gender and race and everything.
Joan Hanscom:
I think it can be just a very democratic form of cycling if we do it right and if we welcome everybody in. And I know if we want the discipline to survive, we have to welcome more players to the table. So I’m a big believer in that.
Dale Hughes:
Well, we really had to work hard to find enough women to have even three teams for the elite women’s Madison. So right now, we’re not looking at 50/50. I’m looking at, can I even get 20%?
Joan Hanscom:
Yeah. The Madison faces some challenges in that women’s at the international level have not really been competing in the Madison for long. I think that’s a trickle down thing. Now that it’s an option for the women in the Olympics, I think you’ll start to see more women participating in the Madison.
Joan Hanscom:
But I think just because it wasn’t a discipline in the past for women to participate in it, it probably inhibited that participation level a bit. But now, there’s a reason to do it. And there’s a reason to learn it. And I know in 2019, when we had a really big block of international racing at T-Town, and we had Madison on the schedule, knowing that Tokyo was around the corner, there was some scary Madison happening.
Joan Hanscom:
There was a lot of scary Madison happening. And it was notably better when we had Madison racing in, what year was it, 2021. I can’t even keep track of time anymore. It’s all become a blur. But the skill level had notably gone up by 2021 from ’19. So I hope we start to see more women participating in the Madison as well.
Dale Hughes:
I think the Madison, I think part of the challenge for us who put on Madison races is that there’s not too many tracks that really run Madison training sessions. And even at nationals, the traditional normal nationals when they have the Madison was always the last event on the schedule. And there might be one or two teams that really were focusing in on it. But the rest of the guys and women would all of a sudden sort of throw themselves, “Okay. Yeah. I’ll do the Madison. No, no. I’m tired. I don’t want to do it.”
Dale Hughes:
I mean, I know three years ago at the elites, there was only five teams in the men’s. And really, there was one really competitive team. And then, there was two others that were sort of competitive. And the other three were not even in the ball game. So I think a lot of people are afraid of the Madison because they get thrown into a Madison without enough practice, or they see a race that the writers don’t have enough training at it, and it’s scary.
Dale Hughes:
Somebody goes under an exchange, and it causes all kinds of grief. We run Madison practices two to three times a week. Madison’s practices are part of it because I feel like if you learn how to ride a Madison really effectively and efficiently, then, you can ride any kind of event that you want because you’re not stuck on a pursuit position. A lot of pursuiters are tremendous athletes and tremendous pursuiters. But they tend to be very fixed on their bike.
Dale Hughes:
And in a Madison, you’ve got to be able to move around. You’ve got to be able to float. You’ve got to be able to go elbow to elbow with somebody. And I think it really truly makes you into a better bike rider. So I really would encourage all tracks to run more Madison practices before they run a Madison.
Joan Hanscom:
Absolutely. And I will say a well-raced Madison is just thrilling to watch. It is must-see TV, right? When it’s really good, it’s really good. And it’s so exciting to watch and you can see the order coming out of the chaos in some ways. It looks on the surface just absolutely chaotic. But then you start to see the rhythm of it. And you start to be able to follow it. It is for the viewer, the watcher of the racing, I think one of the most exciting disciplines on the track to watch, because it is so dynamic and has a little bit of everything in it to your point.
Dale Hughes:
It does. [crosstalk 00:33:56] I actually think the points race is actually a sketchier than a Madison if you have all Madison writers that know how to ride a Madison, because in a points race, people can, all of a sudden, almost stop pedaling because they don’t want to make an effort. And everybody’s all over.
Dale Hughes:
There’s no rhyme or reason for where position is. It’s like you can go anywhere whereas in Madison, there is an order. And you need to know that order. It’s not a points race where you just pull up in lollygag and wait for everybody to go under. You have to pull through. But anyways, I’ll hung up on it. There’s no doubt about it.
Joan Hanscom:
Well, that’s good. There’s no doubt that it’s your passion, Dale, which I personally appreciate. I love talking with people on the pod that love what they do and believe in what they do or are inspired to get done every day. So no. I love it. I think you’ve got a passion for it. You’re true to your passion. And that’s an amazing thing. We need more people like that in this sport.
Dale Hughes:
I’d like to build five more of these around the country. That’s my goal. They don’t need to be 166s. They could be 200s. I think in the East Coast, you could sustain a 250 indoor. But I don’t think there’s too many other places that could sustain a 250 indoor from an operational point of view. The building is just so big.
Joan Hanscom:
If you invest in it.
Dale Hughes:
My utility bill is over $15,000 a month. So if you double the size of the building, you’re going to more than double the size of your cost because the building even has to be higher. So you’re talking about 30 to $40,000 utility bill. That’s a heavy load.
Joan Hanscom:
I used to get calls every week from folks asking me saying, “Hey, I want to build an indoor 250. How do you guys stay in business? How do you guys run your programming?” And I was like, “You better start with a whole boat load of money,” because the cost of running even an outdoor velodrome is pretty astonishing.
Joan Hanscom:
But to do what you said, the power bills, the heating bills, the electricity, all of it. When you have an indoor facility is amplified and magnified. And it is an enormous financial undertaking to run a facility like that. And that’s-
Dale Hughes:
US is at a deficit because our government is not involved in our sport whereas when I build these tracks around the world, almost always, they’re built by either a city or the government itself for it’s either built for some sort of games or it’s built for their Olympic campus. I built one in Tel Aviv. And they have swimming. They have other sports at their campus. And they wanted to have a velodrome. So they built an indoor one, so a 250. It’s covered. It’s got open sides because they don’t need it to be totally indoors.
Dale Hughes:
But my point being that they get funding from the government to operate those velodromes. So it’s not on the private sector to try to make it work because a government can run deficits. The private size can’t run deficits for long before they’re gone bankrupt. Governments generally don’t go bankrupt.
Dale Hughes:
So most of the 250s that are built around the world are built for either gains or for their Olympic campus. And 250 indoor now, it’s pretty hard to build one for less than $40 million. And many of them are in a hundred to 150 million. The one in Hong Kong is 150 million. The one in Kazakhstan that I built is over $150 million. Well, only a government could prop those up from a overhead point of view.
Dale Hughes:
Think about the interest rate alone on $150-million loan. It’s way too big for the sport to able to accomplish. And the US we don’t have any. I wish years ago, the Congress had instituted the lottery, the Olympic a lottery, because we would be all better off. But each of the states didn’t want to give up their money from their local lotteries to go to the Olympic lottery. So it never passed. That was a shame.
Joan Hanscom:
I know. And when you compare the GB budget for cycling versus the USA cycling budget, and you understand that GBs, I think, what is it, 12 and a half million pounds, which is 24 million roughly compared to what our elite athletics budget is. It’s just mind blowing.
Dale Hughes:
Yeah. There’s no comparison.
Joan Hanscom:
And so how do we compete as a nation? We do pretty well actually competing as a nation, given just the disparate funding. But your point is absolutely well taken that a lot of these heavy hitting nations for cycling are funded in [inaudible 00:39:16] that we are not. And that is a [crosstalk 00:39:19].
Dale Hughes:
We have a hard time funding. We have a hard time funding, even our Olympic athletes. I mean they don’t get much help. They don’t get much help.
Joan Hanscom:
No. And I say that not as a knock on USA cycling. I mean their budget restrictions are real. Again, when you’re funding it raised essentially on donations through foundations and sponsorship versus federal funding, it’s a tough nut to crack. So I have much sympathy on the funding front for USA cycling as they don’t have the same income streams as the other countries do.
Dale Hughes:
Well, up until our deflation, we were paying all our own bills. We were making it work. I think in the two and a half years, we’ve been open four years. But almost a whole year of it was lost to COVID. So in under three years, we’ve given away over… Well, it’s probably over $160,000 in rider support in prizes or support one way or the other.
Dale Hughes:
So our goal is to try to really make it so that a bike rider can make a living racing over the winter time. So I’m really trying to create a series of events. And I’d like to create a super team of track riders that would be able to race here and race around the world during the wintertime. But then be able to race for the road team during the summertime. So that’s my next challenge because we don’t have enough track riders. So, we don’t have enough elite track writers, men and women. So we need to do something to help them choose track cycling as opposed to just choosing the [inaudible 00:41:16] or cycle cross some of the others that they can race at because there’s more venues and more races.
Joan Hanscom:
Yep. Absolutely. Well, I think it’s an admirable goal, Dale. And I’m thrilled we got a chance to talk to you about it today. I’m thrilled that we got to have you on. And again, for our listeners, follow along with what they’re doing at the Lexus Velodrome. Please, donate to help them with their reopening, their reflation, reinflation, reflation. And even though the bubble back up, give them some help, if you can, because it’s a very worthy endeavor. And we will follow along, Dale.
Joan Hanscom:
And I wish you the best of luck with your season kicking off. And I hope the events are awesome. And I hope that the COVIDs don’t interfere with your schedule. And I hope everything kicks off really well with your reinflation event. And we will see you, no doubt, out at the races one of the days very soon. Thank you so much for coming on. It’s been terrific. And we will get this thought out as soon as we can.
Dale Hughes:
I really appreciate it. I thank you for the opportunity. I will say that February 18th and 19th, if you want to go to Flow Sports or to Facebook Lexus Velodromes, you could watch our races. But I would say people that want to donate money, we’d love to have it. But if T-Town is doing a fundraiser themselves, donate to your local track because every local track needs some funding. We’ve got a great community here that’s been really supportive. But we will take your money. But we’d also ask you to flip your own track because they all need it. Thank you very much, folks.
Joan Hanscom:
Thanks Dale. Thanks for joining us.
Dale Hughes:
Bye-bye.
Joan Hanscom:
So, this has been the Talk of the T-Town Podcast with our guest, Dale Hughes. Follow along on the show notes so that you can find links to everything we talked about here today. And if you enjoyed the pod, please give us the thumbs up, the stars, the likes, the hearts, and help us grow our podcast. Thanks for listening.
Joan Hanscom:
Thank you for listening. This has been the Talk of the T-Town Podcast. I’m your host, Joan Hanscom. Thank you for joining us for this week’s episode. Head over to our website at thevelodrome.com where you can check out the show notes and subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode.