Episode 68
“There’s opportunities for everyone from Olympic gold medalists to brand new athletes coming from other sports. It’s really fun.”
This week’s guest is similar to host Andrew Paradowski– Canadian and a Velodrome director! Andrew is joined by VELO Sports Center’s very own Travis Smith. The two talk a little bit of velodrome history, the benefits of having an indoor 250, what the VELO Sports Center has to offer, and much more (including Travis’s favorite movie and music to train to)
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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
Maura Beuttel:
Broadcasting to you from the Valley Preferred Cycling Center. This is the Talk the T-Town podcast where we discuss all things track cycling.
Andrew Paradowski:
Welcome back to another episode of Talk of the T-Town. I’m your host, Andrew Paradowski, and we’re here to talk about all things T- Town and all things cycling. Today our guest is Travis Smith from Los Angeles. He is the director of the VELO Sports Center, the only indoor, fully permanent walled ceilinged 250 in the United States, and he is here to talk to us about life in LA at that track and all the other things that go with being a track director. Hi Travis. How’s it going?
Travis Smith:
Good. Good. Thank you for having me on your show today.
Andrew Paradowski:
Well, we certainly enjoy having you here as well. It’s a treat for me as well to sit down and talk with a fellow track director here. It’s a small community and it’s good that we’re able to do things like this. So we certainly do appreciate you coming out here today. So why don’t we just dive right into it and tell us a little bit about the VELO Sports Center?
Travis Smith:
Yeah, you kind of hit it on the intro, but yeah, we’re the only permanent UCI 250 velodrome in North, sorry… In the United States. We were the first 250 indoor velodrome in North America back in 2004. So obviously you know that Milton in Canada and one in Bromont Quebec, and now one is being built in Edmonton. So they’re popping up kind of everywhere right now in Canada, and the United States, and Mexico. So it’s good for us. Good for you as well. But yeah, we are the only velodrome that has hosted currently, every event that you can host up until the Olympics, and that’s slated for 2028. It’s pretty exciting.
Andrew Paradowski:
Right. So we mentioned that the velodrome is in Los Angeles, but that’s a pretty big place where exactly would one find the VELO Sports Center.
Travis Smith:
Avalon and Carson? No, literally it’s in Carson, California. So we’re attached to the Dignity Health Sports Park, which is the home of the Galaxy Soccer team. So we are owned by AEG, which is Anschutz Entertainment Group. It’s the world, one of the world’s largest entertainment groups, and they also own a Velodrome. So, which makes it exciting because we have a good backend that can support us with anything that we want to do over here. So-
Andrew Paradowski:
No, very cool. You also briefly mentioned the Canadian velodromes and how they’re starting to grow like weeds up there. You have a Canadian connection as well?
Travis Smith:
Yeah, I’m Canadian. I raced for the Canadian team, national team from 2003 to 2012 when I retired. That was on the national team. It’s kind of hard to remember all of this. It’s been over a decade almost. But those were good times of my life. Got to travel around the world, got to spend my summers in T-Town racing, been, it was pretty fun. It was a good time in my life. So-
Andrew Paradowski:
It kind of looks like we’re starting a trend here. Canadians coming down here to help out with the track program.
Travis Smith:
Yeah, I think, what do they say? We’re humble. We like to have everybody, we include everybody. And what better way to welcome people into our venues.
Andrew Paradowski:
There we go. So let’s talk a bit about the history of track cycling in Los Angeles. So you mentioned earlier that the track was built in 2004, but track cycling goes back a little further than that. So can you talk to us a bit about the history?
Travis Smith:
Yeah, so in Los Angeles, actually pretty much on this site where we’re at right now, the old 1984 Olympic velodrome was sitting where the soccer stadium is. I know Andrew you know where it is because you’ve been here, but most don’t. So it’s like 500 meters away from here. The story as I know it from my supervisor is Mr. Anschutz, who’s the owner of AEG, wanted to build a soccer stadium. And when they were flying around in a helicopter, they saw the location where the 84 Olympic velodrome was, and he said, “That’s where I want my soccer stadium.” Big open fields, there was not much around at that point. It’s very much developed over the years since I’ve moved here.
So they picked that location and they had to tear down the velodrome, which was Olympic legacy. And Mr. A was, and as long as I’ve known a big supporter of cycling, decided that he wanted to build a velodrome to honor the Olympic legacy. And people were saying, “No, no, no, don’t build a indoor velodrome.” But he wanted to have a world-class velodrome on his land, on his property during that time. So they built the velodrome and the VELO Sports Center was created, and that’s what we have today still. So I thank him because I have a job, I had a place to train and it was awesome. So I moved from cold Calgary, Canada to warm Los Angeles.
Andrew Paradowski:
There you go. And I think the whole cycling community has thanks for him as well. I mean, like we said, it’s up until, I guess they put a cover on the track in Colorado Springs and the Lexus Velodrome was built in Detroit. It was the only covered indoor track in the USA and up until, well, I guess Forest City Velodrome was built around the same time. It was oh five I think it came out. And then Burnaby been around for a while, so we’re talking less than a handful of indoor tracks, only one in the US. So it certainly did help both the US team and the Canadian team who I know came down to Los Angeles in the winters prior to the Milton Track being built in 2015. So it certainly did help track cycling in the Americas.
Travis Smith:
Yeah, we were actually based out out of here. I mean I moved in 2004, but Canada decided to, this was their home base from probably 2007 all the way till 2015 or just before when Milton opened. So this was a home for US national team and the Canadian national team for many years, which was nice. We had good racing because of that. It’s been hard to match.
Andrew Paradowski:
So you had mentioned that the proprietor of AEG sorry, Mr. Anschutz, is that right?
Travis Smith:
Yeah, Anschutz. We call him Mr. A.
Andrew Paradowski:
Yep. So he wanted to build an indoor track. When was that decision made? Do you know what year sort of?
Travis Smith:
I would, no, I don’t know exactly. But before 2003.
Andrew Paradowski:
So I’m curious because it feels kind of prescient, right? Because I’d have to go back and look at my Olympic history. I’m not that sharp on it, but I believe Atlanta was the last time it was held outdoors, track cycling. I think Sydney was indoors and then after that it was-
Travis Smith:
So Sydney was Dunc Gray Velodrome. Then he went to Athens, which was kind of 50/50. It had a roof, but open walls.
Andrew Paradowski:
Right. Much some of the sort of northern end of the South American velodromes, like Cali and stuff, right?
Travis Smith:
Yeah.
Andrew Paradowski:
Or Egypt and Tel Aviv nowadays. So-
Travis Smith:
Then he went out to Beijing and then London, Rio, Tokyo, and they’re all indoors. So yeah, I mean there’s not much many races that are outdoors anymore at UCI level. That’s why for me it was really nice to come spend our summers in T-Town or other velodromes that were around at that time like Portland and San Jose and they had good race scenes as well. So it just changed it up. It was good for the mind.
Andrew Paradowski:
So just touching back on the sort of pressence of it now, like you said, there aren’t too many races that are held on outdoor velodromes. I mean we do class one events here in T-Town and it’s probably the highest we can go. Maybe we could do continental championships if nobody else bid on it and Copacy was interested in doing that, but for sure we’re not doing nations cups or junior worlds or anything that high level anymore. So having the indoor Velodrome for sure before or on or about the same time that it looked like they were shifting from being an outdoor sport to an indoor sport, certainly did help.
Travis Smith:
Yeah, and it’s been nice. Having an indoor velodrome in LA is always difficult at itself. I mean, that’s our number one battle asking people to come indoors, pay money to ride a bike when you can ride outside along the beach pretty much every day of the year. That’s a little bit of a battle.
Andrew Paradowski:
That’s a good segue, actually. I’ve got that as a question. So why don’t we jump into what you guys are doing now at the VELO Sports Center. So let’s talk about programming. We have a lot of listeners here who have been there for different events. Either they’ve been high performance athletes, masters because you guys just recently hosted Masters Worlds or someone looking to go on vacation and trying a different track, different reasons. But we also have a good host of our listeners and folks here in Lehigh Valley who’ve never been to Carson. So I fly out there, what’s on offer?
Travis Smith:
Yeah, well you come out here, you get to ride a 250 world-class indoor velodrome. So that’s nice. And a lot of people when they first walk in, our velodrome is much different than other velodromes that you might have been to because I think Milton’s a pretty easy drive from you guys. But when you walk into our velodrome, it’s much smaller. We have a world-class velodrome with a brick building just built around it. We don’t have all the amenities and unused space that is seen in a lot of velodromes, which at the same time is a good thing. I believe being a track manager and seeing how it runs, it’s a good thing to have everything being used.
So when you first walk in, you are right at the track surface. Yeah, the first thing that you see is flags from around the world hanging from our roof, and then you just look over and you see a 44.7 degree banking and you can’t escape that because that’s the first thing that you see when you walk through our lobby.
Most people walk in and say some choice words, “Like no way, I’m never going to make it around that velodrome.” But they do. So the very first, to answer your question, the very first thing that we try to offer people if they’ve not been on our track is a sample session. A sample session is just a very easy one hour coached session to expose yourself to it, feel what a board feels like, feel what a track bike feels like. We don’t really go higher than above the sprinter’s lane, it’s just getting them around the track. So, that’s our first step here. After that, we require everybody to be certified very much like a driver’s license to drive a car. You have to go through our certification, which is three classes. Once you’re certified, then you have your driver’s license and you can ride in any of our sessions, which range from open training, all the way to coach sessions in the evenings, which are more like a organized spin class.
So a lot of the people don’t like to race, they just like to come out and get a very good hard workout. We call that the VELO Jam. So it’s music loud, people ride hard and they just have a good time. So that’s fun. And then as you said before, we have the national team based here. The National Sprint Team is based here now. I coach, I’d say it’s an elite group that ranges anywhere from young riders all the way up to 83 years old is my oldest rider, but they’re retired, they can trade midday or they’re professionals, they can train midday. And it makes it a little bit easier and it fills our track time when there’s kind of some dead space.
Andrew Paradowski:
What about racing? Do you have a regularly scheduled racing program? Grassroots, pro, anything?
Travis Smith:
Yeah, we don’t have as good of a racing scene as you, that’s for sure. Racing is more of… Our time trial scene here is bigger than our mass start racing.
Andrew Paradowski:
Really?
Travis Smith:
Yeah, it’s weird. A lot of our members just like to race against themselves. They don’t want to put themselves into these groups where some people view it as world championships or whatever, but-
Andrew Paradowski:
It’s not as crazy as it sounds. We run time trial events here on Saturdays once a month. And I wouldn’t say they sell out, but they certainly sell really well. There’s just as high, if not maybe even slightly higher attendance at those events as a standard sort of mass start Saturday morning kind of race.
Travis Smith:
Which is good because we were shot, I mean LA was one of the first places to really shut down and one of the last to open back up. So we weren’t doing anything for a good year. We were shot. It’s been tough to get back to pre-pandemic numbers. People have either moved on, or stopped racing, or went to the road, I don’t know. But it’s been a little bit difficult to get back to pre-pandemic numbers. But to answer your question about racing, LAVRA is LA’s Race Organization, they’re pretty good. We’ve struggled maintaining race directors over the years, but it’s been pretty consistent with guys step or girls stepping up to take on that volunteer role and get some good racing going. And just recently a new group has come out called Skunk Works Racing. We’re implementing just Wednesday night races once a month, one or might even be twice a month they’re doing now.
And it’s just practice racing. USAC permitted, but it is just for fun. Results aren’t being posted. We come out, we race. It’s just more of a training race session. After the races, the coaches that we have here at the velodrome, which I hope you ask me about, because I love to poke, give them some props, they’ve all volunteered some of their time to come in and help people after the race. They sit down and they give advice and it’s really good. It’s a good plan they’ve put into play. And our first night of racing happened last Wednesday and there’s over 30 people that showed up. So it’s great. Yeah.
Andrew Paradowski:
Well that is certainly the benefit of having the indoor track indoors during the winter when… I mean the weather is pretty much nice all year round in Los Angeles. What’s the worst it could get? Maybe high fifties, low sixties.
Travis Smith:
It’s been pretty cold right now, like forties.
Andrew Paradowski:
But as you said earlier, you’ve got this… It’s generally nice all year round. So I mean, what is your season like? Do you actually have participation all year round, or is it kind of seasonal like we are in the sense that we can really only run programming from April to October?
Travis Smith:
No, I mean we have programming all year round. We’ve played over the years with different timeframes to see when it’s more popular with our racing because a lot in the years past, we’ve started early in the year when people start racing like January through April. And then a lot of people will go out to T-Town and stuff through the summer months or other velodromes and then nationals finish and it kind of, the track scene as a whole kind of slows down at that point. Or for us, we’ve had the Masters World Championships the last three times in the last four years. So that finished in October, which helped us actually, it’s good to have people go longer into the year, but post October, we have some blues over here. It’s pretty quiet.
Andrew Paradowski:
Which is generally surprising because you would think, again, if the weather is dipping down to those sort of fifties, forties even that people would be more enticed to go ride indoors.
Travis Smith:
And I think they are, it was us just trying to find ways to get them coming back here. And Skunk Works has shown us that people want to come and race on a December, Wednesday night. So this is something that I’m glad they implemented and we’re seeing people interested in it.
Andrew Paradowski:
Some of our keener listeners who like to read all the blogs and the websites will know that on Monday, USA Cycling announced the national championship calendar for next year. And those who do are aware that Elite and Junior Nationals will be in Carson next year. So you guys must be pretty excited about that?
Travis Smith:
It’s nice. I’m glad it’s coming back here. I think it’s very important, especially as an elite rider, that they race on the velodromes, that one, it’s very predictable. We don’t have weather delays. There’s no wind affecting one side versus the other. I know that it can be a little bit stagnant for some people, but I think as a coach or a national federation, it’s important to see head to head on it equal terms. So that’s good. I’m excited.
Andrew Paradowski:
Well, we don’t take any offense to that by the way. We like the outdoors in the summer.
Travis Smith:
I do too. Like I said earlier, I like the change. Change is good, it’s good for the mind, it’s good to just be in a different environment. It helps keep your body accelerating forward, moving forward instead of just being stuck in a rut. And again, I know that a lot of people feel like we have tried to crush other velodromes being an indoor 250 and putting on these races, and I’m like, that is not what I want. I would love for every velodrome in this country to be thriving because it helps you, helps me, it helps Seattle, it helps San Diego, San Jose because if the scene is growing it helps everybody all around.
Andrew Paradowski:
Absolutely. Yeah, we’re the same way. We feel that the more tracks we have, it’s like the rising tide raises all boats kind of thing, more people participating in that kind of thing. Actually it’s interesting because I’ve used to say that Milton is a good example in why we need to have more tracks. So you look at the scene in Ontario and prior to that it was you had that Forest City Velodrome that 138 inside of a hockey arena in 2005. And prior to that there was an outdoor asphalt 250 in sort of southwestern Ontario, but basically only one operating track up until 2015. And then luckily Forest City is still running and I hope that they can solve their sort of tenant, landlord issues that they’ve got going on right now. They’re trying to raise some money to overcome that, but it would be a shame to lose them from the scene because if you only have the one velodrome and it’s a beautiful velodrome, I mean it’s a great legacy from the Pan Am. games.
And like you said, it was purpose built as opposed to just being bricked around. You suggested that LA was. But the thing is, when you start a sport, you don’t go start playing at the cathedral, you know, start playing baseball, you don’t start playing in Fenway Park or one of the other big pro leagues. You play on a diamond in a park in your township, in your county kind of thing. You started in some… Just, this is my opinion, then maybe you share it as well, but if we had more grassroots tracks around the country, it would benefit the more sort of established ones like Carson and T-Town because now that’s the place where kids can go and learn. Kassena Velodrome in New York is a good example of that where it’s a outdoor 400 asphalt track that kids can go and have fun on. So we need more of that.
Travis Smith:
Oh for sure.
Andrew Paradowski:
To support-
Travis Smith:
And it’s easier to learn on. And I mean Kissena with Star Track and Pete and Dave, they’re doing a great job. And same with Seattle and Amara with their junior programs. I want to emulate them, which is tough to do because they do such a good job you guys as well. But no, you’re right. With the velodromes having easier velodromes for kids to get access to, more of them, it just takes away those limitations. Because right now, like you said, if anyone wants to go ride Milton, they either have to drive hours or they don’t ride it at, all or they ride a outdoor easy one that would help them. Luckily for us here in LA there’s just people everywhere. We really only need to target a five-mile radius around this place and we would have way too many people. So we just have to figure out how to get them here. That’s the problem
Andrew Paradowski:
For sure. All right, one of the minor traditions here at Talk of the T-Town is our rapid fire questions set.
Travis Smith:
Okay.
Andrew Paradowski:
So I got a couple questions here. So just first thing that comes to mind, we’ll just give you a couple now and we’ll do a couple later. So I’ll start off with what’s your favorite track event?
Travis Smith:
Keren.
Andrew Paradowski:
Keren. Nice. What is your favorite pro race or competition to watch?
Travis Smith:
I really have enjoyed the new Champions League.
Andrew Paradowski:
Very nice. Do you have a pro racer current or former that you admire?
Travis Smith:
Yeah, Jamie Staff.
Andrew Paradowski:
Okay. And what’s your favorite bike like bike brand?
Travis Smith:
Felt right now was my sponsor.
Andrew Paradowski:
It’s always good to represent the sponsors for sure. All right, so let’s move on to a couple more. I got a couple more questions here for you. And actually you asked earlier if I was going to ask about coaches. So why don’t we do that? Tell me about the coaching scene down there in LA.
Travis Smith:
Yeah, I think, I feel like we have a little bit of a different scene because we offer these coach sessions down here. Then I don’t know if… That are open to any member. So we have some really good coaches that have changed over the years and that’s why I would like to talk about them. One is BJ Olson, he runs our VELO Jam sessions, which is Tuesday and Thursday night. These are the organized group training that I talked about. That’s quite hard, but it’s catered towards every level. So we’d have the beginner riders working hard down at the bottom, medium level riders, middle of the track, and then our experts or really fit athletes riding at the top. So we accommodate everyone and doesn’t matter how fit or how unfit you, are or how experienced or new, there’s a spot for you everywhere, which is great.
So we also have Pete Colson who runs a bunch of our sessions here through helping out in the open training sessions because that’s a lot of times he utilizes those times. So he helps other riders when they’re here. But also he has a program on Wednesday night called The Power of Our, and it’s pretty hard. People come off there and say they’re smashed and Pete does a good job with that and he’s one of the founders of Skunk Works racing, so he’s implemented that for us, which has been so far really good. Then obviously we have Erin Hartwell as the national team coach here for sprint. Myself. Yeah, so it’s good. And being this location with these people, it makes us a little bit of a tourist destination as well. We have a bunch of riders from Canada down here escaping the minus 40 weather.
Andrew Paradowski:
Hey, now it’s not that bad. Well actually maybe in Western Canada.
Travis Smith:
I heard Edmonton was minus 40. And yeah, it wasn’t very nice, but Kelsey’s down here right now, Kelsey Mitchell training with me and the national team. As we talked about just that mental break is really good just to change things up and keeps things going forward. Yeah, we have an NFL football player that won a Super Bowl here training with me right now. So like you said there’s opportunities for everyone from Olympic gold medalists to brand new athletes coming from other sports. It’s really fun.
Andrew Paradowski:
Very cool. Why don’t we talk about track in general. Do you have any thoughts on the current scene in the US, how things are going, where you think things could go, or should be going or any sort of general concepts about it?
Travis Smith:
I mean of course I always have opinions, it’s implementing them. It’s tough. And I do come from Canada where there is a little bit more support in amateur sport versus down in the United States where amateur sport is different, it’s different on how… You have to do it for the love of what you do here, which is a shame because being a coach down here and working with athletes and seeing how hard they struggle over the last many years is kind of draining and tough. But saying that, today where we’re at, I think we’re seeing great things. We are seeing programs being implemented through USA cycling, we’re seeing a new TalentID program based out of LA here being implemented. And I can’t say anything about it yet because I don’t know how… It’s brand new, but at least it’s something. I’m very, very excited to see what comes from it.
And I’m super excited that Aaron Hartwell is kind of overseeing it. I have a lot of respect for him and feel like he’s very smart. So if it’s going to succeed, I think he’s a good guy to have as the leader, but as all velodromes know, we need more riders and that’s going to drive the national team and that’s going to grow the sport. Starts with TalentID and it starts with us, the velodromes and if we have good junior programs, good learn to ride programs, which all the velodromes I talked about earlier do. That’s just a funnel system into this TalentID and that’s going to make the job of USA cycling and Aaron Hartwell and Gary much easier. But yeah, I mean over the years what? We’ve won many medals at the Olympics from Team Pursuit, Jen Valente won the Omnium. We now need to see the sprint side growing. So I hope it does. My fingers are crossed, but I think we’re in a good spot. So-
Andrew Paradowski:
Tell us a bit more about Travis Smith. You know mentioned a few times, you’re from Canada, you used to race a bit. Why don’t you tell us about your history in cycling and you mentioned earlier before we started the show, that you don’t ride much anymore and I’m interested to find out how that happened and if it’s likely this, it could be the same reason that I don’t ride as much anymore. Because when you start getting involved in the production of the sport, then it kind of provides less time to actually do it. But we’ll leave it with you. Where does Travis Smith the cyclist come from and where is he today?
Travis Smith:
Yeah, well I mean it came through many sports that got me to cycling, which is weird in Canada as you know to be a cyclist, but I started as a swimmer from a young age, was enjoyed it a lot. Kind of burned out as I got better at it because they jumped in, you had much more workouts happening a day and someone said to me, “You should do triathlon.” Through that time. So I did triathlon, made the national team, went to the world championships in triathlon, represented Canada in 1995. A long time ago, but I think in ’96 or ’97 the ITU made drafting part of triathlon and I was not a good runner, I was a good swimmer, and I was a strong cyclist, but I was an okay runner and it made it tougher. It became a running race.
And someone said to me at that point, “Have you ever tried track or you already ride a bike?” And I’m like, “What is track? What’s track cycling? I’ve never heard of it.” Didn’t even know Calgary had a velodrome and it’s a 400 meter outdoor concrete track. And I say, “Yeah, I’ll try it.” Got certified, raced the Canadian National Championships that weekend, like three days after getting certified. And I won two bronze medals and that was it for me. I loved it. It was a lot like swimming, kind of just following a black line around the track.
And then in 2003 I qualified for National Team, went to my first World Cups and from there it was kind of all over the world. Went to Commonwealth Games. I won two medals at the Commonwealth Games in 2006. I’ve been Pan American Champion, 30 time Canadian champion on the velodrome. I hold a track record at your velodrome still. I think it’s the only one I have left. I might still have one in Calgary actually. So it was fun. But when I retired in 2012, it was right after all the Olympic qualifying and all that, and qualified for the Olympics and I retired. I was just done. I was ready to be done. You’re always chasing money, you’re always trying to eat properly and it’s really hard when you’re not making a ton and living in LA. So I was just ready. And now fast-forward 10 years, as you said, it’s harder to have the time when you’re trying to put on the races and be at the track for hundreds of hours during those events. I also have two little kids, a six-year-old and a three-year old that make it pretty difficult to just hop on my bike and go away for four hours.
Andrew Paradowski:
That’ll do it.
Travis Smith:
But that said, I started running, as much as I hate it, but it is easier. It’s the time to go for a 30-minute run and feel like you did something, has helped me and just getting back in shape a little bit feels good again. And I do get on the mountain bike probably once a week. I go out Sundays, but track once I’m done here, I’m out.
Andrew Paradowski:
You’re out. So I want to put an asterisk on something you said earlier. I do want to remind listeners, those who are interested in starting to race track that Travis was already a professional athlete before he started track. So going from trying the track to three days later, going to national championships is not a recommended path for most. I always encourage everyone to try the smaller races first because I have seen it where a novice has done that, where this is my first race, what do I do? And this is national championships, so it’s a bit of a jump to do. Yeah. But I’m sure-
Travis Smith:
But there are those people and I, there’s so many stories you hear over the time, obviously the history at our sport. There’s a coach here, Roger Young, probably not another cycling person in this country, knows as much as Roger. He’s got stories, on stories, on stories and I love to hear them. And he talks about Erin Hartwell, kind of this kid in Indiana. Someone gave, he had a neighbor had a track bike and he hopped on and rode a 107 kilo and that was it. Guy wins two Olympic medals, and it does happen.
Andrew Paradowski:
Well, maybe we can get Roger to come on the podcast and talk about those stories.
Travis Smith:
You should. It would probably be one of your most entertaining ones. He’s very good at all of this and he knows everything about the sport.
Andrew Paradowski:
Very cool. So great. All right, so I got a couple more questions for you before we end the show today. Earlier on you had mentioned that you liked watching the TCL, the new Track Champions League that started last year. Yeah, we just had Maggie Coles-Lyster on the show. We also had Dylan Bibic on the show earlier this year. We’re hoping to get Grant Koontz on the show, see if we can nail him down to come and talk about his experiences at the TCL. Tell us what you think about that race. What makes it exciting for you?
Travis Smith:
Well, obviously having the velodromes, being able to have all the light shows and the music and the entertainment adds value to just the racing. I mean, anyone listening to us talk today already loves the sport. They know how exciting the sport can be. But we need to, as we’ve talked about, and every velodrome knows, we need more people. And I think what UCI is trying to do here by making it bright, loud, fun, quick racing, it’s over a few weekends so people can pick who they like and follow them. I just feel like all of it just creates a little bit more of a fan following, which with fan following comes new riders. So I would love to put on one of those races one day just because I like how exciting it is, but I don’t think we could afford it. I think it’s quite expensive. Looks-
Andrew Paradowski:
It sure is. There’s a lot of tech there, but who knows, maybe someone from the UCI is listening to this podcast and will give you a call after this saying, “Oh really you want to host? Okay, let’s talk.” Right?
Travis Smith:
Yeah. And I talked to them quite a bit, so I did mention that to them one day that I would be willing if it made sense. So-
Andrew Paradowski:
For sure. I mean the scene is different in Europe for sure. They certainly do have the fan base. I mean was at Worlds in Paris back in October, and I was just blown away by the immense amount of volume that was created by the crowd in there. It was almost deafening. You’re sitting there, especially when there was a French rider who was doing well, or on the podium, or something like that. It was tore the roof off coming. So to have that here in North America would be great.
Travis Smith:
I know actually where the best place is, and I’ve raced in Paris and Cali, Colombia. Man, it is nothing like racing in Cali, Colombia. It is loud, they cheer for everybody, but if a Colombian’s doing well, man, like you said it’s a good thing there’s no walls because they, they’d be blown out. It is fun. It’s a lot of fun. It’s different for sure.
Andrew Paradowski:
What do you think about, so coming up this August, we’ve got Super Worlds in Glasgow. Yeah. Where for the listeners who don’t know, the UCI decided that they want to, every four years take every single world championships in the sport of cycling, every discipline and have them located in one area, one town, one region. So that it’s this one big event, much like the World Cup of soccer. It happens every four years. Something to look forward to. It’s in Glasgow this year and they’ve already settled on, I believe it’s in France, I can’t remember which city it’s in. So they want keep doing this and try to attract, make a spectacle of it. So what are your thoughts on the Super World’s idea?
Travis Smith:
I’m glad I’m not running. It sounds miserable there, but as a fan, I think it’s kind of, it’s cool. It’s kind of like a mini Olympics or a Pan Am. Championships or any of that stuff. Like you said, it’s all happening over a certain amount of days and you can make a vacation out of it and you could catch everything from BMX to Mountain Bike. I mean, it’s cool. I think it’s cool. It’ll be neat to see how it works out, but I do feel like people will back it and it’ll be a fun thing to see. But yeah, I don’t want to organize it.
Andrew Paradowski:
Just doing one major event is certainly enough. And I’ve got another series of rapid fire questions to end off this interview. Before we do that, I guess my final question, we’re talking about major events is what are the plans for the future for you in the VELO Sports Center? Anything big coming up that our listeners would be keen to know about?
Travis Smith:
Well, obviously we have the national championships coming up next year. The last time it was held here was 2019. So I think just trying to get that going and having good people racing, a good show within what we can do. But just welcoming the Junior and Elite and I’m a big fan that the Juniors are part of this Elite nationals. You need to… As a young kid, I remember looking up to these elite riders, the Jen Valente, the Chloes, and trying to be like them. That was my goal as my whole life. So I want them to be here. I want lots of Juniors to be here and have that. But yeah, there’s some stuff in the works. Can’t really speak about them, but fingers crossed they come out.
Andrew Paradowski:
Oh, come on, you can share on this. We’ll keep your secret. All 300 of us.
Travis Smith:
Yeah, yeah. Fingers crossed they come to fruition.
Andrew Paradowski:
So I guess where I was trying to go with this as well, and you touched on it briefly at the start of the podcast, is the ’28 Olympics.
Travis Smith:
Yep.
Andrew Paradowski:
So that’s coming. It’s a freight train on its way. So what’s, I mean, I guess the publicly available plan for what’s happening with track, is it going to be at the VELO Sports Center? Is it going to be somewhere else?
Travis Smith:
I think you probably know as much as me. Honestly. What I do know is it’s going to be this location. I don’t know the amount of construction that’s going to need. I do know the minimums. We have to add some restrooms, and change rooms, and anti-doping rooms downstairs somehow. But we’re going to try to have the velodrome stay, the VELO Sports Center as much as possible, within the IOC and UCI, whatever they allow us to do. So, but I don’t know that much, honestly. All I know is it’s coming here and like you said, real quick, before we know it’s going to be here. So-
Andrew Paradowski:
Absolutely. Very cool. All right, let’s do some more rapid fire questions then to cap off this podcast. What’s your favorite movie?
Travis Smith:
Oh, Elf.
Andrew Paradowski:
What is the best music to train to?
Travis Smith:
Rap.
Andrew Paradowski:
Any specific types or?
Travis Smith:
I liked the ’90s, 2000s. I don’t like the new stuff as much.
Andrew Paradowski:
What is your favorite post-race or ride snack?
Travis Smith:
A Coke. I like a Coke.
Andrew Paradowski:
No food, it’s just a Coke?
Travis Smith:
No, just I’m a sprinter. I could go off without. No, no. It’s mostly if I was in Canada, I would go for a Coke and a Donair. It’s my two favorite things.
Andrew Paradowski:
Nice. And do you have a favorite inspirational quote?
Travis Smith:
Yes. What would it be though? And I haven’t had to think of a quote for 10 years. And now I used to tell myself one all the time and I can’t remember.
Speaker 3:
He’s putting you on the spot.
Travis Smith:
He is. Yep. But there’s one that was said. “Sometimes you have to remind people why you’re the lion.” Why you’re the best. I like that one.
Andrew Paradowski:
Very cool. All right, Travis, thank you so much for coming out today and speaking with us. We were certainly glad to have you on talk of the Talk of the T-Town.
Travis Smith:
Thanks Andrew, and good luck for you guys this coming year.
Andrew Paradowski:
Thank you very much. And yourself as well.
Travis Smith:
Thanks.
Andrew Paradowski:
All right, so that wraps up another episode of Talk of the T-Town. Be sure to check us out in the coming weeks for more episodes and of course, sign up for us on your favorite streaming app or service where you can find podcasts like Spotify and all the like. And we’re looking forward to you listening to us next time.
Maura Beuttel:
Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Talk the T-Town Town podcast. If you like what you heard, please rate us and leave a comment on wherever you consume your podcasts. To find out more on this week’s cast, head on over to our website, the velodrome.com to check out the show notes and subscribe so you never miss an episode.