Since we are discussing inside the track usage, I hope my track tale is not off topic: My local has a grass infield that is used as a landing pad for the big helicopter bringing patients to the nearby university hospital. A car pulls up at the gate and someone in a suit comes out and sometimes nearly gets run over while flagging us down to tell us to stop riding and scatter to the outer edges of the track, all very hurried like. Then off in the distance the whump whump whump of the helicopter grows more audible to somewhat deafening as it comes beating in. The wind gets kicked up like a force nine gale, a bike in a stand can get blown over, then a poor soul gets carried out in a gurney and is rolled away to a waiting ambulance that whisks them away with the siren blaring. The helicopter lifts away, force nine again, and those who waited or didn't wait for the all clear sign are back to their anti-clockwise movements on the track; probably some like myself, thinking that it is better to be healthy out riding, than having to be wheeled away under someone else's power. Long live track bikes!
Dennis Young
Hotaka, Japan
> Dan commented: "And thus we have the answer to the question, can a
> bike
> track fit into the
> footprint of a hockey rink? Yes, indeed it can."
>
> The Frankfurt Germany velodrome is converted into a skating rink in
> the
> winter, however they fit two rinks into the infield. I used to live
> less
> than one km from the velodrome and would take my road bike onto the
> track in summer and played ice hockey there during the winter.
>
> Steven Maasland
> Moorestown, NJ