[CR] Videos: Dorais Velodrome - Detroit MI

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From: <FujiFish1@aol.com>
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2010 01:31:58 EDT
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Subject: [CR] Videos: Dorais Velodrome - Detroit MI


I've been wanting to go and check out the carcass of what was once the Dorais Velodrome, a cement track located on the east side of Detroit, Michigan, and tonight I was doing a little looking around on the Internet. I found a couple of You Tube videos showing action at the track, and thought they might be of interest to the group.

Endless Road Productions - Richard Noiret, the man behind the film documentary about Detroit cycling history, 'Catch The Wind' made a short clip linking the construction of Dorais in time for the July 1969 ABLA National championships there, with the launch of NASA's Apollo 11 lunar landing mission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffMh1WtL_iQ

RochesterCycling posted this footage of the 1990 National championships there ... with much "Keeper of the Flame" content, and certainly in the spirit of our lugged steel racing bikes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajw4_atCgjU&NR=1

I believe the Dorais Velodrome was abandoned shortly after this, due to too many dangerous inconsistencies in the cement surface ... and perhaps of the neighborhood as well! Wish I'd have seen some races there, but I was out of cycling then, and didn't even know about it till after the turn of this century, when I once again became involved in cycling. Cest la' vie...

Ciao,
Mark Agree
Southfield, Michigan, USA