Junior Track Cycling

Thanks to Nicholas Ferguson I have a link to a new page of results, the South Australian Cycling Federation Junior Under 17 Men & Women Junior Under 15 Men & Women State Track Championships. I have added quite a few of the 200 meter, 500 meter and 2k pursuit times to the database.

I also blundered across a list of profiles of some of the juniors on South Australia.

The pages are in a question and answer format, with entries like “Pet hate? Bad Driving, loud eating.”

My pet peeve is web articles which mention ages or relative dates (e.g. “this April”) but don’t have a date on the article. If you don’t know how old the article is, the information is worthless.

Nothing at all to do with the velodrome this time, but I’m excited to have one of my pictures used as the background in the t-shirt for our club’s biggest annual race, the ST Bikes Cat’s Hill Classic. If you are in Northern California (or can visit), save May 13, 2006 for this race. Registration is open now.

T-shirt design by Aldene Gordon of LGBRC. If you like this, also see her web design site.

T-Shirt artwork for the Cat's Hill Classic

Original before cropping

Monitoring the weather right now and it does not look promising. Will update tomorrow morning. Also we should be available via phone.

Update: We will be at the track. As a reminder, the policy for the track is that if the surface is wet and it does not look like conditions will permit it to dry, the session will be cancelled. If there is any doubt, contact us before you leave your home to come to the track.

Recap: We had a good session. The rain which hit much of the area spared Hellyer until about 4:30 and then gradually made the track too wet to ride. It was windy the whole time, but not a big problem, and we got in plenty of riding.

A little off topic since these are road camps…

Emails are going out about the USAC development camps to be held this Summer. Any cyclist in the USA might want to consider qualifying for and attending the camp in his or her region. You can link to the flyer for USA Cycling’s West Coast Athlete Development Camp. If are in another region ask around or check with USA Cycling and I’m sure you can find the correct flyer.

On another note, there is a national-level camp going on this month in the Texas hill country. It’s too late to apply, but I’m just mentioning this for the sake of information. These camps are by invitation only, depending on your category and other performances. Performance at the camp is a key ingredient in getting selected for the travelling junior team which goes to Europe. Of course not everyone at the camp expects to make that team since the camp accepts close to 40 riders and the travelling team is small. I expect that the camp is a very good experience, at least if you are ready for two time trials and hundreds of other miles of other riding packed into a single week, along with skill clinics and lectures.

Today I attended the Handmade Bicycle Show in San Jose. This is a meeting of frame and bicycle builders and some of their suppliers. It was a fun show, with very few of the big corporations but plenty of fascinating designs and interesting customers.

I went to every booth displaying a track frame, plus a few with nice fixed gear road bikes. At each I asked more or less the same question: “How small a track bike would you be willing to build.” My original thought was to make a table including these numbers, but most of the builders did not have a pat answer. Such is the nature of custom building. If you want to order something they will consider what it takes. If they can’t do it they’ll say so. Many of the builders will make almost any size you need, using smaller wheel sizes if needed. A few won’t go below a 650c or even 700c wheel, but can still build a bike down to 46 cm or so.

Here are some things to consider as you read the list below.

1. These are custom bikes. Frames often run $1200 to $2500, though some go as low as $600 or so. Whether this makes sense for a growing junior is up to you.
2. Some small adults read this site. For you, any of these would make great bikes.
3. I can’t personally vouch for the quality of these bikes, but most of them are recognized names in the industry. They all looked good and every person I met was knowledgeable and easy to talk to.
4. These builders don’t make stock bikes. Don’t expect to say “I need to order a 44cm track bike” and get a standard model delivered next week. They will work with you to define exactly what you need, and their schedules vary widely.

Here’s the list of builders I talked to:

My previous article “Junior-sized Track Bikes” lists a different set of builders, including some lower-cost options.