ERIE, CO (BRAIN)—A 250-meter outdoor velodrome seems to be on its way in a small Colorado town of roughly 16,000 residents.
Erie, Colorado town leaders approved construction of the Boulder Valley Velodrome earlier this week. It’s being planned on a 4.2-acre site at the intersection of Bonnell Avenue and County Line Road. Erie is located 15 miles east of Boulder.
“The location is really ideal,” said Frank Banta, president of Boulder-based Boneshaker LLC, to Boulder’s DailyCamera. He’s heading up the project with partner Doug Emerson, who’s the owner of Boulder-based retailer University Bicycles.
Emerson told Bicycle Retailer and Industry News that he’s confident the money will be raised to build this velodrome, and if things go according to plan it could be up and running a year from now.
Emerson said he’s been working on this project for about five years now.
“The community has embraced this from the very beginning,” Emerson said. “The Erie community has been really easy to deal with.”
The track in Erie will join Boulder Indoor Cycling, a smaller indoor velodrome that opened less than two years ago in east Boulder, and the 333-meter 7-Eleven United States Olympic Training Center Velodrome in Colorado Springs, which was built in 1982, according to the Daily Camera.
Emerson said he’ll accept 10 clubs the velodrome’s first year and that he’s looking for local candidates. Further details on the velodrome will be released on a Web site in late September.
—Jason Norman
jnorman@bicycleretailer.com
