The most unique velodrome in the world

Coolest and coldest 🥶

Thank you for posting this video. But I want to introduce you to another unique track: the Forest City Velodrome in London, Ontario, Canada – also known as fake London. It was built inside of a hockey rink in 2001. We wanted to make it 142m to make 7 laps per Kilometre but after it was complete it measured 138! The straights measure about 20 deg and the corners 50 deg. For many years it was the only indoor track in eastern Canada after the Montreal velodrome from the 1976 Olympics was shut down.
But a few years ago, a state of the art 250m track was built outside Toronto, two hours drive east, for the Pan Am games and a training centre for the Olympic program. So things have been tough. Our little track almost closed last year but is on life support. We do not host races anymore because they do that in Toronto. But the six day races run over two weekends, particularly the madison races were intense.
The gentlemen who designed the track, Albert Coulier, and his sons built it, was a track racer back in the 1950's. They had a system to build tracks that could be assembled and removed. They were even shorter with corners banked at almost 55 deg. Our track can be removed from the building and put somewhere else.
At its peak, pre covid, we ran programs 7 days a week with participants from 5 to 85 years of age. Competitive and recreational. Sadly, this facility may be lost in the next year or two without massive funding or someone buying the building to keep it going.
The building was London Gardens which housed the London Knights of the Ontario Junior hockey league. This is part of teams all across Canada which developed more players for the NHL than in the US which has 8 times our population. It also hosted rock concerts, circuses and many other activities over the years.