Steps Back, Steps Forward

The past month has been somewhat eventful for the Dryside Velodrome, in ways both good and bad.  Luckily most of the setbacks have been fairly minor and the progress has been considerable, enough so that we are finally ready to host our first event! (The premier Dryside Velodrome Work day and Full moon party – October 23rd!)   But we’ll start from the beginning.  Many of you have noticed (and commented in one way or another) that the amazing video that the previous post links to has been removed from youtube.  This video was originally meant as a supplement to the Dryside application to the Pepsi Refresh Project.  Much of the driving force behind the Dryside project is coming from collegiate cyclists who race for Fort Lewis, got involved with the sport through the Fort Lewis College cycling team, and have done a considerable amount of track racing in the FLC team kits.  This lead to the original video containing many images of Fort Lewis/FLC cycling team property, logos, team kits, etc.  Almost as quickly as the video was posted it was seen by interested parties at the college and red tape started to fly.  Needless to say it became obvious that it would be far easier to remove the video and remove all aspects of the project as completely as possible from Fort Lewis College and the cycling team instead of trying to jump through so many hoops for very little gain.  There are no hard feelings with the college or FLC cycling, that’s just the way the bureaucratic cookie crumbles.  As usual this setback proved to be an opportunity through which we were able to create an even better video and further define our identity as a whole community based project as opposed to one with only strong ties to Fort Lewis College or the FLC cycling team.

The second minor setback we encountered was also related to our submission to the Refresh Project.  This is an amazing program that is funding hundreds of deserving and diverse projects around the country and is gaining fame every day.  Knowing this our hardworking volunteer/Pepsi submission coordinator/video editor had our submission complete and ready several days before the submission deadline so that voting could begin Oct. 1st.  She was in the middle of a long stretch of traveling to races (collegiate immediately followed by the Elite national track championships) and the constant changing of time zones may have gotten very slightly the best of her and she submitted our application only 35 minutes after the submission site was opened and it had already filled up (1000 entries in 35 minutes!) So hopefully everybody was ready to vote and will still be when we successfully submit our application to the project on November 1st. You will be able to vote here.

Now for the biggest success of the past month (and maybe since the project started). All the people involved in the project are happy to announce the we are finally ready to host our first public event at the actual real-life Dryside Velodrome! Dozens (hundreds?) of hours have been spent with earth moving equipment and angle jigs and tape measures getting the velodrome completely dialed in –  symetrical, exact length, exact and proper angles, smooth transition to a flat wide apron, the whole works.

So the velodrome has finally gotten to the point where earth movers are too much, it needs the gentle loving hands of cycling loving volunteers to come up and fine tune the surface and pound the dirt until it’s as hard as concrete.  This is a chance for everyone to see the project and realize how real it is (not just in my imagination and on this website) and help get it closer to being finished and have a good time. So mark your calendars for October 23rd for the Dryside Work Day and Full moon party! Work starts at 10 am, show up any time and stay for as long as you want, we’ll work until it’s finished or until it’s dark and then we’ll start the party. Bring anything you think might be useful (shovels, rakes, hoses, friends, food, drinks, dirt tampers, cash money, or anything else you can think of). Parking is somewhat limited so try to carpool (or for the high energy types, ride your bike out).  The address is:

12189 County Road 120 (somewhat near the top intersection of Wildcat canyon)

Directions from Durango

So I hope to see everybody out there, it’ll will be fun, come see the progress for yourself, and as usual spread the word and email us if you have and questions.

PS – Here is the Event Page for you Facebookers

PPS – Special thanks to Terry James and company for donating all of the equipment and operators to move hundreds of tons of dirt and make or modest dream happen. Without him and the drivers we would still be out there with shovels.