12-25-2006, 05:06 AM
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#12 (permalink)
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| | Re: Velodrome
marian.rosenberg@gmail.com wrote:
> There is nothing I like more than when someone who has been involved in
> cycling longer than I have been alive turns to me in front of a crowd
> of people and asks if his English pronunciation of a technical French
> term is correct.
>
> It's one thing when someone who doesn't know me very well and hasn't
> known me for very long does something like that. It's quite another
> when someone who remembers when I thought my lone 800 rmb bike was
> expensive asks me a highly technical question regarding how things are
> done with regards to bikes, bike shops, bikes as a sport, or racing in
> other countries.
>
> I won't go into great detail regarding why one of my friends has come
> up with the idea that what Haikou really needs is a velodrome. For
> starters, even knowing all the people involved, and knowing all the
> background involved, it's just way too complicated. Lets just say that
> it isn't quite as harebrained as it sounds at first gasp.
>
> The harebrained part of it was asking me how much I think it should
> cost to build a simple velodrome. Just a guesstimate. Based on my
> knowledge of how much something like that might cost in the US.
> Notwithstanding the fact that I've never even _seen_ a velodrome let
> alone ridden in one and have no connections with the construction
> business in any country, my friend thought it was perfectly reasonable
> to ask me this question.
>
> I'll cut him a bit of slack since this particular person was introduced
> to me by way of the Tour de Hainan. And, so far as I know, he wasn't
> actually present on any of the occasions where I had to ask one of the
> comissaires the correct word in English cycling jargon since, if I knew
> it at all, I only knew it in Chinese.
>
> But, hey, I've got the internet... and the internet has the
> rec.bicycles hierarchy of newsgroups which is an amazing resource for
> finding out obscure bits of information that may or may not be
> tangentially related to cycling.
>
> Anyone have a ballpark figure idea of how much it costs to build a
> simple velodrome?
Two locals here did the math and a simple, concrete, 250 meter, into
the ground velodrome is about $500,000.
>
> I'm pretty sure the best guesstimate my friend currently has is one
> that has a few too many zeroes and comes from his making the mistake of
> asking someone on the Olympic Committee. That sort of person is not
> only likely to have a wildly different conception of 'simple' they are
> also likely to figure in the cost of buying land in one of the most
> expensive cities in the world.
>
> -M
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