Let it Ride!

 After two months of building, tonight the Cyclodrome will be unveiled to the public for a Cyclodrome Race Extravaganza from 6:00 on. If you've been following our progress all along or just now joined us, tonight's the time to join in the fun and give the Cyclodrome a try for yourself.

Again, that's a 6:00 opening time at the King Pavilion for registration and practice riding. Races will begin at 7:00 and will include individual time trials and pursuits. There's a $10 insurance fee to ride, and any extra money will be divided between the top male and female riders of the night. Whether you're here to ride or just to watch, come join us in celebrating cycling and our finished track!

Paint Within the Lines

After a day of sanding every crack, seam and leftover bump to a smooth sheen, we've spent the last workday measuring, marking and painting lines on our track. Having some guidelines is important - there's a right way and a wrong way to use the Cyclodrome, and we made sure to clearly label both. The right way - the optimal, fastest route for a rider to hold - is marked out with a bright red line. To warn riders when they risk going off the track, we've put black and blue lines on the boundaries of the area that is safe to ride.

To add a special personal finish to Cyclodrome, we've put our own symbol on each side of the track, integrating it with the black safety lines. Cyclodrome's symbol has been a long time in the making, and we opted to make sure it went on precisely by lasercutting the spray-paint stencil on the right and using a spray adhesive to hold it in place while we set down our lines. The result is a smooth finish that stays on under the pressures inherent in having us scrambling all over it. To ensure that the track stays together under the far greater pressures of bike racing, we will next apply a sealer to protect both the surface and the lines. This will be the last major construction step, which is good as the sealer finish will take several days to set, in which we will want to avoid even walking on the treated track. With the paint completed, Cyclodrome now has the look and feel of a finished track, and it's almost ready to have the experience of one as well.

Closing the Loop

After spending a month and a half, hundreds of man-hours, and a heaping mound of wood, we've finally completed the track of Cyclodrome. In a last blitz day of track-building, we put together the last quadrant and screwed the last piece into place.

The last piece was a smooth fit.

While the most intense building is finished and it's possible to ride the track in its present state, our work is still ongoing. Some of the final safety measures are still under construction and we must still sand and paint the track for a smoother, long-lasting ride. All that aside, after so much time spent planning, building and visualizing, it's satisfying to step back and admire a fully-constructed track. It looks smaller and steeper in real life than it did on paper or in renders, but that only adds to the appeal of riding it.

Watch this space for video of Cyclodrome in action - and for bulletins on when and where you can ride it too.

Bikes are optional.

Forged in Fiberboard

Above: Cyclodrome two days before this post.

As the team has worked up to our full pace of production, that pace has proven to be more than we could have imagined at the start of our work. It took weeks to fine-tune and build the first quadrant of track, but with the lessons learned from those weeks, the second and third quadrants have been built in only the last two days. The team has circulated from role to role enough that each of us has come to understand how to identify and overcome the challenges of building each type of component.

We tested several backing materials.

One of those component types that has occupied our attention in the past few weeks is the thin (1/8 inch) Masonite backing that encircles the entire Cyclodrome. In a structure made of sturdier lumber and thick plywood, this may seem out of place - one does not need to be an experience builder to suspect that a thin sheet of Masonite does little to improve the strength of the structure. And indeed, the backing does little to support loads and thus improve strength - but does a great deal to prevent movement and thus improve stability, particularly in higher sections that are prone to greater movement.

Track braces provide additional stability.

This is an important concept in structural design, and one that will be with us for the rest of our careers. To be stable, a structure must resist movement in every direction; even small movements that are encouraged by relatively small forces can be devastating to a structure if not resisted. For instance, in steel construction it is common to see massive I-beams braced by comparatively tiny reinforcing members, placed to thwart small but critical twisting forces.

As the track comes together, it's more and more evident what kind of forces it will have to take. A cyclist going at even twenty miles per hour can exert great force in many directions on a track - to say nothing of more than one cyclist, at what may be far greater speeds. Under such conditions, every source of stability counts, and all act together to keep our track safe and sturdy.

Above: Cyclodrome one day before this post.

Every Which Way

With the first quadrant of Cyclodrome done, our next task has been to set up a process of construction that builds upon the existing work while keeping everyone busy. Setting up any one frame element or piece of track involves only a fraction of the working hands that we have available, so we have begun construction in both directions. To keep both groups from competing for a single wood shop, we've also set up multiple sawing stations right outside of the King Pavilion, which give us the added benefit of making the innumerable trips between the velodrome and the shop faster.

While most of the group has formed into teams cutting frame or track, some of us have set to work dealing with some of the many small technical problems that have been discovered in the process of building the first quadrant. Edge misalignment between the large bottom pieces and small top pieces of track has been corrected by fixing both to extra backing. Some have been working on the more serious problem of reinforcing the longest and steepest sections of frame. Under extreme pressure these frame elements are prone to noticeable bowing, so we've devised braces to stabilize the frame at the center of the track, giving it strength where it is weakest.

Even with some of us working on smaller issues, going both ways has allowed us to accomplish a lot in little time. The development of the first quadrant has taught us much about the issues that we face in a project like this, and allowed us to build that much faster. We've done a lot of productive work in a little time, and are ready to do a lot more.

Above: Cyclodrome one day after the top picture was taken.

June 9th time-lapse

June 8 time-lapse