Is cost preventing you from riding at the Burnaby Velodrome?

I have to say that my situation is slightly different to the larger HeyFixie group.

I have my own track bike
I have a full-time job

So I don't need to rent a bike (and have better reason to get out there) and the cost of a drop-in doesnt mean the difference between a proper meal and top ramen.

That's not to say that I think its cheap by any stretch... add up a cyclingBC membership and then a few drop-ins and for a casual rider like myself (right now) and it makes turning up a for a couple of hours a more costly proposition.

Does it turn me off... Hell NO! But I can see how if you are used to less expensive sports (running, volleyball, hiking) you could see it that way or are a student/part-time/casual worker you could be intimidated.

One of the great things about fixed gear riding is the low cost of entry (comparative to other forms of cycling) being able to transfer that to the 'drome would be a great thing.

I'm in a similar situation to Nic as I have an ok-paying steady job, so the cost isn't a big problem for me. It would be great if we (us new Velodrome riders and the Velodrome association) could work out a mutually beneficial situation.

That being said, it's always hard to predict the actual interest/commitment to something like this, personally as well as in a group of individuals, though I have yet to meet a group of people as stoked on something as the friends and acquaintances I have met this year in the cycling community

If the cost works out to a night of beer drinking then I'll get my highs at the track.
so ride on...
tales of the rails

Louise
ps Remember if you get your cycling bc membership before the end of the year you get a discount. (I still don't actually know what you need or don't need to ride at the Velodrome...do you need a Velodrome membership as well?)

I believe you need to have 1) insurance, after that you can pay per visit ($15 - no bike, add $10 for a rental) or $350 for a yearly velodrome membership ($5 for bike rentals).

INSURANCE

To ride on the track you need $2 million liability insurance. You can get this by either

1. A Cycling BC full road/track race membership. ($120/yr - Sign up). I believe a MTB license may also count.
2. If you do not have the road/track license, you will need to purchase $26.00/yr Cycling BC general liability insurance through the Burnaby Velodrome Club or online. Probably $30 for 2007

VELODROME CLUB MEMBERSHIP

If you are not a member of the Burnaby Velodrome club, you must pay $15 per drop in (not including a bike, add $10 for a rental) or pay for a full membership to the Velodrome club(from $200 to $350 -for most of you it will be the $350). Currently the first 3 drop-ins can be put towards a full membership. With the full membership you can go to any of the open drop ins and are entitled to 32/hrs a week of track time and if you need to rent a bike the cost is reduced ($5).

To race you need to be a member or pay the dropin. For example Wednesday night races are $5 so it would be a total of $20 if you are not a member. Out of towners pay the same amount.

http://www.burnabyvelodrome.ca/membership.html

TOTAL STARTUP COSTS

1. $26 / $120 - license (basic/full). Licenses expire on the calendar year.
2. $60 / $90 - learn to ride (LTR) clinic / LTR + learn to race (LTRace) clinics. The LTR only means you can just ride in the open times, LTR + LTRace means you can ride in the open times and race.

This gives you a total of $86 to just ride the track during open times or $116 to start racing if you go for the basic license. If you get a full race license you are looking at $180 or $210 for the same split.

NOTE: Its cheaper to start the process in January rather than Sept/Nov/Dec as you have to pay for a license again in January, since they expire on the calendar year.

CAVEAT

I pulled this stuff off the velodrome website, but I found some of the wording confusing. I am currently working on clarification.

Though the velodrome is really fun, I don't know if I'd be able to afford the numbers that are being thrown around. I only work 13 hours a week, pay for school, and still want to buy parts for my bikes too.

The other way I look at it is in value. I have no problems riding my bike outside in crap weather, and it costs me nothing. To pay much more than $10 for a night of track riding seems like a waste.

I understand that the velodrome has high operating costs, but it looks like something that isn't within my reach. I'm more likely to put that money into building a track bike to ride on the street.

it's not a huge financial issue for me but i have to say EFF the price... 390 or so for a year, plus insurance, plus drop ins?! give me a fuckin break!! i dont buy a pass at a mountain and expect to pay "drop in fees" everytime i ride. its seriously shite. with the rise of interest in the drome , i think they should definatly do a costing re work. seiously what the hell's the point of a membership if it just gets you the luxury of paying drop in's?!
i was going to hit ltr 1 this weekend but i think ill shelve it, till the new year, i mean why pay insurance for a full year and only get one month, yea thats right. there insurance doesn't roll over meaning i would have to pay in december for a full year and in january too.

screw it all . im going to build my own track out of realestate signs.

makes no sense at all to me. hell u dont even get a discount on bike rentals?! jeeeeeeeeezuz.

traffic is free and fun, dont tell me the track is less deadly since some jabroneeeeeee just took the dirtnapp via track.

arghhh! im a grouch today.

I posted some comments to the fixed gear list but I'll also post them here. My main issue with the membership is  what it includes. Please correct me if I'm wrong but the $350 provides (forget for a moment that insurrance is also required since it's required for road racing as well - it's not a track specific issue):

• access to the track any time it's open (no drop in fee's if you're a member) 
• drops the price of bike rentals to $5

Now I know nothing about how racing is administered in BC, but what bothered me most since I am interested in participating in track races is that the membership does not cover any race entry fees. I can understand typical road club membership fees not including the ability to participate in races, but those memberships typically cost < $100. Three hundred and fifty seems, to me at least, somewhat steep to just ride the track without participating in any events. I certainly plan to ride the track, just for the time being I plan to do drop-ins.

Joe,

 Edit: The $120 for 10 drop-ins sounds like something I just might take advantage of.

If you pay for a membership you do NOT pay a dropin fee. Maybe my wording was confusing.

January is the best time to start for the insurance reasons.

The track needs a clearer pricing structure.

Other options:

You can pay $120 for 10 dropins card and skip a membership
You can also break up the full membership into three parts

joe has the best avatar on FG... while everyone else gets arty/bikey joe just straight up says 'yeah... im that GOOD LOOKIN' y'all need to be seein my face all the time'

is that your modelling head shot?

Hey y'all.

So as someone fresh off the Burnaby Velodrome board of directors (I was President until October when Andy George took the helm), I'm intimately aware of the issue you're all writing about. It's a pretty big barrier to getting new people on the track.

Part of it has to do with the insurance component. Every person who rides the track, has to have insurance. You get that one of two ways: either you have a full Cycling BC license (ie: Cat 5 race license) or you take out a membership with the Burnaby Velodrome and they submit $26.50 to Cycling BC on your behalf. Cycling is a risky sport, you all need $2.0M liability insurance, for the sport of cycling in Canada, there's basically one company that does the entire thing, and Burnaby gets its insurance from the same place as everyone else.

Next up is the cost of running the facility. The Burnaby Velodrome Club is a club, incorporated as such under the same rules as the other road and mountain bike clubs through Cycling BC. The club rents the 26 hrs of riding time every week from Volleyball BC, another provincial sports org, who in turn has a lease on the building with the owner: the City of Burnaby. In 2001, the City decided with Volleyball and the Burnaby Velodrome Club that the rent should be $110,000 / year.

(pause as I let that sink in) 

As I pointed out at the AGM back in September (I know most of you weren't there), if we have 80 full members riding the track, that means $1375 per person is our true cost per rider. So we think our $390 (down from $450 a few years ago) is a bargain all things considered.

Also, regardless of the economics of the velodrome, a full membership gets you "all the track hours you can eat" currently -- as long as the track is open and staffed by volunteers. Compare that to the same "Gold" package at Cypress Mountain for skiing and snowboarding: $899/adult.

Cycling is expensive. Running a velodrome is even more expensive. Running an indoor velodrome with a natural-gas powered heat/air inflated roof is really, really expensive. Anyhow, having you all riding out there (I was out Friday for the first time in a long time and was impressed with the fresh faces on fixies), is helping pay the bills. So keep on coming out.

Cheers, Gord.

Gord,

Thank you very much for your response!

It's good to see some real numbers to justify the costs.

I look forward to seeing you out on the boards...

nik

I'm confused. $110,000 is the velodrome's share of the rent?

My full season student pass at Seymour cost $199. But I guess there isn't a Mt. Seymour of velodromes, and I can't afford to ride Cypress. Oh well.

Um not quite Wease.

Volleyball BC (not Canada) charges the Burnaby Velodrome $110,000 in rent every year. That does not reflect their operating costs of running the facility. It was a number that was determined by Volleyball BC as the lost amount of revenue on an annual basis for them not being allowed to tear out the track and put in sand volleyball courts.

That is, in 2001, they argued that if they tore out the track and put in sand volleyball courts, they would be able to make roughly $100,000 to $120,000 in additional revenue from those courts. Therefore, keeping the track in the building was akin to "punishing them" financially and the velodrome's rent was therefore determined as having to make up this financial shortfall.

That is why we pay $110,000. That is not shared. It is our burden to bear.

Memberships, programs, rentals, etc. generated roughly $50,000 / year in revenue. The remaining money is made up through gov't grant funding.

I don't know how much it costs for Volleyball to run the facility. They do not share that information with us.

We haven't actually paid rent directly for quite some time. Instead, we had an agreement with Volleyball that allowed us to make capital upgrades to the facility (paint the washrooms, install a new HVAC machine, fix the airlock doors, build the meeting room and stands above their offices, etc.) and for every dollar we spent in upgrades, we got a $1.00 rent credit.

Knowing this, we went out and secured a provincial/federal matching funds grant. For every $3.00 you spend on upgrades, the province pays you back $1.00 and the feds pay you back $1.00. But we had to come up with the final $1.00 (secured through debt - we have a big loan). In doing so, we performed $550,000 in upgrades over a 2 year period, paying our rent forward in time to 2007/2008, and essentially paying 1/3 of the true cost for our rent.

Are you confused yet?

You can read more about it here:

http://www.burnabynow.com/issues04/033204/news/033204nn1.html

Bottom line, at some point our rent credit disappears and we have to start paying $110,000 again. And that's currently twice what we make in revenues. And if we can't make at least 1.3x $110,000, we are unlikely to be able to do things like even buy track rental bikes, pay instructors to do LTR's, etc. As it stands right now, 95% of all labour effort that goes into the facility is volunteer hours.

For those that ask, we've been pretty clear about the economic reality of the facility. It's quite brutal. But it hasn't stopped a small group of people from not only keeping it open, but making it a pretty good place to ride for the last 7 years.

If anyone's interested in further history of the facility, etc, feel free to contact me or grab me out at the track (if I can make it out to ride there once / week).

Gord.

The velodrome has a prorated BVC Membership now available, which is 225$ for Feb 1 through Aug 31. This is a savings of 125$ over the full year membership.

Copying directly from the email I received:
"Maybe a few of your compatriots would like to take advantage of this, instead of paying drop ins and renting bikes? Also, rental bikes are only 5$ for members, not $10. So if you consider a drop in is 15$ and you save 5$ on rental, then the actual cost of the drop in is 20$. So in just 11 rides, you pay back the membership."

I know the subject has been debated at length on both the email list and here: http://www.fearlessgearless.com/poll/velodrome-cost

But I felt it was worth mentioning, and with the promise of more events like the recent 6 Day 'courier' events, and increased participation from within our ranks in the regular races/track sessions there are those that might now see it as worthwhile.

Heck, my bikes setup and i still havent been back since the races... what's my excuse?