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For the 2015 and 2016 season the Marymoor Board of Directors, Program Director, Race Commitee along with the support of our local officials have decided to enforce a gear restriction for all Category 4 and 5 Men and Women. This gear restriction is going to be a 48×15, roughly an 86 inch gear, and more specifically a roll out of 22’3″. Before you jump up and down in excitement I would like to fill you in on the reasons we made this decision.

• Safety – Having the same gear will allow for safer pack riding (accelerations and decelerations)
• Improve your cadence – Track racing is all about having a smooth spin and we thought we could help you out! Does anyone think they can beat Kevin Mansker’s 257 rpm?
• Level the playing field – Rental bikes will have the 48×15 equipped and the restriction will allow our up and coming juniors with even smaller gear restrictions spin their little hearts out and keep up!

Now, just in case you were wondering, we are not the first track to enforce gear restrictions. Our friends to the north (Burnaby), enforces gear restrictions for not only the Cat 4/5s but the Cat 3’s as well! USA Cycling also enforces gear restrictions for all juniors under 18 with the focus on development and keeping growing bodies safe and healthy besides the above reasons I stated.

The new rental bikes are all outfitted with our new mandatory gear restriction, so people with a rental bike will not have a disadvantage. We will not be checking every single bike every race but the top 3 will have a mandatory roll out as well as any randoms or questionable leg speed that the officials or race night manager observe throughout the racing.

We would like to thank Center Cycles and Specialized for being our new rental bike sponsor! The new bikes should be arriving in March meaning we need to put into action the “Rental Bike Removal” plan! Phase 1 is your first chance to purchase one of the old rental bikes. Bikes will be available on a first come first serve basis on February 7th from 11-2pm(NOTE the time change from the flyer) at the velodrome. These old rental bikes make perfect training bikes or fixies to ride around town. The starting price will be $100 and price will be negotiable based on quality. Phase 2 will be conducted at the Bike Swap on February 8th, where we will attempt to unload any remaining bikes. Phase 3 (if it comes to that) will include our board president (Kristian Miller) hanging out on Capitol Hill attempting to get rid of the remaining bikes using any means possible. 🙂 

We would also like to thank all of the generous donators from our community that made purchasing the rental bikes a possibility! It is important to remember that without help from members like you our programs would not be successful. Stay tuned for other ways to help out the velodrome in volunteering!

Join our facebook group to see who your competition is for the rental bikes! https://www.facebook.com/events/314044318792295/

April 24th – doors open at 6:30pm @ Mercer Island Community Center. If you are interested in volunteering or donating an item please contact amara@velodrome.org.

​For the 10th edition of the Marymoor Grand Prix we have decided to go BIG – say hello to the UCI. We are going to run a Men’s and Women’s Omnium, Keirin and Sprint Tournament as UCI Class 3. With the Olympics coming up quickly we should have a huge international attendance with the precious UCI points on the line.

Supplementary USAC Men’s, Women’s, and Masters races will be included as well. And don’t forgot the original “Longest Lap” – The Marymoor Crawl will be run both of the night sessions.

More details will be announced soon, but until then SAVE THE DATE – July 24th & 25th!