HawthorneVillager.com

I am sure all 3 people who are into this will enjoy the Velodrome.

So we went last night for an hour.. I needed to get back for Jr Gold!

I gotta say, the park & ride is not nearly as annoying as I expected. It did seem silly to drive away from my house & velodrome and up to Country Heritage Park and back past my house on the way, but whatever, it is what it is. We parked, we got on the bus and it left within 5 minutes of us getting there, and on the way back, it left within 2 minutes of getting on. They said something like they would be running a bus every 15 minutes and then at 8 when they anticipated more traffic they would go to every 10 minutes and back to 15 minutes at 9pm. Looks like they had at least 3-4 school busses that were part of the park & drive.

I do worry of how much this setup costs, but it is what it is. It was easy to get there, kids had a ball riding a school bus with mom & dad and they had fun at the race and more fun with the Cisco touch screen booths that would take your picture. Although, total fail on the booth -- the camera lets you preview yourself and a countdown which all makes sense, but then the actual picture crops an area different that what you were previewing. So my daughter was in the picture on the preview and cropped on the review. Bit of a fail on the UI, but otherwise a fun even.

We left at 805pm missing the first few minutes of the game, but the announcer that was calling the race also updated the fans on the 2 goals from Team Canada and the bus driver had TSN radio on so we heard the play by play as we went back to our car

Maybe this is something that should be embraced as something good in our town. We're always griping that another Subway or bank branch has opened and that the place generally sucks and it kinda does. But while you were sleeping, Milton just became an international hotbed for cycling.

Imagine, you can be on the escarpment in the morning on your mountain bike on some great single track trails at Kelso, looking down on the track you're going to shred in the afternoon at the velodrome or vice versa. Not many can ever say that.

Instead of bitching about it, go out and get a bike and take part in it!! You now have the 4th best ranked place to mountain bike in Ontario: http://www.singletracks.com/mountain-bi ... ate_id=438 and a world class speed track right in your backyard and about a kilometer apart from each other.

Neither the escarpment or the velodrome are going anywhere so embrace them and get fit. Get your kids fit, get your whole family into it. You now live in a place that many around the world wish they could live in.

We should be the fittest town in the Province.

_________________

Yawn.

Oh well. I tried.

Hey... wanna meet up at Subway for lunch?

Which one? You pick.

_________________

Walk
Skate
Play tiddly winks
Bike
Chess
Checkers
Bake
Create stained glass windows
Shop
Go to movies
Work out
Read
Play video games
Swim
Read Hawthorne Villager
Follow politics
Home repair jobs
Mentor young people
Family driver
Feed the needy
Shovel snow for my neighbours
Cut lawn for neighbours
Walk my kin's dogs
Play 649
Crossword puzzles
Price match

Just a typical day.

I thought the buses were only during the pan am games so athletes and staff can park on site. why are they shuttling now?

Hmmm. No sex or feminine toy (batteries not included) time?

_________________

Feminine toys? My wife doesn't need any. We get our 10 seconds in many a time.

@Martin: This is what I am saying. All the things that suck about Milton...cookie cutter houses, chain restaurants, and dreadful strip plazas... This is not one of them. It is actually a pretty unique thing to have given that this is 1 or 2 facilities of this caliber in all of USA/CAN. I mean Australia for comparison has 60 tracks, 6 of which are indoors for comparison. It can totally be sustainable in the vicinity of the countries most populous region and 100km from the border.

What Martin said is right. Amazing mountain biking, road cycling, and now track cycling. A total hotbed. And from what I gather the Canadian cycling organization will be HQ'd here in the velodrome. It could be great for the town.

I don't think you going to be seeing any gold medal hockey games at the local hockey arena (nothing wrong with that). But its a cool opportunity to see some of the worlds best come to our town for competitions (not just PanAm games). I recall riding at Forest City in London in 2009 and seeing a whole bunch of people who made the drive from the States to compete there. And that is a pretty damn small rinky dink track in a converted hockey arena.

@Princess: I imagine the parking lot isn't fully complete. I imagine they will finish it and the rest of the exterior/landscaping the spring. There are about 100 spots right now and most of the spots were being used for the athletes/staff/coaches competing at the Canadian Track Nationals since they probably have a lots of gear to unload into the facility (bikes, rollers, tools, etc). Once this event and the Milton International Track challenge are over, the parking lot should be sufficient for normal use of the facility.

Nice try, Peter Gilgan.

Personally DGAF about this thing, but agree it's a positive for 'The Town', so that's good enough for me. This assumes maintenance costs are held in check.

One note: I like Kelso, but how the hell did Kelso get ranked #4??? Kelso is great to have such close by, don't get me wrong, but it one of the widest more eroded networks of singletrack I've ever ridden. Calling it singletrack is giving it too much credit. And the amount of shortcuts people have poached around some of the technical sections.

Touche. The list is not scientific by any means considering Hardwood is surprisingly low on it and I don't even see Albion listed at all.

Tickets for the Pan Am Games at Hardwood are running at $40. I'll be there, bruhh. I also bench 350, bro.

_________________

I would like to make it out to Hardwood, and as much as I love MTB and do lots of MTB racing, I am torn on whether to buy tickets. Do you know much about the spectator areas? Any race I've ever watched at hardwood usually consists of a bunch of people crowded around the bone shaker...and then you wait until they come back around.

Now if they go all Olympic level with cable cams and a jumbo-tron...it might be more worthwhile!

I don't know yet, but my buddy and I were wondering the same thing. We're hoping that we get some free access to roam around, otherwise it will be the biggest waste of $40 and an hour's drive ever.

_________________