Topic: Herne Hill Velodrome : Hoop Dreams

[Miller]

The Herne Hill Velodrome is one of the oldest tracks in the world and located in South London being built in 1891. The venue hosted the 1948 Olympics and has had racers from Coppi to Simpson grace its banking.

In recent years the place fell into a poor state and with it at the time being the only track in London, committed cyclists kept the place going on a shoestring and banged the drum after the Olympics 2012 to get the place into the 21st century.

The Southwark Olympic Legacy Project work began the upgrade of the Velodrome in February 2013 and with another 200k from British Cycling the venue was reborn with a new surface and grandstand.

Also, the likes of Tour De France winner Bradley Wiggins rode here as a lad and many youths still dream of riding hoops for a living and from these pictures one will emerge for sure. Now the Smena 8M was the nearest thing I could grab before the boy shouted "we gotta go" so lo-fi it was.

[Miller]

Velo

[Miller]

Rouleur

[Bryan]

Nice essay Miller, thanks for sharing it.  I didn't realize Velodrome racing has been around that long.  There's a Velodrome close to where I live, when I was growing up we used to ride our bikes on it when it wasn't being used.  I could never get enough speed to really take advantage of the banked turns. 

[Late Developer]

Nice one Miller. I was lucky enough to ride around Fallowfield in Manchester when I was very young.  Those banks are quite scary!

Incidentally, are you coming over to Photographica tomorrow (21/05)?

[Klaus]

Nice pictures!
Takes me back when I lived near there, on the other side of Brockwell Park, in the early 80s. Must say I don't remember much of it, but certainly walked past it a few time. Cycling in London was still in it's infancy in those days.
Like the grittiness of the images.

[imagesfrugales]

Thanks you so much Miller for showing these pictures. When I was a child, we had a velodrome at my hometown. You are bringing back submerged memories of visiting cycling competitions on sundays with my father many many years ago. The velodrome was torn down when I was a teen. Great pictures, not the Smena but you make it.

[Miller]

Glad so many of you have good memories of the oval...

Velodrome racing in Europe, USA and Australia in the early 1900's was possibly the biggest sport period and the Madison track event got its name from the Square Garden itself.

It was way ahead of even horse racing at one point as the public went bike crazy upon its invention and subsequently being sold to the masses.

Eventually the motor car became 'cheap' and the great cycling heroes like Emmanuel Collard (French) and Major Taylor (imo the greatest sportsperson ever and I've met Ali) were soon forgotten, especially as there were so few images of the times.