Good Friday at the Herne Hill Velodrome

BC regular Pete has been in touch about this event he's involved with:

The 107th Good Friday cycling meet will take place this Friday at historic Herne Hill Velodrome in Burbage Road, Dulwich.

Currently London’s only velodrome, the track was originally built in the late 19th century and used in both the 1908 and 1948 London Olympic Games.

It is the only surviving finals venue from the 1948 Olympics still in active use, and is open to everyone from beginners to Olympic medallists and 2012 hopefuls between March and October each year.

Organiser Graham Bristow has added an exciting event to this year’s competition; the resurrection of the art of penny farthing track racing. Riders from The Veteran Cycle Club will compete for the One Mile Old Ordinary Challenge Cup, in what is the 100th anniversary of the year that the race was first held, bringing back to Herne Hill a once popular form of track cycling.

In a first for the event we’ll also play host to 2012 Paralympic tandem hopefuls. The tandem race will feature para-cyclists from Britain, the Czech Republic and Spain. Uniquely this race has a visually impaired rider on the back piloted or steered by a fully sighted rider on the front. We’ll also welcome Paralympics Gold medal winner Jody Cundy who will race against able bodied riders in the individual sprint races.

This year’s Good Friday event brings not only the usual raft of international track stars from our own Rob Hayles (World, Commonwealth and Olympic medallist) to multi world champion in Scratch and Madison Franco Marvulli, who is coming to Good Friday for the first time.

The gates open at 9.30am. Preliminary qualifying time trials and heats start at 10.30am and the main meeting begins at 1pm. Weather permitting, the last race – the Golden Wheel, which Briton Rob Hayles hopes to win, should end the meet at about 5.30pm.