Crew arrives, work begins on Whanganui’s velodrome track replacement

Carpenter Peter Jacques at the Whanganui velodrome. Photo / Mike Tweed

Contractors from German company Velotrack have arrived in Whanganui to start work on the city’s velodrome track replacement.

Carpenter Peter Jacques, a former Team Great Britain track rider, said a nine-strong crew would complete the work.

The track’s original wood was being removed when the Chronicle visited on Tuesday.

“When we’re putting the surface down, there will be three groups of three people,” Jacques said.

“Without weather break, I would estimate that it’ll take 15 days, maybe 20.”

The timber being used, Accoya, was slightly narrower than that used on indoor tracks, Jacques said.

“The stuff we’ll use here is only 30mm, not 40mm.

“If you were to lay every piece of timber end to end, you’re talking 75 kilometres in length, start to finish.”

The Accoya comes from New Zealand but was shipped to the Netherlands for treatment.

Jacques said the treatment process took away “everything the weather can affect”.

“They take way the sugars and the starches, and they take the water out and almost re-impregnate it with almost like a vinegar.

“That makes it impervious to weather and termites. In Holland, they actually use it for lock gates, that’s how resistant to water it is.”

Jacques said he had never raced in Whanganui but the track was well-known in the cycling world.

It was “just one of those mythical tracks”.

A nine-strong crew will break into groups of three when the time comes to lay the new timber. Photo / Supplied

“If you came here (New Zealand) to race, you knew it wasn’t going to be an easy task,” he said.

“This country has always had a reputation for providing good, hard, solid bike riders, fast ones as well.

“Everybody knew about the racing down in Whanganui and I know quite a few Olympians have trained on here prior to various games in the past.”

Visa issues delayed the contractors’ entry into New Zealand.

Project manager Rosemary Fletcher said those kinds of issues were out of her control.

The Whanganui community had got behind the project, however.

“I rang Hoskins (Dave Hoskins Carriers) and asked if there was any chance of them giving us a hand,” she said.

“Darrell’s (Hoskins) instant response was ‘I can do it’, before I even asked if he wanted to hear a bit about it.

“He brought the original wood in when the track was first built and said he would go to the storage and get it all together.

“That kind of stuff is a project manager’s dream. The local response, from forklifts to storage, has been outstanding. Whanganui is a tremendous city for that.”

Jacques said he wanted to be a professional cyclist as soon as he left school but his parents made him learn a trade “because I might not actually be any good on a bike”.

“At the time I thought that was a bit brutal but in hindsight, it’s probably the wisest thing anybody’s ever said to me.

“When I got too old for cycling I went back to the tools. I met the Velotrack guys at a race, came onboard and I’m into my 11th year with them.”

He said he loved working on outdoor tracks.

“This will be my fourth trip to Whanganui and we’ve always seemed to have good weather.

“With a nice evening with the sun starting to set, there is no better event in the world than on a track like this.”