When I read on Aprils Fool Day that Johan Bruyneel is planning to do "something great" with pro cycling – by breaking away from the UCI – I thought I would share about something “great” Johan did to my own city of Albuquerque New Mexico.
It's a long convoluted story - a morality tale even – full of characters including Lance Armstrong that I don't have the ability, time or energy to tell properly, but since every local newspaper and major cycling news outlet neglected to even look into it, I guess I should do my best to pass it on before Bruyneel tricks anyone else into following his grandiose schemes.
The story - about what happens when you let an egomaniac like Bruyneel pervert something simple – like building a tax-payer funded municipal velodrome – is public knowledge and I'd personally be happy to share my own hard drive full of evidence to any journalist or investigator interested in pursuing it.
In 1998, some cyclists in Albuquerque New Mexico decided to purchase a wooden velodrome - the Pan-Am Games velodrome - from Winnipeg Canada. A local guy started a group - the Southwest Velodrome Association (SVA) and raised about 100k from a local charity, the McHune Foundation Charitable Trust from Santa Fe to ship it here.
According to local legend, newspaper reports, and local group ride gossip, after the velodrome arrived, the guy - a local cat. 3 named Jonathan Powell - spent the money leasing a kick-*** fast Audi, promoting local parking lot crits with $50 entry fees and throwing champagne cracking charity events. Money was really no object. This was going to be world class.
In less than 18 months, the money disappeared.
Mr. Powell, when interviewed, said the money was spend in administrative functions and the real problem was that the cycling community of New Mexico were "lazy and cheap." He also claimed that the other three members of the SVA board “invaded his home and stole his computer to incriminate him for embezzlement.” The Albuquerque Police Department and City of Rio Rancho City – who gave Powell over 60k that was raised from a “black tie velodrome benefit dinner ” - investigated the alleged embezzlement and found nothing. Powell had long moved to Arizona, where he sells used cars.
Ten years later the Winnipeg Pan-Am Veledrome was rotten and deserted in the New Mexico Sun. Legend says it was eventually used as hardwood floors in a fashionable house in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.
A few years later some more Albuquerque cyclists decided this was a travesty and were determined to construct a truly world class velodrome in New Mexico, one of the poorest states in the country. They were mostly lawyers and businessmen and commuters who had never raced a road bike - much less on the track - in their entire lives. This was going to be world class. Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel were mentioned. That sealed the deal.
The Veloport Corporation had truly gigantic delusions: to make Albuquerque the "cycling capital of the world" by building a cycling mecca: a velodrome, a crit course, a BMX course, a human performance lab, sports doctor offices and of course - a five course French cuisine restaurant.
This was going to cost money, and the Veloport Corporation was good at raising money, the president – Charlie Ovis – was manager of the local Wachovia Bank, and the rest of the board were local accountants and lawyers. Champagne was again popping.
A two million dollar public bond was put on the next ballot and was approved.
But the project – gigantic in scope and ridiculous in design – was going to cost closer to ten million.
The Veloport Corporation and the city quickly started raising money. The housing bubble was enormously expanded and tight, but not yet popped, and developers like Mesa Del Sol were excited and local tax payers were happy to shell out a few millions dollars to get kids on track bikes and off crack.
Somehow a multi-million dollar publicly funded velodrome would keep kids off crack AND bring millions a year in tourism dollars. The specifics were vague, but Ovis and other Veloport members repeatedly mentioned Bruyneel and a quasi-magical cycling academy that would change Albuquerque – a city largely known as being the location of the reality show COPS and the crack-based drama Breaking Bad – into the #1 cycling city in the world.
Phase one of the project, a dirt BMX with a metal roof. was constructed near the local baseball park in 2007. Phase two and three – the velodrome and French restaurant never happened.
This is where - if you are still reading – the story gets interesting.
Despite the lack of a physical velodrome, Charlie Ovis – the local banker who ran the Veloport Corp – decided to invite professional cycling teams - Astana, Lipton and Navigators - to train in Albuquerque. The weather was good, the altitude was high, and it would be free, because local sponsors – like the Veloport Corp. would foot the bill.
Ovis convinced Martin Chavez, the Albuquerque mayor who enjoyed publicity, that track cycling was going to bring in millions of tourist dollars. Yes, Albuquerque, a city that can't buy textbooks for it's local schools. could get rich off professional TRACK cycling.
Together with the city, the Chamber of Commerse and some local sponsors, Ovis and his team paid for a number of professional cycling teams to come to the city and train in the winter. Astana, Navigators, Lipton and the amateur Belgian based team CyclingCenter all were paid to come to Albuquerque for a free, all-expenses paid training camp.
These are all details. Let's get into the truly insane.
Ovis and the Veloport corporation decided they needed some big names to build big things.
So the biggest names – Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel – were first on the list.
Ovis and the city wanted to “attract JB to build a training facility at Mesa Del Sol. It included participation from USA Cycling and possible designation as an Olympic Training Center. JB came to Albuquerque and agreed to terms with the State to build the center. Contracts were drawn up and were in the process of being signed. Two weeks later, Discovery announced the team was folding. The Training Center was put on hold and JB went to Astana.”
Mesa Del Sol, a gigantic “city” that is really just a sprawling piece of empty undeveloped land on the side of Albuquerque, which is already fifty miles wide would be a “cycling city” with a Johan Bruyneel Cycling University, funded by the State of New Mexico.
Bruyneel and Ovis and the Veloport corporation, consisting of some of the ponzi scheme businessmen and finest ambulance chasers the city of Albuquerque had to offer, were going to make a city based on cycling, in a poor city that exemplifies everything that is wrong with American urban sprawl.
Bruyneel, Ovis and the Veloport Corporation convinced the city to wait to build the new velodrome until Bruyneel properly could rule over his desert “cycling city.” The actual VELOPORT, next to the baseball park, is a nice BMX track packed with kids everyday. The velodrome and the French restaurant – with a higher cost of 20 million bucks – was nothing in 2007 but a little more substantial after the housing bubble exploded never got built.
Eight million dollars in New Mexico taxpayer money, that was assigned to build a “veloport” velodrome project was never constructed because Johan Bruyneel wanted to start a publicly funded “cycling university” in one of the poorest states in the county.
Long story short:
The Albuquerque velodrome, that was paid for by a public tax bond, was never built because they (Bruyneel, the Veloprt Corp, Mesa Del Sol and Mayor Chavez) wanted to wait to build it at Johan Bruyneel's own cycling university in a “new city” called Mesa Del Sol:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_del_Sol
Here is Bruyneel speaking to a Belgian newspaper on his cycling city:
http://forum.index.hu/Article/viewArticle?a=74829949&t=9005529
Tax return, showing 60k to Bernard Moerman, for hotel rooms that were supplied for free by a local sponsor:
http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/PubApps/showVals.php?ft=bmf&ein=203727741
I have much more on Johan, the Veloport, and how they – along with the city of Albuquerque - swindled the taxpayers into paying Bernard Moerman, Johan's childhood friend and owner of CyclingCenter.com, for training camps in Albuquerque.
It's a long convoluted story - a morality tale even – full of characters including Lance Armstrong that I don't have the ability, time or energy to tell properly, but since every local newspaper and major cycling news outlet neglected to even look into it, I guess I should do my best to pass it on before Bruyneel tricks anyone else into following his grandiose schemes.
The story - about what happens when you let an egomaniac like Bruyneel pervert something simple – like building a tax-payer funded municipal velodrome – is public knowledge and I'd personally be happy to share my own hard drive full of evidence to any journalist or investigator interested in pursuing it.
In 1998, some cyclists in Albuquerque New Mexico decided to purchase a wooden velodrome - the Pan-Am Games velodrome - from Winnipeg Canada. A local guy started a group - the Southwest Velodrome Association (SVA) and raised about 100k from a local charity, the McHune Foundation Charitable Trust from Santa Fe to ship it here.
According to local legend, newspaper reports, and local group ride gossip, after the velodrome arrived, the guy - a local cat. 3 named Jonathan Powell - spent the money leasing a kick-*** fast Audi, promoting local parking lot crits with $50 entry fees and throwing champagne cracking charity events. Money was really no object. This was going to be world class.
In less than 18 months, the money disappeared.
Mr. Powell, when interviewed, said the money was spend in administrative functions and the real problem was that the cycling community of New Mexico were "lazy and cheap." He also claimed that the other three members of the SVA board “invaded his home and stole his computer to incriminate him for embezzlement.” The Albuquerque Police Department and City of Rio Rancho City – who gave Powell over 60k that was raised from a “black tie velodrome benefit dinner ” - investigated the alleged embezzlement and found nothing. Powell had long moved to Arizona, where he sells used cars.
Ten years later the Winnipeg Pan-Am Veledrome was rotten and deserted in the New Mexico Sun. Legend says it was eventually used as hardwood floors in a fashionable house in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains.
A few years later some more Albuquerque cyclists decided this was a travesty and were determined to construct a truly world class velodrome in New Mexico, one of the poorest states in the country. They were mostly lawyers and businessmen and commuters who had never raced a road bike - much less on the track - in their entire lives. This was going to be world class. Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel were mentioned. That sealed the deal.
The Veloport Corporation had truly gigantic delusions: to make Albuquerque the "cycling capital of the world" by building a cycling mecca: a velodrome, a crit course, a BMX course, a human performance lab, sports doctor offices and of course - a five course French cuisine restaurant.
This was going to cost money, and the Veloport Corporation was good at raising money, the president – Charlie Ovis – was manager of the local Wachovia Bank, and the rest of the board were local accountants and lawyers. Champagne was again popping.
A two million dollar public bond was put on the next ballot and was approved.
But the project – gigantic in scope and ridiculous in design – was going to cost closer to ten million.
The Veloport Corporation and the city quickly started raising money. The housing bubble was enormously expanded and tight, but not yet popped, and developers like Mesa Del Sol were excited and local tax payers were happy to shell out a few millions dollars to get kids on track bikes and off crack.
Somehow a multi-million dollar publicly funded velodrome would keep kids off crack AND bring millions a year in tourism dollars. The specifics were vague, but Ovis and other Veloport members repeatedly mentioned Bruyneel and a quasi-magical cycling academy that would change Albuquerque – a city largely known as being the location of the reality show COPS and the crack-based drama Breaking Bad – into the #1 cycling city in the world.
Phase one of the project, a dirt BMX with a metal roof. was constructed near the local baseball park in 2007. Phase two and three – the velodrome and French restaurant never happened.
This is where - if you are still reading – the story gets interesting.
Despite the lack of a physical velodrome, Charlie Ovis – the local banker who ran the Veloport Corp – decided to invite professional cycling teams - Astana, Lipton and Navigators - to train in Albuquerque. The weather was good, the altitude was high, and it would be free, because local sponsors – like the Veloport Corp. would foot the bill.
Ovis convinced Martin Chavez, the Albuquerque mayor who enjoyed publicity, that track cycling was going to bring in millions of tourist dollars. Yes, Albuquerque, a city that can't buy textbooks for it's local schools. could get rich off professional TRACK cycling.
Together with the city, the Chamber of Commerse and some local sponsors, Ovis and his team paid for a number of professional cycling teams to come to the city and train in the winter. Astana, Navigators, Lipton and the amateur Belgian based team CyclingCenter all were paid to come to Albuquerque for a free, all-expenses paid training camp.
These are all details. Let's get into the truly insane.
Ovis and the Veloport corporation decided they needed some big names to build big things.
So the biggest names – Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel – were first on the list.
Ovis and the city wanted to “attract JB to build a training facility at Mesa Del Sol. It included participation from USA Cycling and possible designation as an Olympic Training Center. JB came to Albuquerque and agreed to terms with the State to build the center. Contracts were drawn up and were in the process of being signed. Two weeks later, Discovery announced the team was folding. The Training Center was put on hold and JB went to Astana.”
Mesa Del Sol, a gigantic “city” that is really just a sprawling piece of empty undeveloped land on the side of Albuquerque, which is already fifty miles wide would be a “cycling city” with a Johan Bruyneel Cycling University, funded by the State of New Mexico.
Bruyneel and Ovis and the Veloport corporation, consisting of some of the ponzi scheme businessmen and finest ambulance chasers the city of Albuquerque had to offer, were going to make a city based on cycling, in a poor city that exemplifies everything that is wrong with American urban sprawl.
Bruyneel, Ovis and the Veloport Corporation convinced the city to wait to build the new velodrome until Bruyneel properly could rule over his desert “cycling city.” The actual VELOPORT, next to the baseball park, is a nice BMX track packed with kids everyday. The velodrome and the French restaurant – with a higher cost of 20 million bucks – was nothing in 2007 but a little more substantial after the housing bubble exploded never got built.
Eight million dollars in New Mexico taxpayer money, that was assigned to build a “veloport” velodrome project was never constructed because Johan Bruyneel wanted to start a publicly funded “cycling university” in one of the poorest states in the county.
Long story short:
The Albuquerque velodrome, that was paid for by a public tax bond, was never built because they (Bruyneel, the Veloprt Corp, Mesa Del Sol and Mayor Chavez) wanted to wait to build it at Johan Bruyneel's own cycling university in a “new city” called Mesa Del Sol:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesa_del_Sol
Here is Bruyneel speaking to a Belgian newspaper on his cycling city:
http://forum.index.hu/Article/viewArticle?a=74829949&t=9005529
Tax return, showing 60k to Bernard Moerman, for hotel rooms that were supplied for free by a local sponsor:
http://nccsdataweb.urban.org/PubApps/showVals.php?ft=bmf&ein=203727741
I have much more on Johan, the Veloport, and how they – along with the city of Albuquerque - swindled the taxpayers into paying Bernard Moerman, Johan's childhood friend and owner of CyclingCenter.com, for training camps in Albuquerque.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram