Colorado Springs cyclists remain frustrated over the loss of time long granted to them at the Memorial Park velodrome.

The level of access once enjoyed by Olympic dreamers and everyday track racers and youth does not seem to be returning anytime soon.

Representatives with U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and USA Cycling recently shared expectations and hopes for 2024 in an informal presentation to the city’s parks board, which oversees a 41-year-old agreement for USOPC to run the velodrome it built at the park near downtown.

The track was said to be open to all for about 82 hours last year. That’s compared with the 1,200-plus hours that came to be expected before 2020’s COVID-19 shutdown.

Representatives at the parks board meeting pledged to at least maintain last year’s “community hours,” with a goal of doubling.

“We feel good about that, but we’ve heard the community,” Mike Beagley, USOPC’s associate director of visitor centers and venues, told the parks board. “We know that a more robust program is desired.”

That’ll be the aim through a new arrangement with USA Cycling, which has hired a community program coordinator tasked with organizing and scheduling.

“It takes money to do this,” said USA Cycling’s Senior Track Director Craig Griffin. “This person will always be trying to get sponsorships and develop strategic community partnerships.”

Some saw the pledge and collaboration as a “positive trend,” as parks department Director Britt Haley put it.

Others voiced the disappointment that followed the velodrome’s limited re-opening out of the pandemic.

“We’d like to hold your feet to the fire and get that 1,000 hours back,” said parks board member Greg Thornton. “We’re the city of champions, by God, let’s have a velodrome that’s open for the city.”

Andy Sparks shared the sentiment. He moved to Colorado Springs in the early 2000s to train on the track before going on to coach Olympians and watch a “community center” form under the “bubble” dome he advocated for — a sheltered center for year-round training, events and camaraderie.

“If you make a presentation that says 1,200 hours, that you give 1,200 hours to the community, you stand behind that,” Sparks said. “You made a commitment to the community, and that needs to be followed.”

He referred to a presentation in 2018, when USOPC sought the city’s permission to make the inflated dome over the track a permanent fixture. The presentation celebrated 1,200-plus community hours a year at the velodrome, including open spins, race nights and kids clinics.

The agreement for keeping the dome amended the city’s initial lease signed in 1982. That outlined the vision for the USOPC building and funding the velodrome on parkland to “provide proper training facilities” for Olympians “as well as excellent cycling facilities for members of the community.”

The dome has proven costly, requiring hefty power bills and maintenance due to wind and snow.

“It’s had some rough days,” USOPC’s Beagley told the parks board. “We’ve put considerable funding into keeping that thing functioning.”

That’s to the benefit of USA Cycling athletes.

“Times are changing,” Griffin told The Gazette in explaining the organization’s new role overseeing community access. It’s a time of “building back just like any organization that took a hit during COVID,” Griffin said, and of “strengthening our partnership with USOPC.”

He added: “USOPC I wouldn’t say is hamstrung, but USOPC and USA Cycling isn’t really in the business of programming for velodromes. Our goal is to have some kind of velodrome organization that takes on that role.”

That might be a nonprofit, he said, or some kind of organization that he said he hopes emerges from stakeholder meetings involving enthusiastic individuals, advocates, business people and officials.

For now, Griffin said USOPC and USA Cycling are “navigating” what he called “the biggest cost of anything we’re gonna be doing at the velodrome:” a liability requirement for medical staff on hand during community hours.

“That level of medical really will determine the amount of programming we can do,” Griffin said.

He said it was uncertain when that programming would start this year.