Starting this month, young adults in the Kirkland area will have the chance to learn a lesser-known type of cycling from recently retired Olympian track cyclist Jennie Reed.

The Kirkland resident, who has three world championship medals and is a 10-time national champion, started Reed Junior Cycling Academy this month at the Marymoor Velodrome in Redmond. This junior academy will teach kids the fundamental skills that are not only essential to track cycling but to all forms of bike racing.

Track cycling, also known as velodrome racing, is unlike what you might think of when you think of bike racing. This is not the Lance Armstrong, Tour de France type of cycling. Instead, track cyclists race close together on a banked oval track which helps them to draft behind other riders. Although it is mainly popular in Europe, track races were once held in Madison Square Garden in the 1930s. Reed hopes to spark interest once again in this sport.

While cycling is popular in Seattle, many young adults do not have the chance to develop skills that are needed to race at an advanced level.

“It (racing schools) is something that we don’t have anywhere in the U.S.,” Reed said. “I started in Seattle when I was 16 and they didn’t have a program like (Reed Academy).”

Reed had to learn from other, more experienced riders.

“For me it was just master riders, meaning 35-plus… and they would give me any knowledge that they had. But as far as having a program and being around kids my age and learning how to ride my bike and race my bike,” Reed says, there were not any.

However, Reed says, “there are great (cycling) programs around Seattle, but they’re just club teams. The academy idea will be the same idea as having a club team, but it will be coaching these riders as well, with world class coaching, something that they don’t have in Seattle.”

Learning how to ride her bike was something that Reed felt like she didn’t have the opportunity to do as a teen. Haven been taken as a novice track racer, Reed was thrown into the National Team before she could fully develop the techniques of a professional track cyclist. After joining the National Team, Reed had to develop the skills quickly and under pressure.

“Since we have no development in this country,” Reed says, “that’s what I had to do.”

She said it would have been a lot better if she had developed those skills properly when she was young.

“And that is what I want to change,” Reed says. “I don’t want these kids to not have the skill set when they get to a higher level.”

For more information on Reed Junior Cycling Academy contact Jennie Reed at reedjuniorcyclingacademy@gmail.com

Brian Farn is a student in the University of Washington Department of Communication News Laboratory.