It’s a grey morning at the Grenoble Six Days; we can’t unload until 11:00 am and then we have to drive up to Lyon and collect Jesper and Marc off the plane.
In the stadium office they have great old black and white photos of the stadium under construction; it really is a gem of a building, if you like modern architecture.
The Palais sits next to the Stade des Alpes; the city’s football stadium with the wings of the Palais and the glass bubble of the Stade in the shadow of the mountains – a spectacular setting for sport.
I’m actually considering staying on in Grenoble ’til December – I’ve just found out Johnny Hallyday is appearing at the Palais des Sports.
And just like you have to arrive in a different country for a six, there has to be set up hassles.
The organiser of the six, Guy Chanal decided that the big door at the bottom of the ramp down to the basement cabins has to remain locked today, to save the cost of a security guard.
This means we had to cart all the stuff – and there’s a wheen of it, including the boy’s bikes – through the upstairs door, under the track access panel, down the stairs and through the rabbit’s warren of concrete tunnels to the cabin.
It’s done now and Laurent Biondi, the ‘chef de piste’ gave us a hand, that was cool.
Biondi won here with Fignon in 1990 and was world pro points champion at Maebashi, Japan the same year.
Lunch time and we’re en route Lyon, but the sun’s out and the views are spectacular – mustn’t grumble . . .
. . . And now it’s 18:00 and the sun is low in the sky: but the boys have been delivered to their hotel and the big cabin is set up – á demain !
