The Berlin Six Day finished with a win for the Aussie World Champions Cameron Meyer and Leigh Howard (wine gum thief), we hope you enjoyed our daily diaries from the inside.
Also at the track to capture the racing was our pal John Young, of Fietsenphotography, and once again he’s been very nice and supplied us with loads of great images – you’ll see a lot of them illustrating the diary pieces, but we ran out of room on the articles themselves, so thought we’d present the rest in a special Berlin Six Day photo album. Enjoy!
Franco Marvulli takes a breather during the Madison.
Gallery
Franco Marvulli has been a fixture of the Six Day scene for years.
A young fan get gifted a collectors item from the Derny bike rider.
Andreas Graf and Andreas Muller in Madison action.
Andreas Graf in action.
Countrymen Kluge and Kalz chat.
Dillier and Meyer go head to head form Madison win.
Martin is our Editor and web site Designer/Manager and concentrates on photography. He's been involved in cycle racing for over four decades and raced for much of that time, having a varied career which included time trials, road and track racing, and triathlons. Martin has been the Scottish 25 Mile TT and 100 Mile TT Champion, the British Points Race League Champion on the track, and he won a few time trials in his day, particularly hilly ones like the Tour de Trossachs and the Meldons MTT.
Kris heads straight for breakfast from the camper but I’m not man enough for that, I need the shower to bring me to life before I can face Rotterdam Six Day 2019, Day Four...
Saturday at the Berlin Six Day and the first Madison was a ‘potato chase' – best expressed as a ‘non-death’ race as the minnows were allowed to pull a lap back here and there. As well as the men who ride behind the big bikes, the crowd’s darlings are the sprinters.
Grenoble Six Day 2006. 17.45: Where did the day go? They are playing Puccini over the stadium PA, the folies girls are rehearsing their routine, you would have to be here to appreciate it, but it's awesome.
The theme from 'Star Wars' plays as the U23 riders victory ceremony gets underway - not long 'til the lunch time kick off. I haven't seen much of the U23 event, the riders don't share the area we're in and when their racing is on I'm usually busy getting our cabin set up. There's more of that confusing team changing thing going on again - Terpstra is now with Lampater who was with Stroetinga until he crashed.
Sportsmen in general, and cyclists are no different in this respect, are a superstitious lot. So it goes without saying that good omens are often looked for when we set out to the first race of the new Scottish season. Sunday morning dawned bright, clear and sunny as sixty teams of two warmed up for the Fullarton Wheelers Ice Breaker 2-Up Time Trial on the outskirts of Irvine, and the unseasonably favourable weather was the omen that most had looked for.
An Aussie winning Scottish cyclo crosses; what's that all about? VeloVeritas went walk-about and tracked him down for a billy-can of tea beside the billabong.
On social media the other day I saw someone contend that perhaps the crisis that faces time trialling – i.e. the participation age range becomes older by the season, with a case in point being the Scottish ‘25’ title: three youths, one junior – is as a result of the fact that the youngsters think that to compete on equal terms they MUST have a machine which will cost upwards of five grand.
The women's 500 metre time trial was the first race I caught sight of on the TV - it's hard to get excited about it. But the Ballerup track was looking great, freshly sanded and with new advertising - what you don't realise until you look at the down tube of a bike that has just finished in a Derny race is the amount of soot and oil that the little motorbikes pump out - the joiners have buffed all that off, though.
