Copenhagen Six Day 2012 – Day Two

‘Rivers of Babylon’ by the Melodians, now there’s a tune to fold jerseys by — until the guy in the cabin next door hops on his rollers, that is. And there was me looking for some peace on a Saturday morning — a split day today with afternoon and evening sessions at the Copenhagen Six Day.

We don’t like double sessions, neither do the riders, but like the song says; ‘That’s just the way it is.’

Last night wasn’t a bad one…

‘I think I did pretty well, there!’ says Shane — the only problem is that he’s talking about the rolling presentation.

If day one was all about those opening 400 laps of pain, day two was back to the more usual mix of events.

But before we go into that we need a bit of gossip — the 400 lapper last night went to Iljo Keisse/Marc Hester on a photo finish.

But a ‘certain Belgian mechanic’ has in his possession images which quite clearly show Michael Mørkøv crossing the line maybe 20 mm ahead of the Belgian, however I’m forbidden to reproduce said picture.

Those Belgians stick together.

Franco has been hoovering up the big bottles of wine which are on offer as primes in the sprint series — that’s the thing with the man – the motivation has to be right.

There are sprinters here, this year we’ve seen the cream of the French, Dutch and German crops at Grenoble, Rotterdam and Berlin, respectively.

Which means that watching guys in their 40’s riding times outside 11 seconds isn’t that inspiring — but there’s a ‘mature’ Italian gentleman riding who is tactically very astute, he’s not bad to watch.

The Devil, and Michael gives Danny Stam no retirement gifts, jumping him and winning by half a lap.

The first chase is a potato job; but quite watchable — Barth/Blaha win.

I have a chat with Andreas Müller about the two hour chase on night one and say that there were a few guys wasted; ‘Yes! I saw them!’ replies Andreas.

The Derny is where I push Michael off, and he finishes the job nicely. I trot round with the hat and towel to the finish line for the presentation for a second time.

The masters’ sprinters go up again and Shane isn’t impressed with the times; ‘I go way faster than that in the middle of an omnium!’

Derny two; we have no one up for it — always a good thing.

Next up is the show, “Ole Steens” is a Danish ’50’s and ’60’s rock n’ roll cover band — and we’ll leave it at that.

German Six Day specialist Christian Grasmann and Danish sprinter Lasse Norman win the flying lap, beating all the big guns.

The lap record stands to Robert Bartko who rode 12.834 last year on a huge gear.

The balustrade sprint is next; Dario G’s ‘Sunchyme’ hammers out as Barth leads the string up and down the track as a prelude to the 60 minute chase.

Not a bad chase but not a great one, either.

Half distance and Iggy Pop’s ‘Real Wild Child’ isn’t a bad tune to watch a chase by — and it seems to move the guys up a gear.

Hester hurts as the string snakes across the banking; nobody wants to relinquish their tenuous grip on the tyre in front.

Michael Mørkøv and Iljo Keisse are the smoothest and strongest riders on the track but its early days yet and Marvulli/Mørkøv had to take a lap back to stay in the race.

Franco picked his moment and went with Lampater to take the lap that put him and Jesper back with the top group and also put Leif and Big Bob one lap up.

It was just possible that Franco and Jesper could win the chase — but Big Bob’s not a man for presents and the Germans took the race and the overall lead.

But Franco and Jesper were happy that they were ‘back in the race.’

With Martyn here life’s a lot easier at finishing time, there’s a lot of kit to keep track of and wash with six riders.

You earn your beer and toastie on this race — but the subsequent walk to the hotel is cold, freezing, way below zero.

Dirk, our mechanic had planked a six pack of Leffe for me under his camper — this thought kept me going through the night.

But when it gets on to 02:00 am the old brain isn’t so sharp — I thought that his camper was parked at the hotel.

But no, it was parked at the track so I had to walk all the way back to the track from the hotel to retrieve the precious bottles — then back to the hotel.

Franco was ‘winding down’ in the hotel reception; did I say I had six Leffe’s? — make that four, thanks to ‘Marvellous’. Ah well!

Two sessions tomorrow — ouch!

Copenhagen Six Day 2012 - Results from Day Two