Tag: Gent Six Day

It's Monday morning, I'm sitting in some horrible 'theme' bar at Charleroi Airport. My flight home to Edinburgh is cancelled due to the snow in Auld Scotia and the best I could wangle was Charleroi to Dublin, tonight then Dublin to Prestwick in the morning. My pal Dave has booked me into a hotel at Dublin airport, so I'm as sorted as I can be. The alternative flight from here was late on Wednesday night. The six all seems a long time ago...

I'm working at the Gent Six Day 2010, and last year's Under 25 winner, big Aussie, Alex Carver just landed on the boards, somewhere close to my right ear.

I just received an email from Rapha; "The New Tweed Softshell and City Riding Collection" - that's exactly what I need, tweed. Set a new trend at the Kuipke. We're here for the Gent Six Day 2010.

A thought from the Gent Six Day 2010: It would be easy to go native, work all the Sixes, get a job in a bike shop or with a little team for the summer, forget the "25" champs, the 'day job.' The Sixes are seductive, the rolling presentation, the music, the lights, the banter, the 'insider' chat, the gleaming bikes, the pretty girls, the total isolation from reality.

Last night at the Gent Six Day 2010? It's tonight, already! No-one stood out, the home boys had to be seen to do well and De Ketele, Mertens, and of course Iljo, all did the biz.

Monday night, 24 hours until the 70th Gent Six Day 2010 commences. The Derny exhaust fumes are sweet and sickly, like the stench from the Grangemouth chemicals plant on a bad day, the cold air makes them all the more pungent. Five or six riders sit behind the little bike, loosening off stiff legs, dull after hours sitting in aeroplanes or cars.

The Gent Six Day 2009 kicks off next week, so as a way to build the excitement we thought we'd revisit last year's finalé, with VeloVeritas' own Ed Hood there and working for the Danish World Madison Champions, Saxo Bank riders Alex Rasmussen and Michael Mørkøv, as well as Swiss star Franco Marvulli. Read on!...

There was no partying at Iljo's dad's bar, De Karper - which is just along the road from the Gent track - for us tonight; we had a ferry to catch. I didn't have time to put together a Day Five piece, today. We were up at 09:00 for the 13:00 start; usually I spend the early afternoon writing, but today I couldn't, although I did manage to get the Day Five pictures away as the under 23 lads prepared for action.

Viktor has been keeping in touch, he was going to come over but couldn't get a flight. 'Is that Bruno's wee brother's bike he's on?' He does have a point, with carbon frame manufacture, one of the biggest costs is to produce the moulds.

The Belgian papers are something else. Whilst you do get superb cycling coverage; in yesterday's 'De Gentenaar' we had to endure a colour photograph of a fatal road accident, complete with burnt out car and mangled push bike; a racist photo manipulation of Michelle Obama as a character from Planet of the Apes and images from a slaughter house, including a cow getting it's head chopped off - I'll stick with the Guardian.

It's different here; the butcher asks you how Keisse is doing in the six and the local paper has Iljo in full colour, on the cover. In the same paper - De Gentenaar - which is a local 'rag,' there's a two page guide to track racing and two pages of stats on the 2009 season.

It was 1975 when Dave, Don, Ed the Pole and yours truly first climbed the concrete stairs to get our first sight of the legendary boards of Gent velodrome. I still remember the smells; derny exhaust, pee, frying food and beer! Having spent my formative years riding time trials and road races (badly !) in the wilds of Scotland, with sheep as the main audience, I was fascinated by the spectacle.

Compared to the wide open 210 metre pastures of Grenoble, at 166 metres, the Gent track does look tiny; the bankings aren't really steep enough and you can't ride the top 400 mm of the track, because the crash barriers overlap the boards by that much.