In 1990 the name of English rider Spencer Wingrave appeared on the Gent Six Day winners list with team mate and coming-man (later Flemish Legend) Peter Van Petegem, who went on to be a two-times winner of the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix Champion.
Saturday morning early, in the cabin at the Rotterdam Six Day 2022 – the cleaning ladies liked my choice of music and were giving me a little dance around their mops; I was going to go out and get some beers in but they said they had the rest of the stadium to clean...
Those Venga Boys, they ‘Like to Party,’ the ‘speaker’ is getting excited; ‘ho, ho, ho !’ the bone-hard Contis rumble on the boards, the 1/8” pitch chains rattle – it’s good to be back, there’s nothing like a Six Day. A couple of weeks ago I was spectating at the Gent Six Day, right now I'm on the other side of the boards working in the track centre at the Rotterdam Six Day.
It wasn’t just the Covid, it was more the quarantine we would have had to endure that kept us away from the Flatlands for the 2021 Gent Six Day and 2022 Opening Weekend; but like Kiss said; ‘We’re back, back in the New York Groove’ – let’s make that the ‘Flanders Groove.’
We were delighted to see 31 years-old Yoeri Havik from Zaandam pull on that beautiful maillot arc en ciel as winner of the Points Race in what was remarkably his first Worlds individual event, albeit he’s twice ridden the Madison Worlds.
Rest in peace, Jim Moore, the British ex-pro who emigrated to Canada in 1974 enjoyed a long and varied career, from amateur road and track man in the UK to ‘independent’ in France, representing GB in the 1964 Tour de l’Avenir, a ride in the Skol Six Day, and a successful pro career in the UK before crossing the Atlantic.
In recent weeks we’ve lost three important figures within our King of Sports; Norman Hill, a man who did it all, road, the Belgian Kermis scene, Six Days, big motors, even cyclo-cross, Bernard Tapie, the man responsible for riders beginning to get paid what they were worth, and track coach Heiko Salzwedel.
The late Gary Wiggins’ sister Glenda Hughes, took to social media recently to remind us that some 13 years have passed since the big Australian died under mysterious circumstances. Wiggins had many sides – depending on how you knew him – which prompted us to re-run our review of his European glory to tragic end.
In Part Three of the Tim Mountford story we learned what is was like to travel around Europe as part of the Stayer circus, racing behind the big motors as high speeds. In this final, Part Four of Tim's interview, he tells us about some of the secrets to securing race contracts in the European Six Days, his favourite memories of top level track racing, some of the characters he conspired with, deciding to retire and open a chain of bike shops in Silicon Valley, and his induction into the US Cycling Hall of Fame.
If we asked 'who is the current World Sprint Champion?' back in 1970 few would have had any hesitancy in saying that the amateur champion was legendary Frenchman Daniel Morelon and the Professional Sprint king was Aussie, Gordon Johnson, mounted on a British-made Carlton.
In Part One of his account of ‘running’ at the SKOL Six Days in the early 70’s Pip Taylor told us about the 1971 race. For the 1972 race he’d moved up the strata and was ‘running’ for a bona fide ‘Blue Train’ pairing.
Regular VeloVeritas reader, Pip Taylor was a ‘runner’ at two of the early editions of the SKOL Six Day races in London, he’s kindly shared his recollections with us.
It’s a fair old trek from Manchester to Fife after there was no race to watch, so what else was I going to do as I sat in the passenger seat but RANT! Let’s start with the only topic in town: Corona Virus and me...
From the very first chase there was little doubt about who was in charge of the Copenhagen Three Day 2020; Dutchmen Jan Van Schip and Yoeri Havik were the strongest men on the track. In the recent UCI World Cup in Milton, Canada Van Schip won the Omnium then teamed up with Havik to win the Madison – so we knew they were on form.
There’ll be a popular name missing from the Six Day lap boards come the winter of 2020/21, that of Belgium’s Moreno De Pauw, at just 28 years-of-age he’s decided to call ‘time’ on his career and join the police. Over the years he’s been a prolific collector of championship medals – 28 Belgian titles and too many Belgian championship silvers and bronzes for us – or him - to keep track of.
‘Easy like Sunday morning,’ said the Commodores – you got that one wrong guys. The racing here at the Bremen Six Day 2020 finished at 02:00 am with the guys back on those nice new boards at 12:35. In the meantime, the pee pails have to be emptied and disinfected; the washing done for four guys – each with shorts, three under vests, three jerseys, socks and mitts – then dried, folded and laid out...
Patti Smith is telling me at pain threshold levels; ‘because the night belongs to lovers.’ No girl! It belongs to that bed in the camper van which I’m using my last dregs of energy to reach. The racing may be over for the night at the Bremen Six Day 2020 but the party is 100% ON, Bremen isn’t called the ‘Party Six’ for nothing.
Ed parachuted in to the Rotterdam Six Day 2020 on Tuesday afternoon to help Kris break camp and load the camper in anticipation of driving up to Bremen and the Six Day which started there on Thursday evening. When you wander up the tunnel stairs and into the track centre at Rotterdam with the u23’s hurtling round, the lights blazing and the PA pumping it’s still damn cool...
Our old friend and former Six Day man, ‘Brit,’ Norman Hill suggested to us that we should ‘have a word’ with the man who was his Six Day ‘runner’ on the winter boards circuit back when there were up to 17 Six Day races every winter, Marvin Smart, who was also an innovator in the field of advertising on the actual track surface – such an important factor in a Six Day organiser’s budget plans.
We thought it would good to talk with the previous ‘Woman of the Hour,’ Ms. Bussi about her record of 48.007 kilometres set on September 13th 2018 at high altitude on the boards of the Aguascalientes velodrome in Mexico.
Alejandro Valverde winning his fourth Doyenne as last Sunday’s hi-lite? Well, we were expecting that – the Movistar Spaniard and Sky’s Polish flyer Kwiatkowski were ‘super favourites’ and delivered two of the three podium places. But what we weren’t expecting was the phone call from VeloVeritas soothe sayer and mentor, Viktor on Sunday evening; ‘your man Dan Fleeman’s just won The Rutland!’ Now, that was a surprise!
One man we can’t ignore is Orange Monkey’s Rab Wardell; he understands that as a professional athlete you have to engage the Press, keep them on side and make it easy to write about you. And that’s how we came to be sitting down with him in the Cafe of the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, recently.
Scotland had an exceptional World Championship in Apeldoorn with Mark Stewart and Jack Carlin both on the podium; Stewart in the points race and Carlin in the individual and team sprint – both boding very well for the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in ‘24 days 09 hours and 55 seconds’ at time of writing. And there was that that remarkable young lady, Katie Archibald taking team pursuit silver with the GB squad and Madison gold with Emily Nelson.
Scottish rider, Alex Coutts, who is a regular interviewee on VeloVeritas, has been riding in Asia this season for the Giant Asia Race Team; it's now been five months since his season started in the Tour of Langkawi. As "The Burntisland Buzzard" is training again in Spain for a hard six week period of racing in China, Japan and Korea, we thought it was about time we got an up-date on life competing in the UCI Asia Tour circuit.
One result which caught our eye recently was a win in the InterClub race at Zandhoven over 138 K where Englishman Jake Scott beat Stef Vermeulen of KWC Heist Zuiderkempen to take the win. InterClubs are ‘big deal’ races and the pro teams keep a close eye on the results – naturally, they’re not easy to win.