Day One at the Berlin Six Day 2017
You’ve got to get here first, right?
Even by Ryanair punishment flight standards, it was a sore one. The lady in front of me, I’m sure was taking her kids to audition for; ‘Devil Spawn of Berlin, The Revenge’ – they’ll get the parts, no problem.
I felt like a native buying my S Bahn train ticket from the machine and riding into town with the rush hour commuters – damn cold though.
It’s ‘all change’ at the velodrome, the pits have been moved into the centre of the track, divorcing us from the action and meaning we can’t push riders ‘in’ or offer them a hand to save them from kicking back on sore legs when they come in.
The programme is different too with the big motors not coming out to play until after the last chase in the Six Day – happy days, so nice to walk out of the hall and leave the noise and exhaust fumes behind.
The race is now part of the Madison Sports organisation’s ‘Six Day league’ along with London, Amsterdam and next week’s Copenhagen race.
Belgians Kenny De Ketele and Moreno De Pauw won in England and the Netherlands and have to be strong favourites here.
Their main challengers on paper would seem to ‘home boys’ Leif Lampater and big Marcel Kalz who won here two years ago – Kalz won in Bremen the other week with Iljo Keisse but in the process picked up a bad saddle sore on the tight bankings and lumpy boards of the northern city’s track.
There’s British representation with messrs. Chris Latham (who rode so strongly in London 2015) paired with team pursuit specialist (is it just me or is he a David Miller clone?) Andy Tennant.
The opening chase wasn’t too savage, ‘boards warmed’ and all that; I’m not race-fit yet so forgot a few of my tasks – but I’ll be flying come night four…
Derny – yawn…
Then, in true ‘old school Grenoble’ [R.I.P] style we had a juggler; and the boy was awesome – but not as awesome as the acrobats who came on later.
