Große Jagd

February 8, 2011 5:10 AM

The 100th Berliner Sechstagerennen (Six Day Race) ran from Jan 27 to Feb 1 2011, continuing the local tradition started in 1909.
posted by KirkpatrickMac (3 comments total)

Great Madison pictures there. A former pro racer friend of mine tells stories of racing six days in Ghent. This is a a couple decades ago, and his bike was equipped with a Brooks saddle. When he got back to the states his girlfriend complained that the saddle stunk up their apartment. It had been marinating in cigarette smoke and spilled beer fumes for six days and was pretty ripe. I have some great pictures on Flickr of races in Madison Square Garden around the turn of the last century, guys sleeping in little tents in the infield. Good stuff.
posted by fixedgear at 5:20 AM on February 8, 2011

hey, I've been there this year with my father who was visiting Berlin. He always went as a kid, and it seems that the spectacle hasn't changed all that much, although they are not cycling through all six days like they used to.

It is an amazing spectacle, with the great hunt always having the whole audience out of their seats, the noise and fumes from the motor paced Steher race, when the cyclers drive in the wind shadow of specially modded motor bikes, a discipline essentially unaltered since more than a hundred years, the beer drinking audience whistling in rhythm with the Sportpalastwalzer always playing during the victory lap...

I felt like I stepped through a door a few decades into the past.
posted by ts;dr at 9:18 AM on February 8, 2011 [1 favorite]

I really enjoyed this, thanks for posting! If you like to ride bikes, riding in a proper velodrome is something you must do at least once in your life. It is such a great feeling and this video does a fine job of capturing that.
posted by the painkiller at 10:19 AM on February 8, 2011