Munich Six Days
For someone who is well versed in track cycling as I claim to be, not having been to a six days race was a threat to my credibility. If I ended up in Europe during the colder months, I would go. There are many 6 days races between October and January all around western Europe. See UCI track schedule. Munich just so happened to be the most convenient time and place. For some history about six days racing read the wiki.Watching a track world cup or world championships is fun, but it has its dull moments, for example, team pursuit qualifying, pursuit qualifying. women's sprint repechages. first lap of every sprint round, etc. Everyone wants to see the madison. Well, 6 days racing is essentially 6 days (or more accurately, 6 nights) of only the events you want to see. This is the ultimate in spectator friendly sports and it could so easily be hugely popular in the US because it once was.
I knew 6 days were awesome, but seeing it in person still totally exceeded my expectations. This isn't an indoor velodrome...this is an indoor stadium! You get to sit back and watch Paolo Bettini and Erik Zabel (1st and 2nd at the road world championships 1 month prior) go around in circles for hours and hours. It sure beats sitting on the side of a road in the heat waiting for the tour to come by. Considering it's a 200 meter track with 10 to 11 second laps, those guys deserve every penny of their €100,000 start money. When the lap cards show 199 laps to go, you gotta like what you do. Bettini had only been riding the track for a few weeks, but he madisons like the best of them. He excels in the derny races probably because of motorpace training for road. There's only one thing that makes him stick out as a roadie. He was the only guy on the track who accelerated or sprinted out of the saddle.
 View of an empty stadium. |  Paolo Bettini makes it look easy. |  Watching the race from up high. |
There will be around 5 or 6 different events each night. So there's constantly winning and cheering. The riders are having a good time too. Before a race starts and all 30 of them are on the track, they'll ride single file and do the wave. Likewise, the wave in the stands should follow them around the track.
In addition to the madisons and points races, there were three other types of events that warrant some explanation.
1. Derny racing is not a paired event (ie no handslings). Each of the 15 racers has his own motorpacer (aka derny) who is very overweight and/or has a mustache. Many of them are former racers. It's a mass start race like a scratch race, but essentially they have a teammate who gives them a good draft and can always pick up the pace. It must involve some communcation so the driver knows whether his racer wants to attack or drop off the back. In general track races are conducted in pretty close quarters with some elbow contact, but in this event they keep their space. You won't see any 4 up sprints to the line. Usually only 1 or 2 are in contention by the end. The speed is fast and the motors are roaring and spewing out gasoline exhaust. Here's a video clip of Zabel and his motorpacer adding another victory:
2. A 1 lap flying time trial is much like a 200m time trial that a sprinter would do, but in this case you have endurance riders working as a pair. Both riders take a couple laps to wind up the speed. They're one behind the other until the last second when at full speed, the front rider handslings the back rider. With the kinetic energy of two people he does the fastest 200m of his life. The best times were just under 10.5 seconds, which a track sprinter could beat on his own. I didn't catch the exchange in this clip, but you can still see Dutchman Danny Stam cover a lot of distance in a very short time:
3. For the elimination race, it took me the longest time to figure out what was going on. They were slinging each other like a madison, but only close to the end when there were 4 guys left on the track did I realize this had a "miss and out" component to it. Elimination is a paired "miss and out"! Two-man teams sling each other in and out. Only 1 of the 2 is racing at a time, but if he's last on a lap, his pair is eliminated. To make an analogy: elimination is to miss and out as madison is to points race. I hereby declare this type of event the awesomest track event ever. It's a shame there's no world championships for it.
As a licensed USCF official, I probably shouldn't admit this, but I had a hard time keeping score, so I didn't try. I'm not exactly sure how it's tabulated, but I'll take the jumbotron's word for it. The important thing is that Zabel won most of the races and the overall. He could accelerate like no one else. It only takes a 10 second gap to take a lap and Zabel could just sprint out of the pack like he was racing with Cat 3's. I'm not sure how much of this is choreographed since he's the local favorite and everyone has a paid contract with the organizers.
 Watching the race from down low. Erik Zabel in yellow. |  Musicians are performing in the infield while the riders take a break. |  Isaac Galvez (rear) and Juan Llaneras in the 1 lap TT. Galvez died in a crash 2 weeks later at the Ghent Six Days. |
The racing goes from around 8PM until after midnight, but people aren't sitting in their seats the whole night. VIP's get their restaurant and bar on the infield. For common folk, all around the track are restaurants, bars (including a carousel bar), sponsor exhibits, bike shops, and fast food,...ox burgers, anyone? There are a couple breaks from racing where they have live music or some kind of performance. At a bike race in the US, all the spectators are probably bikers. At this event, the people in the crowd are just your average local sporting fans and they know more about track cycling than most American roadies. Here's a good video clip I found on YouTube. It's a few minutes long and gets a nice view of the track on the final night when the stands were completely packed.
 Blurred racers sprint for the finish. |  Derny racing: Every racer gets motorpaced. |  Danny Stam and Peter Schep wind it up for the the flying 1 lap. |
I selected some of the best photos to post here, but there are plenty more. Check out the thumbnail gallery.
Labels: cycling, munich, sixdays
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