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Coming In From the Cold – Inside the Gent Six

by Steve Penny
Gent
23rd November 2008

Winter is here and there are no Classics or Grand Tours to watch on cable TV and only the hardy will be out on their bikes clocking up the miles as if it were spring, summer or autumn. So for some British cycling enthusiasts and a fair few North Americans too, this can only mean one thing, a trip to the Ghent Six. The city has been a home from home for British cyclists and cycling fans alike since the 1960s when the legendary Tom Simpson, amongst others, lived in the city. Two of the late Simpson’s daughters have lived here for many years and when they enter ‘Het Kuipke’ (meaning the bowl) the Six Day velodrome, or the ‘Sportspaleis’ as it was once known, there is a bust in honour of ‘Gentleman Tom’. With 42,000 fans from home and abroad attending over the week the Six Day race is now unofficially described locally as ‘the Gent Winter Festival’, and it really is more than just another bike race.

During the final weekend of the 68th edition biting winds coming in from the North Sea (20 miles to the west), hail, sleet, rain and more than an inch or two of snow fell at various times, sometimes it seemed like all at once. But once you came in from the cold into the warm, compact confines of Het Kuipke for many it is like you have arrived at your own home from home. The building is 50+ years old and apart from some renovation in the lobby and main bar area you imagine not a lot has changed over the years and the hard wooden backed seats around the 166 metre, steeply banked, track belong to a bygone era. The roof has apparently been in need of repair for many years and it was a strange sight seeing two pigeons flying around the old rafters on Sunday afternoon, there must be a hole somewhere. Can you imagine that happening inside one of the state of the art 21st Century arenas that house Ice Hockey and Basketball in North America? But that is why generations of locals and foreigners alike have come from near and far every November to see Six Day racing Belgian style, the cyclists change but most other things don’t. People keep coming back to meet with and talk to old friends. Some talking about their own racing days, although unlike in the English speaking world the majority of bike fans are certainly not cyclists themselves. The Flemish just love cycling it’s part of their history and culture so most will come with their partners, family members, friends, work colleagues to chat and meet people they met here in years gone by, it’s like a reunion. The MCs, journalists, photographers and organisational staff seem to change little from year to year adding a familiarity people enjoy and welcome, like I said a home from home. Of course others will be here for the very first time and I’m sure many will make new friends and meet new people, either way all will become united by their love for this event. There are no light shows, glitz, glamour, show girls, cheer leaders or separate rooms for discos and live music as in Munich, Berlin or Rotterdam, just one podium girl and Miss Sport Belgian to present the prizes and woo the male members of the audience. The public wouldn’t have it any other way though as this is a spit and sawdust blue collar Six Day, just as it’s always been.

The track centre, or Middenplein in Flemish, is the hub of this social gathering. As the cyclist’s proceed to circle the track for lap after lap Euro and retro pop music blares continuously through the speaker’s, men and women of all ages drink (plastic) glass after glass of the local beer(s). Belgium is of course a country of many beers and some foreigners, and a few locals, will leave having underestimated the strength of the local brews. Unlike weekends in towns and cities across the UK though there are no fist fights or arguments here, just many a sore head the next day. There are even a group of fans, from Southern England, dressed in fancy dress Scottish kilts and hats. They arguably turn as many heads as the females in the crowd, many of whom are the wives and girlfriends of local bike riders from past and present. The cyclists themselves are the eye candy for the females in the audience though and nowhere else in the world are low - medium income pro bike riders so sought after.

But of course it is not all about beer and if you want just a Pepsi, lemonade or soft drink you can get that too. Around the hall’s perimeter there are a couple of cafes one selling everything you get in the centre but also, a much needed, coffee or a local drink called Cecemel, a kind of cold chocolate milk drink. This product was actually sponsoring the Derny races and the motor pacers themselves. The large bellies some of these pacers sport may not actually be the best publicity for the product though, but that of course is coincidental!!!

At German Sixes food is very much part of the mix but in Gent it doesn’t appear that culinary excellence is all that important. You can get a burger or hot dog and with cigarette smoking now banned inside it is the greasy smell of the burgers that now seems to stay in the nostrils long after you’ve passed the stall. I also saw a stall selling pizza in the shape of a ‘French baguette’ and they seemed to be doing a decent trade. But if you do want to sit down and eat there is a ‘public restaurant’ where for €18-25 (euro) you can have the soup of the day, a chicken or steak dinner with salad and, literally, a mountain of frietes (French fries). The non meat option was a shrimp salad nothing for vegetarians, but being teetotal or a vegetarian is akin to having a mental health problem at any Six Day race (I know as I’m both). The VIP restaurant I imagine has the same menu as the public place, although it was off limits for me, and this is where the organisers and sponsors bring their friends, clients and staff to eat and afterwards sit in the best seats on the home straight. In Germany the VIPs and corporate sponsors always sit and eat at tables in the track centre but in Gent that would be sacrilege as the Middenplien, like cycling itself, belongs solely to the people.

As another Six ended the fans, warmed by another win for local man Iljo Keisse, drifted off into the snowy evening. All chatting away in Flemish, French and English about what they’d seen and many, I’m sure, were talking about coming back again next year to do it all again. As the saying goes “if it isn’t broke don’t fix it”.