The last six-day race of our Pushbikers was four years ago. A long time for a cycling team that was one of the best on the track for many years and grew up with the six-day races. Certainly, the last few years have also brought changes for the “format” of the six-day races,
and so the traditional Berlin Six-Day Race 2023 took place on three days instead of six. In the midst of the twelve men’s teams: Roy Eefting and Filippo Fortin as Team Wahoo.
Our comeback at the six-day races.
Here we are again. The Berlin Velodrom on Landsberger Alle: a lot of grey concrete on the outside, but also in the catacombs and corridors on the inside. And like every year before, it is winterly cold in Berlin, downright frosty.
Then you are immersed in a world of your own – the hustle and bustle inside the track, the crowds in the stands on Saturday evening, the queues in front of the drinks stands in the aisles. Not a completely new world for Pippo and Roy, but a very different kind of experience. As a scratch specialist, Roy has ridden six-day formats in Italy and Alkmaar in the past, and Pippo also rode the six-day race in Copenhagen in 2014, where team boss Christian Grasmann finished second overall. And yet they both had to get used to racing in the team eliminations, derny and madison that the 2023 Six Day programme had in store. Getting used to each other, finding a strategy in the midst of the 24 riders, recognising initial mistakes. Both agreed that their collective performance improved night by night: “I felt we got better as the days went on. We kept improving in terms of tactics and technique. If we ride together a few more times, I think we can be a good team,” said Roy Eefting. The two had to settle for 9th place overall this time.
Real love is team love. All three nights, the team boss, sporting director and teammates were there on the oval to cheer Roy and Filippo on. We were particularly impressed by the atmosphere during the Madison race, when almost without exception all the spectators in the stands followed the last races standing up, sometimes whistling and shouting, and cheered especially for the German duo Roger Kluge and Theo Reinhard at the end. That is what a six-day race is all about: being close to the action, understanding the performance of the riders in the wooden oval and showing this enthusiasm. For us, two-man team racing is and remains a great discipline that celebrates skill, experience and the feeling for the right moment (think of Franco Marvulli: “now you have to go”).
… our Six Day and team partner Wahoo and to Reynolds, who we had the pleasure of introducing as our new team partner at the 2023 Six Day Race in Berlin.