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Six-day racing

Six-day racing is a track cycling specialism, which - as the name suggests - involves racing over six days.

Origins

The first six-day event was an individual time trial at the Agricultural Hall in Islington, London in 1878 when a professional called David Stanton sought a bet that he could ride 1,000 miles in six successive days, riding 18 hours a day. A Mr Davis put up £100 and the stake was held by the Sporting Life newspaper. Stanton started at 6am on 25 February and won the bet in 73 hours, riding on a high-wheeled machine at an average speed of 13½mph.

Six-day cycle races involving more than one rider grew out of the 19th-century enthusiasm for endurance and other novelty competitions. A promoter at the Agricultural Hall held a six-day walking contest in April 1877. It was enough of a success for another to be held the following year. That inspired another organiser, name now no longer known, to organise a six-day race in the same hall but for cyclists, also in 1878. They hoped to attract the crowd of 20,000 a day that had turned out for the walkers.

The Islington Gazette reported:

"A bicycle contest was commenced at the Agricultural Hall, on Monday last, for which £150 is offered in prizes for a six days' competition, the money to be allocated thus: £100 for the first man, £25 for the second, £15 for the third, and £10 for the fourth."

The race started at 6am with only four of the 12 entrants on the track. Although it is often said that the first six-day was a non-stop, no-sleeping event that ran without pause for six days, in fact riders joined in when they chose and slept as they wished.

The winner was Bill Cann, of Sheffield, who led from the start and finished after 1,060 miles.

The two-man race

In time the format was changed to allow teams (usually of two riders each), one rider racing while the other rested. The 24-hours a day regime has also been relaxed, so that most six-day races involve six nights of racing, typically from 6pm to 2am, on indoor tracks (velodromes).

The overall winner is the team which completes most laps. In the event of teams completing the same number of laps, the winner is the team with most points won in intermediate competitions see points race), time trials, motor-paced races.

As well as the 'chase' to gain laps over competitors, a typical six-day programme will include motor-paced, intermediate sprint and elimination races. In the main 'chase' or madison events (so-called after Madison Square Garden in New York where the two-man format was devised), both riders may be on the track at the same time, taking it in turns to race, hand-slinging each other back into action. The non-racing rider will circle the track slowly at the top of the banking until 'slung' back into the race. The hand-sling is an advanced skill that, in some countries, is only allowed for professional riders. The racing rider may also propel a team-mate into the race by pushing the seat of the rider's racing shorts.

The first American Six-days

However, the event did not become popular until 1891 when six-day races began to be held in Madison Square Garden in New York City. Initially, these races were contests of raw endurance, with a single rider competing as many laps as possible over a six-day period. The riders would rest when needed, but spent the remainder of the time racing to complete laps.

At first, races were held over less than 24 hours a day. Riders slept at night and were free to join in in the morning when they chose. Faster riders would typically start later than the slower ones, who would sacrifice their sleep to make up for their lack of pace. Quickly, however, riders began competing for 24 hours a day, limited only by their ability to stay awake. Many employed seconds, as in boxing, to keep them going. The seconds, more usually known by their French name 'soigneurs', were often said to have introduced wide-scale doping into the sport as they fought to keep their riders circling the track.

Riders became desperately tired. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle said:

"The wear and tear upon their nerves and their muscles, and the loss of sleep make them [peevish and fretful]. If their desires are not met with on the moment, they break forth with a stream of abuse. Nothing pleases them. These outbreaks do not trouble the trainers with experience, for they understand the condition the men are in."

The condition included delusions and hallucinations. Riders wobbled and frequently fell. But the riders were often well paid, especially since more people came to watch them as their condition worsened. Promoters in New York paid Teddy Hale $5,000 when he won in 1896 and he won "like a ghost, his face as white as a corpse, his eyes no longer visible because they'd retreated into his skull," as one report had it.

The New York Times said in 1897:

"An athletic contest in which participants 'go queer' in their heads, and strain their powers until their faces become hideous with the tortures that rack them, is not sport. It is brutality. Days and weeks of recuperation will be needed to put the Garden racers in condition, and it is likely that some of them will never recover from the strain."

Two-man team events

Six-day racing remained popular in the USA, even though the states of New York and Illinois led the way in 1898 in limiting races to 12 out of 24 hours. The lawyers' intention was to allow riders to rest half the day, but promoters realised that changing the rules so that riders competed in teams of two, with only one rider on the track at a time, would give each the 12 hours' rest the law intended while making the race still last 24 hours. Speeds rose, distances grew, crowds increased, money poured in. Where Charlie Miller rode 2,088 miles alone, the Australian Alf Goullet and a decent partner could ride 2,790. The first such two-man race was at Madison Square Garden and two-man tag racing has become known in English-speaking countries as a Madison and to the French as l'américaine.

Prior to World War II, velodrome racing, and Six-day racing in particular, was popular in the United States. Due to a number of factors, chief among them the rise of the automobile and the Great Depression, track racing in general declined in popularity after the early 1900s.

European popularity

Annual six-day races in Boston finished in 1933, Detroit in 1936, and Chicago in 1948. New York hung on until 1950.

European tracks grew desolate, the night sessions a refuge for partygoers who'd missed the bus and a small number of dedicated fans. Teams neutralised the race for hours. In London, the Australian promoter and former rider, Ron Webb, changed the programme in 1968 to six days of racing in just the afternoon and evening, with a break between sessions. Other organisers were not impressed and insisted Webb call his race a "six" and not a "six-day". One by one, however, they followed Webb's pattern and there are now no old-style 24-hour races left.

Six-day racing is now predominantly a European phenomenon, particularly popular in Belgium and Germany. Spectators may also be entertained by live music, and have access to restaurants and bars. The Munich Six-Day race even featured a funfair around the outside of the track, and a night-club in the cellar that opened at 2am (when the racing finished).