6 jours de Grenoble
A friend at work had free tickets to "6 Jours de Grenoble" that he wasn't using, so I went to see it on the penultimate day with Simon. The 6 jours is a famous six day track event, and while I had heard a lot about it, had never managed to go. In the past, some famous riders like Merckx, Moser, Fignon, Lemond and Hinault have participated and it is pretty well known. I think it is part of high profile riders' "bread and butter" in the off season rather than actual competing, but I'm not sure. In any case, I had never seen a track event of any kind in real life, so I was very excited. We left St Egreve around 8 pm and after a lot of circling the area around the Palais des Sports, eventually found a space. We entered through the Eastern side, and walked up through the stairways. The Palais is a marvel of ... Concrete. Concrete slabs everywhere. I didn't see a single piece of wood. Anyway, we were quite high up in the stadium but could still see down into the huge wooden velodrome without a problem. There were quite a few different disciplines on display: Keirin, Pro serie de sprints, sprint SAMSE, Pro chasse, etc etc. I found most of it totally bewildering, but it was easy enough to see when strategy or the bell called for some effort, as the riders would hunker down and start pouring on the watts. Very cool. In the center of the ring, there was a stage and a huge buffet. I think those seats are more expensive, but they look like a fantastic place to be. Some tables put you as aclose as two meters from the riders. Simon and I were wondering how you get in and out of the center of a ring (for a pee, for example, since there did not appear to be any outhouses in the ring), and it looks like there is some kind of tunnel. As far as the stage goes, the racing is interspersed with performances! When we arrived, it was Cirque Dominic Lacasse, who did astoundingly smooth and impressive gymnastic moves. He looked like a climber, but with (much) larger muscles. Subsequently, there was Cirque Liazeed, which involved more gymnastic displays, "Mr. Wow" who did some very fancy Diabolo work, and finally the Paris Folies: Showgirls! They did a dance routine, and then in a blink of an eye their tops had disappeared. Could this be the best sports event ever? The dancers had impressive musculature on their backs too and actually also looked like climbers.
On the way back to the car, I saw some costumed kids see us coming, confer amongst themselves and then scatter and hide. This made me a little nervous, but we discovered soon enough what they were up to, and it was nothing devious. Basically one guy who was dressed as a women came running at us screaming for help while pursued by a devil, a zombie bride and something else. I'm not sure what we were supposed to do, but Simon and I very un-gamely started laughing and I took a picture. I feel a bit sad that I didn't think up some amusing way to play along, but I was tired.
