New-York tribune., 1920-03-07
Ii Bike Teams
Begin Six-Day
Race Tonight.
First Spring Classic in Gar.
den Draws Entries of
Many Foreign Cyclists
BY Fred Hawthorne


What's "bred in the bone"--especially
when the "bone" is all above the ears
is particularly hard to cure, and that
explains, as we'll as anything can, why
there will be standing room only at
Madison Square garden at midnight to-
night, when the twenty-eighth six-day
bicycle race starts numbering sleep.
The attendance at the Garden last
night, when the usual preliminary to
the grind-the sprint race program
was staged, was accepted by veterans OF
these annual campaigns as indicating
that it is going to be full week: And
yet there are persons who will tell you
that the late war has caused the world
to stand still.
If the war did that, then the six-day
bike race sets the universe back just
half dozen days. Ask Dad, he knows!
AS the guy masticated it when he felt OF
his chin crop on the last night of last
years race, "The six-day race grew this
hair and / can prove it,"
In the old days they used to hold
these races once year. Now they are
committing them every six months, and
before we know it, they'll be putting
them over every six days.
NOW lC way DC
It'll soon be getting so that when a
criminal faces a judge in court to get
his sentence, the judicial bench warmer
will say something like this: ''1n going
over the evidence in this case, cannot
find single extenuating circumstance.
Everything shows that you are one of
the most depraved and dangerous GRIM
inals that was ever convicted in this
court. The sentence of the court is
that you spend six days and six nights
at the six-day race in the Garden, with
half an hour off for good behavior.
May God have mercy on your soul"
When the Sporting Editor placed a
heavy hand on our shoulder last night
and sentenced us to cover the race all
week, with no increase in salary and no
life insurance policy, we didn't even
culver. We've been insulted- by ex-
perts.
Ike Dorgan, the eminent collector of
trick vests, who is doing the bally-
hooing for the grind, dug out some of
last years files when we asked him for
some good live "dope" on this weeks
| race.
''There you are, son. It's all good
and it's all red hot! Just change the
And here are some of those photo
graphs you didn't use last year. No,
the "grudge" teams THIS year are
Goullet and Magin and Egg and Mad
den. That "grudge" stuff always goes
big. Certainly l don't know what
they're mffed about, but they're
AWFUL mad at each other"
Quoting the Press Agent
We quote:
The twenty-eighth six-day bike race
Will start one minute after midnight
tonight with field of fourteen teams
made up of American and European
stars. The race will carry with it
$4,000 in prize money, the richest
purse ever offered for a six-day race
1t is the first spring six-day race ever
attempted.
ELEVEN crack European riders have
been entered in the race at a cost of
$4,000, asides from the prize money
offered, but it was the foreigners who
made all the contention in the last
race and the same men have been
entered this time, with five new faces
The favorite teams for the race are
Egg and Madden, Goullet and Magin,
Speisscns and Buysee, Hill and Kaiser,
Dupuy and Hawley, Van Mex and Godi-
vler, Coburn and Kopsky and Deruyter
and Brocco. The balance of the field
Is made up of experienced six-day rid
ers. Speissens and Buysse caused a.
sensation by their desperate racing last
December, and after leaving this coun-
try won the Brussels six-day race.
"The race will be governed by the
rules of the last race and decided un-
der the point system. There will be
three sets of sprints, five at 1880 a. m.,
five at $3.50 p. m. and ten at $3.50 p. NJ"