Cycles In Manhattan

After almost a week of pedaling around a steeply inclined pine-board track in Madison Square Garden last week, most of the riders in Manhattan's 52nd International Six Day Bicycle Race were from 5 to 15 Ib. heavier than when they started. They had not slept much--five hours per day, mostly between 5 a. m. and noon--but they had made up for it by eating huge quantities of beef, chicken and raw celery. The basement of Madison Square Garden is never more malodorous, even when populated by show dogs or poultry, than when its catacombs are used as massage rooms and restaurants for cyclists. The odors permeated from the basement to the arena where the riders resided in beaver board shanties beside the track and where, for 22 hours a day, spectators at this curious and hypnotic sports event watched the race between outbursts of band or vocal music amplified into incoherence.

Only eight of the 15 teams which started the race were left at the finish. Old Reggie McNamara who, out of respect for his age, is usually permitted to hold the lead for a day or two at the beginning, was still ahead with his large red-haired British Columbian partner, Torchy Peden. Not satisfied with a point-lead over the Belgian team of Van Nevele and de Lille, McNamara and Peden stole a lap in the last ten minutes of the race and held it to the end. Behind the Belgians came the reckless French team of Letourner and Guim-bretiere, who, as is their custom, had been squabbling with each other throughout the race.

Oldest active six-day bicycle rider, McNamara boasts that he has broken his collar bone six times, all his ribs at least once, that he has 47 scars. One of them, running along his right cheek, gives his dark and friendly face a dangerous look which he enhances by wearing black sweaters and scowling. He received his first injury in Australia, where he was born in 1888. A snake bit his finger and his brother chopped it off. In most professional sports there is some character whose endurance or perverse courage has earned him the banal distinction of being called an "iron man." NcNamara has been the iron man of bicycle riders for 15 years. Grown somewhat rusty with age, he is still able to keep up with the field when teamed with a good sprinter. He enjoys six-day races, voiced no intention of retiring after completing his 77th last week.

Most celebrated of McNamara's confreres is Franco Georgetti, a small knock-kneed Italian who finished a sulky last in last week's race, but failed to butt his head against a wall for losing as he did once. Obviously heir to Iron McNamara, Georgetti was once pierced by an eight-inch splinter which he sent to his father to be exhibited. He earns $28,000 per year, has a barber shave him every day of the race, frequently dines on rice, lobster and beer with Tenor Beniamino Gigli of the Metropolitan Opera Company.

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