Hürth cycle track
The Hürther velodrome was a 1938 to 1990 used 250-meter cycling track made of concrete. At the time it was called the “most beautiful German summer railway”.
prehistory
The cycling is for the period from the turn of the century until the First World War, regarded by historians as the next boxing Perhaps the most important and popular sport in general. Numerous clubs were founded here during this time. The special community Hürth (today the district of Alt-Hürth ) in the former mayor's office Hürth was one of the richest communities in Germany after the First World War , due to the lignite mining and the industry based on it. Sports facilities, secondary schools and a swimming pool were built here as early as the 1930s. Above the village, on Burbacher Strasse, a sports field with a small grandstand , changing rooms, “refreshment room” and a bicycle storage room was built in 1930 . A cycling track with a "natural surface" ran around the square, which was "good" for injuries. In the large community formed in 1930 there were six cycling clubs when the Hürth cycling society was founded in 1919, and there were still four cycling clubs until the outbreak of World War II in 1939. and after the war three more, the RSG 1919 Hürth , the Morgenstern Berrenrath and the Schwalbe in Gleuel . All three still exist today, the Schwalbe now associated with the Cologne association as "RCD Schmitter Gleuel Cologne". The clubs that left were Rheingold Kendenich, Adler Burbach and the Efferner Radfahrverein.
Since the Roddergrube the lignite field Theresia wanted to take back into operation and abbaggern the grounds of the sports field, the site was changed and south of the present road Theresienhöhe compared to today's shopping center in the already charred terrain Hurth Park built in 1930, a new sports complex.
The cycling track
The rich community built a football stadium there by 1938 with a covered grandstand and changing facilities, tennis courts, shooting ranges and a separate concrete cycle track behind the stadium. The facilities could be inaugurated in 1938. As a result, boxing events were held there in addition to cycling races. In 1939 Gustav Kilian and Heinz Vopel started here in the two-man team race . After the outbreak of the Second World War , the cycling business came to a complete standstill due to the many drafts into the Wehrmacht in 1940 and many young talents had to lose their lives in the war.
After the war, the Hürther Bahn was one of the few intact cycling tracks in the Rhineland and therefore a magnet that attracted audiences from far away. After minor war damage had been repaired, the first public track race of the post-war period was held in 1946. In 1947, the zone championship for all three western occupation zones, the so-called Trizone , was held on the Hürth Railway. Country battles against Great Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands followed. In 1948 the track saw the duo Rudi Mirke / Hans Preiskeit in a two-man team . With smaller motorcycles, the Dernys , it was now also possible to take part in standing races on the track . The train attracted thousands of spectators. In 1955, the former Hürth amateur Manfred Donike , who later became a doping investigator at the German Sport University in Cologne , came second in the Big Steher Industry Prize behind Hans Zims from Cologne. The best- known user of the cable car was the two-time standing amateur world champion Jean Breuer from Hürth. But the later professionals Sigi Renz and Rudi Altig also took part as amateurs in a railway country battle against Austria in 1960. The last time the track was overtaken after a forced break after this race, which was burdened by falls, in 1968 through the cooperation of club members. By being surrounded by floodlight masts, the train could also be used in the evening. The last event on the track was in July 1990 the International Standing Championships with drivers from Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany. Unfortunately, a further necessary restoration could not be financed, and so the railway was shut down afterwards. The RSG evaded track races on Cologne tracks and halls. Today the well-tended indoor lawn is used by other sports clubs.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Änne Bischof: The sport and its care . In: Clemens Klug: Hürth - how it was, how it became , Steimel Verlag, Cologne o. J. (1962), p. 239 f.
- ↑ Egon Conzen: 800 years old Hürth , upper floor. Alt-Hürth (Ed.) 1985, p. 91 ff.
- ^ Franz Löwenich: Die Radsportgesellshaft 1919 Hürth and the Hürther Radrennbahn in Hürther Contributions , Issue 91 (2012), pp. 35-44.
- ↑ Löwenich, p. 39 f
- ↑ Löwenich, p. 41 ff
- ↑ Manfred Faust: History of the City of Hürth , ed. from Heimat und Kulturverein Hürth, Cologne, JP Bachem Verlag, 2009, p. 221
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 52 ′ 38 " N , 6 ° 52 ′ 15.5" E