St. Gallen Velorennbahn

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The St. Gallen Velorennbahn

The St. Gallen Velorennbahn was a cycling track that existed in St. Gallen from 1905 to 1908 .

On March 16, 1905, the St. Gallen bicycle dealer Louis Andreazzi submitted a building application to the then still independent municipality of Tablat ; He ran a bicycle and sporting goods store at Rosenbergstrasse 53. The wooden slope was six meters wide and 250 meters long. Later it was planned to be 300 meters long, with a 3.50 meter high board wall to surround it. The model for the construction was the Buffalo Velodrome in Paris.

Already on June 18 of that year to Pentecost , the first event was held in the velodrome at the Rehetobelstrasse place that should have been the "best car in Europe": The program included an "Opening Drive", the St. Galler flyer championship , a premium driving, a pacemaker race and a "foot race" over 100 meters. The cycling track was also used later for other sports, such as football. The official opening took place a week later with the St. Gallen Town Musicians . It was advertised with the start of "the famous and feared motorist" from Mulhouse named Berling. In the beginning there were weekly events at which well-known racing cyclists such as the Frenchman Vendredi , the Swiss road champion from 1903, Alexandre Castellino , and the German Adolf Schulze were guests. In 1906, Arthur Stellbrink from Berlin made an unsuccessful attempt to beat the Swiss hour record of 65.444 kilometers on the train. Berling also competed on the track again that year, on a Puch motorcycle.

After a year Andreazzi sold the Velorennbahn to the building contractor Fidel Lampert due to financial difficulties. In the meantime, more cycle tracks had opened in the area, which, in addition to the unreliable weather, made business difficult. An eight-hour race was organized at Pentecost 1907. Among the participants were the Swiss stayer Jules Schwitzguébel (third in the amateur stayer world championship in 1906 ) and the future Swiss road champion Henri Rheinwald . On July 21, 1907, the 1st East Switzerland Gau Association Festival of the Swiss Cyclists Association took place. The following year, a football match for the Swiss championship between Old Boys Basel and FC St. Gallen was played on the cycling track . In summer the railway was torn down and the square was built on.

Today, the Paul Grüninger Stadium is probably located on part of the site of the former cycling track. A restaurant called Restaurant Rennbahn on Rehetobelstrasse is a reminder of the former location of the railway. There is also a private bike museum in the nearby community of Rehetobel .

literature

  • Walter Bußhardt / Henry Eggenberger: Fates of racing drivers . Kurmann, Zurich 1950, p. 13 .

References and comments

  1. ↑ a b c d e Manfred Poser: Velorennbahn St. Gallen. In: cycling4fans.de. December 2008, accessed August 1, 2018 .
  2. ↑ Measured by the distance, it must have been a record attempt behind Pacemaker .
  3. ↑ Allgemeine Automobil-Zeitung , May 27, 1906, p. 41
  4. ↑ a b Fredi Kurth: Three years in a circle. In: St.Galler Tagblatt. April 13, 2018, accessed August 1, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Rehetobel Velomuseum. In: velomuseum-rehetobel.ch. Retrieved August 3, 2018 .

Coordinates: 47 ° 26 '0.7 "  N , 9 ° 24' 9.5"  E ; CH1903:  748,154  /  255491