Professional Track Career
Altig was allowed by the Union Cycliste Internationale to turn professional in 1960 within a year of his world championship. He rode his first professional six-day, in Denmark, that winter. Wallace said:
- No man ever settled down better or quicker to a pro career than the able Altig. In the hurly-burly world of indoor track racing. Rudi never seemed a novice. Settling down at once, tearing strips off established stars, he soon started to fill indoor tracks which had long forgotten the welcome sight of a 'house full' sign. He brought back the biggest winter racing boom to Germany for many years, reminiscent of the balmy pre-war days. With seven tracks at home - more than in the rest of Europe - Altig had a busy time and was soon in the big money.
He won the world pursuit championship in 1960 and 1961 and won 62 races on the track. He won 22 six-day races, particularly in Germany, including four in Cologne and Dortmund. He never rode the Giro di Lombardia because it clashed with the start of the winter season on the track. He said:
- I rode the track because I could win money. If I hadn't been able to win money on the track, I wouldn't have travelled all the velodromes of the world to ride six-days. Now, riders are better paid and they don't need to hammer themselves on the road and the track. We, in our era, we did everything to try to win money. Modern times are different, you have to understand that. You can't compare the two eras. But I don't regret ours.
Altig, who is 1m 80 tall and weighed 80 kg, sprinted on the track on 52 or 53 × 16 and rode pursuits on 52 × 15. "He gave his bikes as hard a time as he gave his adversaries," said the writer, Olivier Dazat.
Read more about this topic: Rudi Altig
Famous quotes containing the words professional, track and/or career:
“The relationship between mother and professional has not been a partnership in which both work together on behalf of the child, in which the expert helps the mother achieve her own goals for her child. Instead, professionals often behave as if they alone are advocates for the child; as if they are the guardians of the child’s needs; as if the mother left to her own devices will surely damage the child and only the professional can rescue him.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say—I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.”
—Harriet Tubman (1821–1913)
“Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)