'I thought it was a joke' – shock and excitement as motor-paced event added to Track World Championships

A motor-paced event will be reintroduced to the UCI Track World Championships next year after more than three decades off the programme.

Stayer racing, which involves six riders drafting behind motorbikes at speeds of up to 100kph, was last included in the Track Worlds in 1994, and will return to the championships in Paris, France in 2027.

The news came at the end of a wide-ranging UCI press release earlier this week, and took members of the motor-pacing community by surprise.

“It literally has just come out of the blue,” said Paul Curran, a four-time British stayer champion who competed in the event at the 1994 Worlds in Palermo, Italy. “I wasn’t expecting anything. There’s been no rumours of it or anything.”

“I thought it was a joke at first,” said UK race organiser Graham Bristow, a stalwart of the motor-pacing community. “Obviously I’m very pleased about it. I just wish it hadn’t been so long before they reinstated it… For the last 30 years, everyone’s been telling me it’s dead.”

Dating back to the late 19th century, stayer racing is a “totally different animal” to the more widely practised derny racing, Bristow explained; pacers stand up to create a bigger draft, and straddle larger motorbikes, equipped with a roller at the back pressing against which the rider races. The rider’s bike is also adapted with a smaller front wheel (24-inch) and reversed fork blades.

Due to the specialist equipment required, stayer racing is not widely practised, but is still prominent across mainland Europe, particularly in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and France.

German riders won this year’s men’s and women’s UEC Track Stayer European Championships, held in Italy in July, in finals that lasted 40 minutes for the men and 30 for the women – a format likely to be copied at the Track Worlds.

Former British derny champion Dannie Watkinson placed sixth at the recent Euros, in the first final ever held at the championships for women. “I’d absolutely love to race at the World Champs for the stayer,” she said. “That would be such an experience, and I think it’s amazing that they’ve added it into the OG World Champs and not made it a separate event.

“It really grows the general public’s knowledge of it,” Watkinson added.

Similarly, former two-time British derny champion Matt Gittings, who has been stayer racing since 2012, has his sights on competing at next year’s Worlds. Asked how he reacted to the announcement of the event’s inclusion, he said: “That wasn’t on my bingo card… It’s a really unique and crazy discipline. It’s been such a small, little niche in cycling. It’s cool it’s going to be on the world stage.”

The fastest speed Gittings has reached on a stayer bike is 111kph, recorded on a 400m outdoor track in Germany. “The average speeds are normally around 75kph [on larger outdoor tracks],” he explained. “On a smaller [250m] indoor track, like the one at the Worlds, it’s going to be more like 65 to 70kph.”

These speeds, combined with large, heavy motorbikes, have raised some safety concerns. One international track coach, who preferred to remain anonymous, told Cycling Weekly the event’s inclusion in the Track Worlds “feels like a recipe for disaster”.

“I know it’s happened before, but when you put the chance of a rainbow jersey on the line, people are going to make decisions that they might not normally make,” they said.

There have also been questions raised about the event’s accessibility due to the need for specially adapted bikes – derny racing, on the other hand, is practised on standard bunch bikes.

“The stayer is going to be more spectacular,” said Gittings. “There’s more noise, it’s bigger, it’s faster, and it was traditionally in the World Championships in the past. I think that’s the reason [the UCI] chose stayer over derny.”

The UCI is yet to release information about the qualification process for the stayer event. The finals will be held some time between 26-30 August during the track competition at next year's 'Super Worlds'.

As the countdown begins, what can fans expect? “It’s a bit like a fairground ride,” said Curran, looking back on his experience as the last generation of stayer racers at the Worlds.

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ridden, but it’s the most exhilarating and fun thing I’ve ever done on a bike as well. It’s rattling round at speeds you shouldn’t really be doing. It always felt a bit naughty to me.”

Feature image courtesy of Tim Rademacher, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.