INTERVIEW
2016 CYCLE NEWS RIDERS OF THE YEAR
P56
JEFF FREDETTE
Only one other rider in the his-
tory of the ISDE has as many
ISDE starts as legendary off-
road racer Jeff Fredette, aka
"Mr. Six Days." He has competed
in 34 ISDEs and has finished all
of them—except his final one in
Argentina in 2014. But he's not
upset by that at all, instead he
finds humor in it: "Hey, it means
I've done it all—I've have gold
medals [11 of them], silver med-
als, bronze medals, 34 starts, 33
finishes and one DNF."
As you can image, he was
thrilled to see Team USA get its
first ISDE team gold medal.
"The first thing I think about
is all of the time and effort—not
just this year—but all along that
went into trying to win the Six
Days," says Fredette who was a
member of the U.S. World Trophy
team "three or four" times in
his career. "It's been a dream for
guys back in the '70s to win the
Six Days. It meant so much to
guys like Jack Penton and guys
back over the generations. I don't
think a lot of people who have
never been to the Six Days really
understand what goes into [com-
peting at] the Six Days."
"We've had a lot of close calls of
winning, so we were on pins and
needles all week [this year],"
says Fredette who still travels to
the ISDE with the team to assist.
"I always thought we could win
the Six Days, especially when
KTM and Antti got involved. I
really appreciate what they did.
"Bottom-line, I never gave up
hope."
Layne Michael was the
unsung hero of the team.
He was literally a last-
minute replacement for the
injured Ryan Sipes.
