Usually, mass participation events such as mega sportives
and Granfondos have been putting me off, but this year I thought I would be happy
to do some of these as I wasn’t sure how well I would have recovered from my
accident injuries from last August and if I would be able to race again. The “Ronde Van Vlaanderen” or Flanders for short had always attracted me,
not just because my favourite rider won it 3 times, but also because it is arguably THE spring classic per se and always good for epic race
stories. So, Flanders became my top choice for this year's sportive ride. It turned out that some
other Dynamos, David Mc Neil, James Riall, James Rapinac and Jim Wewell also chose to ride it and we found in each others excellent company to prepare for it over the
past 4 months. A 4 day trip that included watching the professional racers on Sunday do it the
proper way was planned meticulously (thanks to David!) and we drove to Brugge in
two cars, which was bit of a nightmare as the journey coincided with the Easter holiday traffic crossing the channel.
We stayed in a nice little hotel just 7km from the
start, so we could get there effortless for the official start at 7.00
a.m. next morning. Preparation of the bikes in the hotelrooms became a major
exercise, from adding additional handlebar tape, to 2 exploded innertubes,
punctures and arguments about where to fix the huge race numbers.
We left the hotel at 6:20 a.m. in pitch darkness in order to get
a good start position, so we had to ride with lights through the wet, cold and dark morning, not pleasant at all.
When we arrived at the central market square of Brugge, already quite a few riders were waiting, but we still managed to get good front
places, which proved to be a good idea, as the first crash happened already 5m after the
start (reminded us of what level of riders we would have to anticipate around
us…). 7 o'clock and we were released on route and it began to rain….The plan was to not stop at the feed
stops and lose time for queuing, instead David’s wife would wait with our own musettes at km140 into the
ride.
The first 100km were meant to be flat riding with primarily
tailwind, so the speed was expected to be high if not even mental. But it
turned out to be reasonable, too reasonable some might have thought and two
riders started peeling off the front. Was this a breakaway? Certainly not, this
was not a race and anyways we wanted to stay calm and conserve energy to be in
good shape for the final 150km containing all the 17 iconic climbs…That’s what
I though and when I turned around there was a huge gap to the field behind me
and huge gap to the 2 guys in front of me. So I decided to ride my tempo, which
was hovering around the 45km/h mark for the next 5mins until I got to the
riders ahead of me. What then followed was the most exquisite and enjoyable
teamwork of riding I have ever experienced in my whole memories of riding a bike. We just
worked so well together, the speed was high but the effort was just at ftp
level, a bit above when in the lead, a bit below when getting out of it. It
went on like this for about 30km, until we realised that we missed a right
turn, had to get back about 300m and then continued the journey following the
right route markers. A while later we got into a series of roundabouts in a
small town and I saw a fire engine spraying something onto the road but when we got into the roundabout it was like being on solid ice, somebody must have leaked oil or
diesel on the wet road and I slipped immediately, fell onto my left side (the
one I am still struggling with from my accident in August). Bottleholder
broken, chain off and bruises and grazes on my left hip, leg and elbow. Pain in the arse, feeling cold and genuinely p….. off. All three of us fell and took about
3-4 mins to sort ourselves out until we were able to continue our ride. The fire fighters were combating the oil with chemicals but we must have arrived at
the scene 3mins too early, so they hadn’t covered the stretch of surface we got
on, yet. What now? Police at a junction stopping us and forcing us to dismount,
only an argument with them revealed that some anti-cycling saboteur spilled
diesel on the road, we had to walk our bikes through the junction, by which
time the field behind caught up with us again and we were back in
a group. We were wet, smelled of diesel and my hands were so cold that I had serious trouble to get any food out of my jersey pockets. We were riding on slippery diesel covered roads for approx. the next 10km,
it was awful.
Then the first pave..
No, not cobbles as you think to know them, pave is something
else. Something I didn’t know it existed in modern days. In fact my only thought
was to get off it immediately and onto the nice smooth bike path running parallel to the pave road. I underestimated
the wet 2cm mini kerb, whilst my front wheel got pulled up, my back wheel slid
along it for a fraction of a second and there I found myself spinning like a
gyroscope on the ground, narrowly missing a lamppost. I hit the ground hard,
but this time with my right elbow and hip. At least I had to endure symmetrical
damages and pains from now, force returning the right/left pedal balance to normal again,
thanks very much. This time break levers bent, chain down again and rear
derailleur bent, which I would only notice once the climbs began, but more
about this later. More annoyingly, I found myself in no man’s land, my group
gone at the front end and no other riders in sight at the rear end.
This was at km100 and I had 40km to get to our
self-arranged feed stop (service provided by David’s wife Sarah Jane, our very
own soigneur), in order to get into the car and sulk.
Hands now so cold, it was impossible to get food out of
pockets. I only had one thought which turned into a mantra: "get to km140, get to km140, get to km140….and
into the car". This was my motivation to get there as quickly as I could and my legs
seemed to be doing well. I must have been riding persistently above threshold, whenever
I glimpsed at my powermeter it showed figures close or beyond the 300w. It felt
good because I started warming up a little bit, not my fingers but most of
the rest. I found myself charging past riders who seemed dropped by my group?
Then there was James fixing a puncture at the roadside, he signalled me that he was
ok and should move on, so I got into tuck position again and churned out an
epic soloride to get back on to my lost group, which happend at about km130. Nice to see a
Dynamo Jersey again, David was still there and that gave me some comfort.
Feedstop…
Perfectly located, outside the official feedzone, we still
allowed ourselves the luxury of a few minutes hanging around, eating, drinking,
and before I knew it we were back on the bikes. Er..!? Did I not just want to get into
the car? Shouldn’t I put on a rain jacket at least? “Come on Riko, let get moving” I heard David screaming at me, it was too late to make a u-turn, we were off into the
final 140km, the actual epic section of the ride, still 16 iconic climbs and various
stretches of pave to come.
The real classic section….
I felt better than at any previous point during this ride,
nothing could bother me anymore. "Hang on a minute, who are all these slow
riders in front of us?"
Groups of riders of all ages and abilities and the road
was getting fuller and fuller, crowded actually, even riders with electric
motor supported bikes and mountain bikes. We had hit the part of the ride where
the short route riders were merged into the route of the full route riders. The
actual real nightmare began. "How could the organiser do this to us?" We just
worked hard to get a good timing and now we had to join queues after queues of
groups of riders dismounting even at the easier hills. All previous efforts seemed wasted
and the whole nature of this ride threatened to turn into a farce. Were we just idiots to see a ride like this as a challenge to complete it in a good time? Were we meant to go slow all the way and stuff our bellies with free goodies and tons of carbohydrates at every of the 5 feed stops? I could see myself in some of
the video laughing and chatting whilst walking in line up one of those helingens. The “race”
against the clock was over, wasn't it? No, it wasn’t as yet. I can't remember exactly
which climb I was on but shouting “riders!”
from behind people actually bothered to make space, amazing they even cheered
us up with “hop, hop, hop!” and “Allez-Allez!”. But none of this was accountable for Koppenberg, Oude Kwaremount and Paterberg, there it was just too many people, too muddy
slippery cobbles, too many dismounts. I got up Oude Kwaremont almost half way
(on the bike) when the congestion again forced riders in front of me to lower the speed, a guy just in front stopped to dismount and I tried to ride around him when my front wheel slipped off
the curved profile of the muddy slippery pave and again, I hit the cobbled ground, although at
slow speed I fell on my right hip again. It was excruciatingly painfull. I couldn’t
get up at first. Dammit, anything broken this time? Helping hands came, took the bike off me, grabbed my arms on
both sides and pulled my up. I was on my legs again, thank you, but for 3-4
mins just standing there, getting the chain sorted, but couldn’t walk just yet,
just limping up hill. “Now, that’s definitely
IT!”, I thought, no more stressing about time, just get the bloody thing
finished. So, with the Paterberg as the final climb beckoning I knew after that I just had to roll downhill to
Oudenaarde and meet everyone else for hot coffee. On the Paterberg I
complacently dismounted, just taking it easy. The rest of the route was riding in line of hundreds of others along narrow bike paths, maybe a bit of overtaking here
and there, but genuinely being part of the crowd moving steadily into the headwind. With disbelief then I glimpsed maniacs
sprinting on the final straight to the finish line, where coincidentally lots of riders were
standing and chatting. Finished.The longest distance I had ever ridden
before was 200km (in 1992 I think), so I was pleased to have done this longer ride now. 249km from official start time capture to
official finish time capture, 7h:51mins. For the geeks: TSS of 650, Some 6,500
calories burned and normalized power was 245w. Thanks for reading.
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| would have been nice to have the time on here... |
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| after the race |
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note the yellow numbers were for the "256km" candidates,
the red numbers for the "120km".
The "red" guys just done 20km, I had 140km and 2 crashes behind me, already.
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