I’m a pretty mediocre bike racer, but this weekend, my name made cycling news. Not, like, a headline, but if you click on the results for this weekend’s NEPCX elite women’s race at Cycle-Smart International in Northampton, there I am on the same page as Crystal Anthony and Laura Van Gilder. I might send it to my grandma.

I’m a cat 3. There are easily 30-50 women racing regularly in the 3/4 fields of the northeast who are decisively better at cyclocross than me. I think they – all of them! you! – should be racing in the elite field at UCI races, too. Here’s why:

First, it’s easy. Somewhere between general and specialized knowledge of cycling regulations is the fact that what makes you “elite” is forking over the cash for an international license. The $90 sounds like a lot, but compared to the bikes and the kits and the travel and the entry fees over the ‘cross season, what’s another $90? You also have to learn how to pin numbers on your arms, which is no small task, but I have faith in the fact that you can find friends to do it for you.

Second, I was, in fact, good enough to do it: Saturday I had mechanical problems and had to run about a kilometer with my bike to get to the pit (n.b. the horrific experience of running/hobbling with your bike for an extended distance while trying not to look like a complete idiot is when you learn who your friends are), so I was pulled after two laps.

But Sunday, I finished on the lead lap, well within the UCI 80% rule – and several people finished behind me. Perhaps I didn’t do well comparatively (I got none of that cash money promised to the top 25), but I beat a few people who I always assumed were better than me because they had been stepping up to the elite start line long before I decided to.

If I can do it, so can everyone who has kicked my butt so far this year.

Third, and perhaps more importantly, it makes a statement. Something really awesome is happening in New England lately: women are showing up. Gloucester had almost 100 women in the 3/4 race on the first day. Providence was pushing 135 on both days. CSI had about 75-80 each day – almost exactly the same number of women that registered for Cross Crusade in Portland, except the latter had twice as many men. This is GREAT. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

But. But but but. When you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, its the elite races that get all of the attention. Those results go in the magazines, get posted on websites, and are more likely to live on into posterity. Those are the ones that the promoters put the most time, money, and effort into. Those are the ones that often pay equally.

Women are starting to carve out a niche for themselves, proving to race promoters and journalists and fans that they deserve the time and attention that they get on the schedule and in the prize money. But registration is still relatively low for the elite races, compared to both the men and the lower category.

What if those of us who are decent enough to pass for elites (and some who are way more than decent – you know who you are) did so? What if the top 25 women from the amateur field in any UCI race this year registered for the elite field? It would be sad for me because I’d get 55th rather than 30th, but overall it would be an excellent, ballsy move. People would notice. It would be Talked About. And it would be incredibly good for women’s cycling.

Or, you know, you could just keep angling for that podium/top 10 in the women’s 3/4 race, and I’ll continue rocking the bicep numbers like a pro.

I’ve ridden track all summer, the local league and the National Masters Championships, everyone races hard, and I mean HARD (18min 15km scratch race at Nationals!) But everyone is laid back, chatty, relaxed, and helpful – sharing rollers, helping my trying to get 160psi in my tubs, etc.

I’ve just started my ‘cross season, and the first race was just like a big ‘boys club’ hangout, chatting, joking and laughing, but the racing was just as hard as on the track. I lost by five minutes so it must have been really really fast…

So after a year back racing, the track season is about to end and the cross season about to get into full swing and I am left wanting more from both. Sadly road racing has left me wondering why I entered any.

I waiting until mid-summer to start racing, so I was fit enough to get round, then entered two 40/50 mile road races and two open crits. In the first crit, the last corner was carnage and there were riders spread across the pavement after one rider decided that dive bombing up the inside on the last corner would get him the win ‘at all costs’ to other. In one of the road races we got the commissaires briefing on the start line, and were given the strict instruction not to litter the roads and villages with gel wrappers etc., put them in your pocket (isn’t this just common sense anyway?!), and also there was a car parked right on a corner that they were trying to move but we had to race around and be careful of. This was a fifty-mile race, and I kid you not, two miles from the start line (and still in the neutralised zone) I watched a rider pull out a gel, gulp it down, then drop the packet on the road in the middle of the village.

I’m proud to say a couple of my local chain gang guys got in the break and got 2nd and 6th so it worked out nicely, while I got 3rd or 4th in the bunch sprint. After the race I watched from the changing rooms as once of the other riders put his bike in the ‘dangerously parked car’ and drove off… no honestly I am not making this up!

In my final crit of the season, and we’ll see if I ride any next year, I sat on the back of the bunch all race. I’d had food poisoning the night before but felt better so started, I just had no power, so I jumped from wheel to wheel as the bunch split and whittled down to six men. In the mean time at the front there was a break of three and another group of three riders chasing them. Sadly the second half of the race was spent listening to a rider shouting at the group to ‘get through’ or ‘go harder’ and other such motivational quotes.

After a while I decided to offer some assistance, in the form of “Shut up, for God’s sake,” which wasn’t too well received, so I decided to venture forward a few places in the bunch and offer my overview of the situation, which went as follows: “Hey ‘mate’, don’t try and blame us for you not being in the break. The only reason you’re not there is you, try pressing the pedals harder next time. Plus, no one else in the bunch is whinging about being here, I’m actually quite happy to be here the way I feel today.” This message seemed to get through and the guy decided to finish the race quietly and save his frustrations for his next race.

So the point of this ramble is that as bike riders we all have a nation-wide group of friends that we meet every weekend and race against all over the country, and if cross and track riders can smash each other to bits between the gun and flag and be friendly off it, why can’t road riders???

Sure everyone wants to be Chris Froome or Philip GIlbert, but to be them, but need some results like theirs, not just an ego and an attitude. I guess the old adage is still true – let your legs do the talking, others can manage it easily enough.

I think we need to talk… I love the fact that you’re a ‘pro’ sport/health/exercise/cycling business, and I can see that you’re doing your best at encouraging people to just ‘get out there and do it’… BUT… it’s just not going to work out between us.

It’s not you, it’s me… actually no, I take that back. It’s the way you make people behave, that’s what does it. I know I said I ‘love’ a few things about you, but I’ll be honest, I’m not a Strava disciple, and I won’t be becoming one, sorry but it’s over before it ever got started.

For me, riding my bike is about the outdoors, the effort, and is just as much about the camaraderie. I do have rides where I want to do something structured, which I do alone with an iPod, but those rides are for me to do ‘my efforts’ not for me to see if I can steal a KOM off somebody I don’t need to know who did it on a different day, in different weather and on a different ride. When I do a group ride, it’s for a recovery spin and a chat, or a club crit race, or the local chain gang, during all of which there is interaction with my friends and we ride according to the conditions. I don’t want to be comparing every pedal rev I do in my life with the online world.

(Laurens ten Dam’s Strava page for the stage to Mont Ventoux)

The worst habit you are responsible for, though, is the creation of the ‘unsociable group ride’. In the middle of a nice relaxing group ride, usually mid-conversation, someone takes off at full speed like they’re being chased by a pack of rabid dogs, followed by other Strava warriors who will sit on then outsprint them for the end of the segment!

The epitome of this was a recent chain gang ride I was on. Halfway round there is a 1-2 mile section where the smoothly-operating line falls to pieces and race mode kicks in, and all because some idiot made a Strava segment in the middle of the route and the ‘disciples’ can’t bring themselves to overlook it on an organised and well-drilled paceline ride, and instead blast it flat out even with a sprint for the ‘win’ at the end.

And when I say win, I don’t mean a pay-to-enter, pin-on-a-number, have-a-PROPER-race, take-home-some-prize-money WIN! I mean they get the chance to go home, upload their data, and be the best sit-in sprinter on that ride on that day and see if they are faster then anyone who ever rode that section of tarmac…

While I am on the subject of racing and winning… you can’t win a club run, or a chain gang or a sportive… THEY’RE NOT RACES.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good sportive, I’ve done them all over the UK, plus the Swiss Alps and the Italian Dolomites. Seven hours riding up and down stunning mountains is an incredible day out, but racing them? Nope not a chance… My strategy is to start almost last, riding as fast as I feel like, pass a few people, then after four hours go and sit in a restaurant for lunch, watch them riding by looking bemused, then finish the ride and catch a few people who were looking at me funny as I sat at a table outside a bar eating a pizza!

Although in many ways (usually during a media interview) Cav can be a bit of a loose cannon, on the whole subject of number crunching, power tests, and virtual racing he is a shining example. During his younger days he could not produce a SRM test result good enough to qualify for the GB team, but when you put him on the start line of a ‘proper’ race it’s like he was hard-wired to turn himself inside out to do whatever is necessary to cross the line first. NOW THAT’S RACING.

I want to ride my bike to get out there and turn some pedals, disconnect from an endless online barrage of emails, tweets and DM’s, get fit and enjoy myself, but I never forget that it is ‘training’ – as in training yourself to be a better cyclist ready for RACING.

Strava, you’re blurring the lines between a training ride and a race by making all rides ‘races’ – or should I say ‘raceable’ – even though your disciples aren’t racing against someone there and then, not holding a wheel, sheltering in an echelon from a cross wind, waiting for an attack, or making a winning move. They’re riding on their own, blanking the guy next to them hoping he doesn’t win, then uploading their ride to see if they’ve beaten people who weren’t even there.

When it comes to knowing what is and isn’t a race, here are three simple ways to tell what you are riding:

1. No numbers worn – training ride – NOT A RACE
2. Numbers on handlebars and helmet (& sometimes front of jersey) – NOT A RACE
3. Numbers on rear pockets of jersey (& sometimes frame but never handlebars)  – RACE

So, Strava, I’m sorry things didn’t work out between us…. Even though I am a technology-loving Internet nerd who does this for a living, we just never stood a chance, and we need to go our separate ways…

XOXO (no really, I mean it)

Dan

Let’s be honest, do you think a Tour winner doesn’t work to a plan from at least 8 or 9 months out? Working backwards from the start date, they figure out their race programme and their training schedule and everything else. So club guys – if you want to ‘do a ride’ in a certain race, figure out your programme, set some goals and don’t ride every single race like it is the one you are peaking for, you will have to train ‘through’ some rather than get stuck into the same rides and rest days each week with no progression.

Locally we have a club crit on a Wednesday night, with riding there and back I can get up to two hours on the bike, and 30 minutes of it is flat-out, so it’s a good ride. On Thursday there is a two-hour chain gang ride, another great session. Friday there is an outdoor track league with four races and some good riders to make it a great workout. But if you want to ride on a Sunday or there is a mid-week road race on, too, it becomes a matter of which is more important to you. Some guys want to win everything every night of the week, they inevitably win very little, but almost certainly their weekend racing (the open events that actually count, not the training races against club mates) is what suffers.

The same guys tend to follow the same routine every week and come the end of the season they wonder why they’ve been consistently ‘flat’ in their form. Been there, done that! I’m using some of these sessions as ‘races,’ some as training, and sometimes I do a gym session or a trainer ride in the morning, so anyone watching how I am going in these club events must be convinced my form is nothing short of erratic!

Taking to the race day example, it’s not hard to figure out how to be there on time and prepared properly. For a local cyclocross race an hour away it’s this easy:

12:00pm – Race Start
11:00am – Change into race clothing and warm up on trainer
10:00am – Sign on and ride the course
9:00am – Leave and travel to race
8:00am – Breakfast and load car

Now go look at your race schedule, pick out the important ones, and work backwards; if your piece of paper has the same rides on every week you can expect not to peak, and if you’re training through races don’t be expecting to win every week!

One final thing… relating to thinking but not season planning – when you’re ill with man-flu riding the midweek crit ‘because it’s in your schedule’ is nothing short of dumb. Planning is good, but being flexible is a necessity. If you can barely stop sneezing long enough to gasp for breath through your mouth because your nose is blocked, do you think 45 minutes at 200bpm is going to do you any good? Or going to be a good performance?

I know sometimes pros continue in a stage race when they are ill, but don’t forget they have team and race doctors looking out for them, and more importantly, bike racing is their JOB! If you’re not paying your mortgage from your bike riding it’s probably not worth trashing your health for…

Being an athlete carries many connotations. Depending on what sport you’re talking about, these preconceptions or myths can run the gamut from positive to derogatory, the most common being because I am an athlete, what I do must involve shutting off my brain, or not having much of one to begin with in order to perform. I can do amazing things with my body, therefore I must be a little dull.

The dichotomy of the scholar and the athlete, in its most basic form is one that spans a chasm. Those who choose to use their bodies must not be using their brains, and vice versa. However, I would argue that when presented with the reality of what an athlete is, this could not be farther from the truth.

The body is a medium for the mind. I know this because I have lived it, have trained and puzzled through it. Through the efforts of training and the physical exertion that this entails I can express all thoughts and feelings. It is the two parallels that exist together. Nothing is calmer in my mind than when I am on the bike, but nothing is more tumultuous as well. Through one medium I can paint my rage across the road, let it seep from the center of my being down through my legs and into my pedals, scatter it across the tarmac through the rubber in my tires. Through this same stent the calm will filter back in. It will spread from the scenery around me and slower filter into me through the constant rhythm of each pedal stroke; it will fill the hole where the anger and frustration had made their bed.

The author, in a triumphant moment. (Photo by Todd Prekaski, courtesy of RAWRbikes.com)

My thoughts and ideas are linked and woven together; delicate spider webs that I craft while setting pace up a hill. I weave them farther and farther into the distance, crafting plans and making promises to myself. I store them in the attic of my mind, where they sit when the exhaustion of exertion forces me back to ground level, makes me back into my most basic components: eat, sleep, recover.

I train my body so that my brain will quiet, just for a moment, a few moments, just long enough so that when the pain comes in that decisive moment of competition I can stay there, stay in that moment. Even though my mind screams in protest at the idea, at the discomfort, I will be ready. I have laid myself bare on my training roads, pulled all my emotion, all my ideas and plans and schemes and left them there so that when I come to this moment, this decisive moment I can whisper keep going and for once my mind and my legs will agree.

The gang. (Photo by Anton Vos)

After a couple of seconds I glance back. Gap. I look once more. A pretty big gap, even. I’m all alone. What to do? Race on, I guess. The road drags slightly uphill, I try not to slow down. I look back again. The gap is bigger. Then I see someone coming. Alone. Blue, white and black. It looks like someone of Sengers. It is Anna van der Breggen. Moments later a Rabobank-rider crosses. Lucinda Brand joins us. Anna and I work hard. Lucinda just sits in the wheel. Her teammate, Marianne Vos, is in the group behind, so she’s not allowed to work.

We race towards the first climb. It’s gambling, but I feel Anna wants to try to do the same as I do: stay away. Try to make it to the finish. Of course I’ve been calculating already: Anna was 10th in the prologue, I was 11th and Lucinda 15th. If we make it, we’ll be 1, 2 and 3 in the general classification. If we’ll be caught back, my teammates Carlee and Ashleigh didn’t spend any unnecesary energy and will hopefully be able to finish it off.

Anna rides uphill in a blistering pace. I almost drop, Lucinda passes me, I can just hold her wheel. People are yelling, I hear my name, cheers from the crowd in the climb. At the top I swallow the pain and ride to the front again. We soar downhill, to that awkward u-turn where it smells of brown coal. The second climb starts there. This one is longer. Anna leads the pace again, I am in her wheel and Lucinda is behind me. It doesn’t take long before I feel I won’t be able to keep up. Please ride a little slower, I beg Anna in silence, so I won’t have to drop. I’ll help you again once we’re at the top. Anna rides on, stoically. I drop.

The frustration – to see Anna and Lucinda ride away from me meter by meter, while we’re almost at the top. I clench my teeth, gasp the air into my lungs, stand on the pedals, sit down again and try to push even harder. I can’t. Anna clearly had a motobike for breakfast and I only ate a moped. Finally at the top, I shift to the big ring immediately. In Dahlem I’m back in the wheel of Anna and Lucinda again, but we can feel the hot breath of the group behind us already. Just before we pass the finish line for the last time, I give a big pull to show Anna I want to work on the flat, hoping she won’t drop me in the climb in return.

We hit the climb. My legs explode. Anna and Lucinda ride away from me, the group catches me and them and I drop definitely. I’m alone. Even the crowd is gone, off to the finish line. Finally time to feel the pain. To feel sorry for myself. I shrug these thoughts off angrily. I push through the pain in frustration, still hoping I can come back in the downhill.

Headwind. I make myself as small as possible, a ball on the bike. The cars are not far ahead of me. A cow stares at me in silence. The smell of brown coal, which I also smelled three years ago when I did this race too, exactly in this awkward corner. A smell I noticed for the first time in 1990, when we were on holiday in Dresden, Germany. How is it possible these memories come back at a moment like this?

At the top of the long climb I see the group in front of me is racing at top speed now. It’s only four kilometers to the finishline. Coming back? Forget about it. I ride to the finish alone, while Ashleigh sprints to an awesome second place, just behind multiple-world-champion Georgia Bronzini. I click out of my pedals, coughing like hell. Died on the battlefield. Racing my bike, I love it.

Days when my boyfriend calls me in a small voice to tell me he’s got the flu. Fever, dizzy, nauseous. He says I’d better not come home, even though we didn’t see each other for almost two weeks, because he doesn’t want to infect me just before Flèche Wallonne. He will manage, I can’t do anything for him and he’s of no use for me. Says he.

On those days I’d long to jump in the car anyway. For him, to take care of him. And for me, to be at home a couple of days, to sleep in my own bed and have my own stuff around me. I was really looking forward to that. I don’t want to wander around any longer from hotel bed to hotel bed with a suitcase filled with dirty clothes. I don’t want him to stagger around the house, dizzy with fever, to make himself a cup of tea.

I don’t want to hear it when my mum says he’s really contagious, which makes him right to prevent me from coming home. I don’t want to read on the Internet a flu like this is infectious for at least five days. So I’d better stay away until the end of the week, because this is the worst moment to get sick. I don’t want it to be that he has to heal without company, because his girlfriend is a cyclist.

This is the life I chose, and we accept the consequences together. I get paid for racing my bike and also for being healthy and staying healthy. He doesn’t blame me at all, actually he’s the one who forbids me to come home. But at this very moment I feel so selfish. Not going home now that he’s so sick feels so wrong.

On days like these it’s shit to be a cyclist.

While in Belgium, the motherland of cycling, it is arguable which discipline is more popular, cyclocross or road racing, in America the average person may know cycling solely because of the Lance Armstrong saga. As a child the wee American may have pedaled a bike around but it is rare, outside of little microcosms, to see adults playing a pick-up game of bike ride. It is also rare for a sports enthusiast to get seasons tickets and tail gate the local bike race. The average American knows the Tour de France, but that may be solely because of the recent drug scandals. I digress, this is not about drugs nor is it about Mister Armstrong. This is about the ugly duckling discipline of cycling named Cyclocross. I fancy this ugly duckling and I am about to slander the other normal and pretty ducklings.

The term cycling covers a cornucopia of disciplines, but cyclocross tends to have a niche cult following. It’s different, it’s edgier, it accepts everyone. The fact that cyclocross is a winter sport attests to it’s difference. When the professional road cyclists and mountain bikers are winding their seasons down, indulging in sweets or an alcoholic beverage or two, cyclocrossers are winding their legs up, trimming down, preparing to enter a winter of monk-hood. But it’s a delicate trimming down procedure, as it is so bloody cold and wet that if you are as emaciated as many professional cyclists, pneumonia is written on your forehead.

Road racers are known for their uncanny ability to stay off their feet. When learning road racer etiquette of neither smiling nor waving whilst on an immaculate shiny and matching carbon bicycle, the aspiring road racer also learns the legs-up rule: If you can’t nap, lie down and elevate your feet. If you can’t elevate, lie down as still as possible. If you can’t lie down, sit. If you can’t sit, kneel. If you can only stand, lean. But do not lean too much on one side or you may develop imbalances. So the fact that cyclocross has a portion of off-the-bike seems asinine to any roadie. The fact that cyclocrossers run as part of their training is mind blowing ridiculous. And the fact that cyclocross racers enjoy themselves and smile? Well clearly they’re just not taking pedaling serious enough.

Mountain bikers love their suspension and fat tires, meandering single track, facial hair and their “chill factor”. To any mountain biker, the fact you’re on a bike that resembles a road bike is embarrassing, far too racey. Curly bars, a rigid fork and a skinsuit is a sin. While cyclocross is off-road and holds some single track sections, it is not that pure “I’m on a trail in the wilderness where mountain lions roam and my facial hair will keep me warm in case Mother Nature decides to toy with my chill, not too lofty ambitions, bro.” Cyclocross is likely too intensely focused for the mountain biker who only does epic-big loops and never rides the same rock face twice.

Now track cyclists – I think they’re altogether a different breed. Riding around, mainly indoors, on a short circular track? With no brakes? On a wooden surface of mean taunting splinters? With steep banks I’d need an ice axe to climb up? I can’t fathom the joy of that. But it is clear why trackies don’t do cyclocross for one reason – too dirty. Plus, if you’re not riding in a defined circle the chance of getting lost is much higher.  Add in the gears, the brakes, and turning in different directions and life on the bike just became a whole lot more complicated.

The Triathlete: Snidely labeled as those who are the best at working out. Further snark chides triathletes as not being stellar at anything; they’re mediocre at the three disciplines and through over-training the sum of its parts equate to a solid triathlete. I’m not even going to hazard a guess as to how many hours a week a professional triathlete trains. When I speak of monkhood in cyclocross, I think triathletes must be delirious over-worked monks. Cyclocross is simply too cold for triathletes – no matter the thickness of your skinsuit or wetsuit, water will freeze and become ice. (Author’s note: I justify these comments because I know I would never ever be able to handle the workload of a triathlete. Massive respect if you are one. I sink when I swim.)

Cyclocross is 40 minutes of racing for women and 60 minutes for men. I believe the average cyclist, no matter what the discipline, is over-trained. Cyclists think more, more, more, more is better. Me? I love sitting on my arse and eating a good meal. And sleeping – I can’t get enough. So there is beauty in cramming wicked hard racing into 40 minutes. Sure there’s the preparing and cleaning up, plus the warm-up and cool-down; it typically turns into an all-day affair, with about 2-3 hours of ride time. To the average cyclist (or maybe even average non-cycling American) 40 to 60 minutes of racing seems easy, but it is not. It redefines ‘getting it all out’. There’s no noodling around for the first 100km, then going all out in the final 5km. There’s no hucking yourself off a rock face with a blind landing and sharp 90 degree corner punctuated by a looming tree. There is scenery and terrain change and fresh air on a defined track that holds much more variety than a wooden circle. It begs for both cycling and running training, but you can determine the amount of hours you wish to devote – cyclocross is for everyone, from the working mum to a Belgian professional.

You just wait, this ugly duckling is growing and blossoming into a gorgeous swan.

All photos courtesy of the author.

Just before Noorbeek I met Sue. Sue the bike courier, who had plans to start racing. Two years ago she showed me one of the most beautiful loops through the Belgian Voerstreek. We talked about what it’s like to be a cyclist. She appeared to be strong and very skilled on the bike, it would not be hard for her to ride in the women’s peloton.

We both squeezed our brakes to have a chat. Sue didn’t start racing in the end. She’s on the bike five days a week for her job. She rides a singlespeed, or a normal race bike, like today. Backpack, cool kit. A cyclist, but not really.

Sue

She started telling me about last winter. On the freezing cold snowy days, when the roads were slippery like hell and the icy wind from the east caught your breath, she mounted her bike. On those days she was even more busy, because Sue mainly delivers medication to older people. And they don’t like to go out in these circumstances. She rode from one elderly home to the other, freezing on her bike, gliding up and down the slippery slopes of the hills in Limburg. How often must Sue have been crying of pain in the shower because of her frozen hands and feet, I thought.

How cold must she have been, while I was doing my training in Spain or at least had the choice to train on the roller if it was too cold or too wet outside. She had no choice but to go outside, every single day. I never realised that before. “The last couple of weeks I have thought a dozen times that spring finally arrived, and then it didn’t happen,” Sue sighed.

This weekend spring finally arrives. I’m for no one more happy than for Sue.

There were only double beds left, explained the receptionist in our hotel in Gent to us and she added she felt really sorry for us. But what did we spot, when we came back from our training ride? There was a bed in the hallway. It stood on its side. Just like that. Ready to be rolled to some room. I looked at my teammate, Kim. Shall we, I asked her, can we do that? She shrugged, with a twinkle in her eyes. Why not? Each of us, with a bed of our own, we would have a better sleep, no? And sleep would be pretty important this night. We glanced around. No one to be seen. We opened the door to our room, pushed the bed inside as quick as we could, and in doing so made a nice variant to the ‘Eat the plate of another rider first…’ quote of Hennie Kuiper: “Sleep in the bed of another rider first…” Our apologies to the hotel guest who had to spend the night on the floor.

Smelly room

The photographer of the Belgian magazine HUMO who came to our hotel to take photos of me concluded it was way too cold to go outside, to my great relief. But where would we take the photos now? Could he perhaps see my room? Maybe that would be a nice background? I spluttered something about not very interesting and pretty dull actually, but the photographer was determined. He wanted to see my room. The room which I only did one thing in after I had arrived, just before I received the text message which said I was expected in the lobby. With a growing feeling of embarrassment I showed the photographer to my room. In the meantime I was wondering if I had closed the bathroom door or not. I really didn’t remember. Would he smell it? Or would the smell have gone already? I silently prayed for the latter. I opened the door with my card. The bathroom was open. I sniffed. O shit: poo. But come on. How could I have ever predicted a photographer would want to check out my room?

Two steaks

I’m not such a big meat eater, but when I saw the pile of juicy steaks at dinner I decided to take two of them – knowing eating in the morning before the race is always difficult for me. Steak and pasta is excellent racing fuel. I was thinking this over when I shoveled the two pieces of meat onto my plate, not realising our teamleader was just behind me filling his plate. His eyes got big as saucers when he saw me taking not one, but two steaks. In only a couple of seconds he came up with a theory to explain my greediness: One steak for a good positioning before the Molenberg and the other one for the Oude Kwaremont. Right. One for the Molenberg and one for the Kwaremont: exactly the fuel you need in the Ronde.

Marijn on the Oude Kwaremont. Looks like the second steak did the trick. (Image by Kris Claeyé)

Orgasm

I was too far in the back when we hit the Kanarieberg. I rode to the front, passing lots of dropped riders and suddenly I heard a girl sighing and moaning so loud you would think you were in the middle of a bad porn film if you didn’t know better. And I, the funniest as always, asked her loudly if she was about to have an orgasm. Not nice. Not funny at all. Poor child, suffering and gasping for air on the Kanarieberg – and being yelled at like that by Miss Know-It-All. I am sorry. My apologies.

Soft policeman

The race stayed together untill we hit the Oude Kwaremont. We all knew it would happen right here. My legs felt good and I was in the front. With the first twenty riders I rode onto the cobbles. I started to pass riders immediately and decided to pass the lurching American who seemed to get stuck after every single cobble at the left side. Close to the barrier fences, I guessed she wouldn’t swing that way. Wrong guess. At the moment I started to pass her, she swished her bike to the left clumsily and I had nowhere to go anymore. Just before me I saw a policeman – or a steward, I didn’t look really closely – at our side of the fences. In the split second I had I decided to bump into him, hoping he would catch me and prevent me from crashing. I was barely going 10k an hour, so it wouldn’t be a painful encounter for any of us. But the officer only saw me at the ultimate moment. The American girl hit me at the right side, I bumped into the officer and toppled over. There I was, my feet still stuck in the pedals, so I couldn’t get up immediately. The crowd sneered and laughed. The officer helped me back on the bike. I started to chase back and rushed over the cobbles, passed the Kwaremontplein, upwards. At the end of the cobbles I was back with the riders I started the Oude Kwaremont with. But the group of nine riders was gone. A steak for the Kwaremont turned out te be a good idea, but next time I’d rather take a serving of luck.

In the end a lot of riders came back together in our chasing group. The sprint for the 10th place was a chaotic one. I finished 43rd, to my big disappointment.

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