The gang. (photo by Anton Vos)

We’ve just passed the second climb in the local lap. About 30 riders; that’s what is left of the buch. At top speed we ride towards the village of Dahlem. With only 30 kilometers to go, girls attack continuously. One after the other. I’m very active too, because this is the most thrilling game there is. For a moment, things seem to quiet down, just in front of me. My speed is still high, so why not, and I go – assuming some girls will catch my wheel.

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.

Click here for the full results.

Apparently, we also rode uphill. I really didn’t notice it back then. But now I’m already panting like an old horse and my wheels haven’t even touched one cobblestone yet. The moment we ride onto the cobbles, I feel my fingers. So sore. Every single phalanx is painful due to the shaking and bouncing on the cobbles we already left behind.

I toil and roil, but I’ve got the feeling my wheels will get stuck after every single cobble. My bike bounces around, my saddle hits my buttocks ceaselessly. Ouch. I reposition my hands from the middle of the handlebars to the sides. And back. Nothing feels comfortable. At the steepest parts of Oude Kwaremont I almost come to a standstill. I growl.

The 2,2 km seems endless. Finally at the top, we stop for a short while. To eat and drink. For this is only the reconnaissance of Ronde van Vlaanderen. At a low pace. It’s just a training.

Marijn’s teammate and training partner, Celine van Severen.

If you hit the cobbles in the peloton at high speeds, full of adrenaline, it feels so much easier compared to this shaking and bouncing. Every piece of sloping asphalt you don’t even notice in the peloton feels like a real climb right now. Halfway during the recon my legs are sore, my fanny is in agony, and I really don’t want to feel cobbles under my wheels anymore.

The Ronde van Vlaanderen will be a hard race. Superhard – but so beautiful. With good legs you fly over the cobbles, which makes you feel like Wonder Woman. Pain in fingers and fanny; you don’t even feel it. When we start to climb the horrid Paterberg I feel broken and I can’t stop thinking: reconnaissances are so much harder than the real thing.

It all started with Mandarijn (mandarin) when I was a young girl, for obvious reasons. Especially the boy next door, Patrick, loved to call me Mandarijn. Of course I couldn’t accept it just like that, so after a while we became Mandarijn and Perzik (Peach).

My volleyball team in Groningen used to call me Skippy, because I always jumped for joy when I scored. Apparently it looked pretty kangaroo-like.

Last season our AA Drink mechanic nicknamed me Bambi. He called me that for months in a row without me knowing of it, and when I finally found out he almost choked with laughter. Bambi! Long legs and clumsy. But I didn’t find it very insulting, for Bambi is also cute and she has very pretty eyes. And nothing wrong with long legs, of course.

Last weekend in Drenthe I bumped into this mechanic, he yelled ‘Hey Bambi!’ and I immediately turned my head. Got pretty used to the nickname, I guess. But in the meantime I’m not Bambi anymore. No, here with Lotto-Belisol they call me Sheep.

But come on, please. Sheep. After barely one day together they had already put a sticker on my bike frame with ‘Sheep’ written on it next to the one with my name. “It’s because you’re so sweet and you have such nice curly hair,” they explained to me.

Well, I don’t know about it. On the aforementioned volleyball team we used to say “A sheep is sweet indeed, but you don’t sleep with it” when we were talking about ugly but sweet men. Cruel, I know, but I guess my opinion on sheep couldn’t be clearer. I mean: sheep are just dull, aren’t they? Weird guys, the Belgians.

Although, this weekend I got a new nickname, again from the Belgians, but much more adequate if you ask me. The mechanic came up with it. He saw me with my iPhone in my hands once again. So it’s not hard so guess my latest nickname: Tweety.

Once the race starts, we’ll be rushing through Oosterhesselen at about 12:20 pm. If I look left over the flat land, I’ll already be able to see the church tower of Sleen in the distance.

We used to make it a game when we were kids, my brothers and I, in the back of our Volkswagen Jetta – who would see the tower first? Especially after summer holidays we peered eagerly, because seeing the tower again was extra special after such a long time. It meant we were back home. Within minutes we could grab our bikes, which always felt special after not riding for three long weeks.

The farm of the Heeling family at the left side of the road, the river Jongbloedvaart at the right side – where they for sure are already building the kindling for the Easter fire. The asphalt road changes into klinkers, we bounce into the village of Sleen.

Along to the Slener Bazaar. Oh, the Slener Bazaar! You could buy anything at that local shop, according to my mum. After a long and futile afternoon in the city center of Emmen, looking for an egg cutter or the right kind of hoover bags, she always sighed, “Okay, let’s take a look in the Slener Bazar then,” and of course always returned with what she was looking for. Always.

I used to buy marbles and birthday gifts for my classmates there. This was a pretty tricky business, because everyone else in my school did the same. So before you knew it, we had all bought the same box of Lego for the birthday kid.

In front of café Het Wapen van Sleen: sharp turn to the right. There used to be a phone booth in the middle of the green there, from where we called sex lines, howling with laughter. Numbers which women could call for free, with paying men at the other side of the line, who expected everything but screaming children.

Along to the old police station. The station where my little brother reported a crime once. He was five years old and had lost his slippers. He probably left them somewhere in the street between school and home like he always did, and this time my mum had told him: “You can’t come home before you’ve found your slippers.” So he walked to the police station on his tiny legs, rang the bell, and told the officer who opened the door that his slippers were stolen. Or lost. I don’t remember exactly how this ended, but I would give the world for the document the officer had to type that day.

Along to Bakkerij Schepers, the local bakery, where as a teenager I worked every Saturday. At 6:30 in the morning the delicious smell of fresh croissants lured me into the warm bakery. Waldkorn bread for 3 guilders 15, a casino brown bread for 2 guilders 60.

Now along to Tankstation Oudeboon, the petrol station, which we always visited first at Sint Maarten, because they didn’t give the kids mini candy, but the real stuff – full-size Snickers and Twixes – which were still called Raiders back then.

Keep left along the grocery and the snackbar which turned into a bar and later into a restaurant, where I used to drink a lot of beer after the volleyball matches I played every Saturday.

Next up, the bus stop. Line 21 Assen – Emmen. I always went to secondary school by bike, unless the weather was really bad. On those days, the wet-dog-smelling bus was packed with school kids, who wrote in one movement with their forefingers LUL on the foggy windows.

Turn right to the big road. The ice skating rink at the right, the Eerste Bosje at the left: end of Sleen. It’s almost 12:30.

Eighteen years of my youth have gone by in barely ten minutes.

 * * * * *

Flags are funny things, especially at bike races. Take a story from the Tour de France, back in the way way back days before the First World War. Back then, the French had their own version of Ireland’s Six Counties, the lands of Alsace and Lorraine, which had been seized by Germany in the Franco-Prussian War. Henri Desgrange, like many French people of the time, lived for the dreamed day when the annexed territories would be returned to France and the country would be whole again. While waiting for that dream to be realised, Desgrange used the Tour de France to temporarily re-appropriate the lost provinces by including stages in his Tour de France that travelled through Alsace and Lorraine. This was in the Tour’s between 1906 and 1910.

The race’s politically sensitive journey through these contested lands had to be negotiated with the ruling German authorities. One rule they insisted upon was that none of the race officials’ cars should fly the French tricolore. Hard as it was for Desgrange to swallow, it was a price he felt worth paying for including Alsace and Lorraine in the Tour’s itinerary and symbolically making France a nation once again.

For the most part the Tour’s passages through Alsace and Lorraine passed without incident. But on one occasion, in Metz, local police seized a Luxembourg flag from a spectator – presumably a supporter of François Faber – after a local doctor had mistaken it for the French flag and complained about its presence among those cheering the race along. The Luxembourg flag is a horizontal tricolour with the same bands as the French vertical version. I guess one does look like the other, if you turn your head sideways, close one eye and squint.

Ok, so that’s a mildly amusing story about flags from the annals of the Tour. Let’s try a more serious story, this one take from the grande boucle‘s Iberian cousin, the Vuelta a España. The year is 1977 and at this stage in Spain’s history Franco was dead and the country was going through a period of transition. To demonstrate how much Spain was changing, the Basque flag, the ikurriña, had recently been legalised, after years of suppression under the Generalissimo.

Demonstrations and strikes calling for freedom for political prisoners were on-going throughout the Basque Country as the Vuelta passed through it in 1977. Franco in his time had created quite a few political prisoners: one estimate has the figure at six thousand in the Basque Country alone during the dictator’s final two years. In the Basque Country, the demonstrators calling for the release of these men and women were faced by a Civil Guard that was armed and willing to shoot. Real bullets, fired from machine guns. With nearly a quarter of the Civil Guard garrisoned in the Basque Country, there were a lot of machine guns facing the demonstrators.

That year’s Vuelta was due to end in San Sebastián. But before getting there the peloton still had the penultimate day’s racing to be negotiated, which included the climb of the Urkiola, where the stage ended with a summit finish. At the base of the climb the peloton had to skirt barricades and scattered nails as the protesters tried to disrupt the race. At the top of the climb, though, things were a getting a lot more serious. When the Basque fans waved their ikurriñas and called for an amnesty for political prisoners, the Civil Guard responded by shooting at them. Not exactly a proportionate response to a but of flag waving, but flags can be dangerous things.

Two stories, then, one mildly farcical, one deadly serious. A third story for you, one which threads the line between the two. The story of the Rás and the Cookstown Incident.

The Rás – for those who don’t know it – is an Irish stage race that dates back to 1953 and the days when cycling in Ireland was governed by too many different bodies (the CRE in the Republic, the NICF in the North and the NCA claiming authority over the whole island). The NCA, who organised the Rás, had been chucked out of the international cycling family by the UCI after the Second World War, because they wouldn’t restrict their activities to those parts of Ireland south of the border. NCA riders were thus banned from international competition. But nothing could stop them organising themselves at home in Ireland.

That NCA members would surrender the opportunity to ride in officially-sanctioned races – all the way up to the Olympics and World Championships – in order to proclaim the political unity of Ireland is important to remember. Because when it came to the Rás, sport and politics were firmly melded together. The man whose idea the race was – its Henri Desgrange – was a Republican called Joe Christle. While Desgrange may have eschewed mixing politics and sport, for Christle there was no separating the two. Most of the Rásanna he organised down through the years had some political message, from celebrating the rebellions of 1798 and 1916 through to praising James Connolly and Vladimir Illyich Lenin.

In 1956 – the year this story is set – the Rás was on to its fourth edition. At this stage the Troubles – that wonderful euphemism for three decades and more of violence in the North of Ireland – were still a decade in the future. This was the year the Vuelta a España was won by Angelo Conterno. The year Charly Gaul won the Giro d’Italia. The year Roger Walkowiak surprised everyone by winning the Tour de France.

The Rás of 1956 was running clockwise around the island of Ireland with stage finishes north and south of the border. As with Desgrange and Alsace-Lorraine, Christle’s message was clear: the border was a political fiction he didn’t believe in. Departing Dublin the 1956 Rás headed north and across the border for a stage finish in Newry followed by another stage north of the border, finishing in Armagh. From there the riders were due to head west and back into the South, with a stage finishing in Ballina, before they headed down through Nenagh for a couple of stages in the Kingdom, stopping in Tralee and Kenmare. Then they were due to head over to Clonmel and back up to Dublin and the race end. It was on the road from Newry to Armagh, the second stage of the race, that the story of the 1956 Rás was written.

Joe Christle was at the front of the race in the lead car, driving ahead of the peloton. Proud Irishman that he was Christle was flying the Irish tricolour from his car as he led the race through the North. Flags, in case you weren’t aware, are problematic in the North. The Westminster government had passed the Flags and Emblems (Northern Ireland) Act in 1954, which effectively suppressed the tricolour and more or less said that the only flag to flutter in the breeze in Northern Ireland was to be the Union Jack.

Most of what happened next occurred as the race went around the shores of Lough Neagh, that big lake west of Belfast you’ll see if you ever look at a map of Ireland and which – myth and legend has it – Fionn MacCumhaill carved out one day when he picked up a clod of earth and chucked it into the Irish Sea (that clod of earth, myth and legend has it, is now the Isle of Man). No one in the Rás had much time for myth or legend that day though. Especially when, at Lenaderg near Banbridge, an officer from the Royal Ulster Constabulary stopped Christle’s lead car an asked him to lower his flag. Rather than comply Christle drove away. In later years that’s just the sort of behaviour that would be enough to see your car riddled with bullets but in 1956 the British Army had yet to be called in to police the Six Counties. Instead, an RUC roadblock was set up near Lurgan, where Christle’s car was again stopped and he was again invited to lower his flag. Again he demurred.

This time words were exchanged. Then Christle’s tricolour was seized by the RUC and a fracas broke out when someone got the taste of a RUC officer’s baton. The men of the Rás had by now caught up with the lead car and surrounded Christle, who himself had by now reclaimed his flag from the hands of the RUC. Police reinforcements arrived and the two sides faced off, bicycle pumps on one side, police batons the other. Jim Killean, the head of the NCA – the cycling body under whose governance the Rás was run – turned up and tried to negotiate peace. No one was for backing down. The RUC offered an ultimatum: surrender the flag or cancel the stage. A memorable defeat being the norm in Irish history Christle kept the flag and cancelled the stage.

The riders still had to get to Armagh and set off, with RUC vehicles topping and tailing the now neutralised peloton. Some of the men of the Rás were more politically motivated than others and they started singing Republican anthems as they rode along through Randalstown and Magherafelt. A couple of Kerry riders proudly carried Christle’s tricolour at the front of the neutralised peloton. One of them stopped to try and seize a Union Jack which was flying from a telegraph pole (in the North Union Jacks fly from telegraph poles as if they’d sprouted there). The RUC waded it again and more batons were swung until the riders got the message and got back on the road and rode on.

At Cookstown things boiled over when the riders rode into a road block made up of RUC officers augmented by members of the Ulster Special Constabulary, the B-Specials, and local Unionists. For about ten minutes the now infamous Cookstown Incident ensued, fists and batons, along with bottles, bricks and bidons, flying this way and that. Eventually the riders retreated to the Nationalist end of the town and the heat slowly dissipated out of the day. It was nightfall before a heavily escorted peloton finally made it to Armagh and rested up for the night.

In those days, the winning of a stage of the Rás in those days was back page news in the local papers. The cancellation of a stage of the Rás was front page news the length and breadth of the country. As far as Christle was concerned, this was a victory, his bike race had kicked the issue of the border to the front of the news.

Even today, when people speak of the 1956 Rás it is the Cookstown Incident that merits most mention, rather than Paudi Fitzgerald’s overall victory. It’s not that Fitzgerald’s victory isn’t worth talking about, for it is. On the road to Ballina he suffered a defailance and almost abandoned the race, but his team-mates got him back on the road again. Coming out of the two stages in Kerry he was just twenty seconds off the lead, having taken back-to-back victories in Tralee and Kenmare. On the road to Clonmel he managed to drop the yellow jersey when he scooted up one side of a funeral cortege while the race leader found himself blocked on the other. It’s a rare day when a corpse helps win a race but this was one of them. Fitzgerald’s  was a victory that was earned and deserved and certainly one worth talking about. But it’s a victory shaded by that wee fight over a flag. A wee fight you’ll probably hear mentioned more than once between now and the start of the 2014 Giro.

Those three stories, they were all a long, long time ago and so much has changed since the events they portray took place. Alsace and Lorraine are now once more part of France and no one’s going to get arrested for flying a tricolore in Metz, not even one from Luxembourg. The Basques, well today they can fly their ikurriña where they please, without fear of being fired upon. As for the North of Ireland … well in the North of Ireland flags are still a funny business. But now it’s an argument over the flying of the Union Jack that’s filling up the column inches, at home and abroad, not one over a tricolour.

* * * * *

To learn more about the history of the Rás, seek out a copy of Tom Daly’s The Rás: The Story of Ireland’s Unique Bike Race (The Collins Press).

Sound normally reaches the cochlea by way of the auditory canal and ear drum. With the AfterShokz the sound is transmitted to the cochlea along the temporal bone, i.e., the skull. This leave the auditory canal open and ready to pick up sounds being generated around you.

The system was originally developed for military use, where radio operators not only had to hear base calling for fresh pies through the radio, but it was also thought necessary to hear incoming dangerous objects and your comrades discussing “Strictly Come Dancing.”

Now the system is available for anyone to use and I love it! As around 98.1% of my training is done solo, long rides were rather dull without Michel Thomas Spanish lessons but normal bud earphones left me unable to hear traffic until it was dangerously close.

While using AfterShokz I can hear the contents of my iPod clearly whilst being completely capable of hearing traffic around me. The system has transformed long rides into pleasant experiences without compromising my safety. Why, only today a enjoyed a lovely bit of Elgar while on a long Peak district climb with sheep clearly vocal through my ear hole.

Hook it over but not into your ears

The sound quality is excellent, maybe not deep enough bass for gangstas, but perfect for the majority of users. I even heard some subtle sound layers on a few favourite tracks that I hadn’t heard before.

The system is charged via a USB cable, and one charge has lasted more than 2 weeks so far. Volume can be changed at the control unit that also has a clip for clothing. The Sportz M2 model on test also allows calls to be taken from a smart phone, with a microphone in the control unit – though no one has called me whilst I’ve been on a ride, and if they had I wouldn’t answer anyway.

In simulated tests it worked well and I’ve used the system over the top of a Belgian-style winter cap, keeping winter wind off my ears but the tunes still flowing. I only have one criticism (and it’s minor), in that the clothing clip lacks a spring so it’s hard to clip anywhere other than at the edge of clothing. Apart from that, I have nothing negative to say about the AfterShokz, although using ‘z’ in place of ‘s’ is never to be condoned.

If you enjoy riding with music but wish to remain aware of all that is going on around you, then look no further than this unique system. Highly recommended.

AfterShokz Sportz M2 (with phone microphone)

AfterShokz Sportz 2