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.

The waiting area at Luik airport was packed. It had snowed so heavily you would think the windows were made out of milk glass, and we were already delayed more than an hour. We female cyclists were part of the cause, with our loads of luggage – suitcases full of training clothes, bikes, and massage tables. The bearded men dressed in black, with the black high hats and the long curls alongside their ears were also responsible, for they had to have their hats checked for hidden bombs one by one before they could pass through customs.

When we had finally boarded, the start ramp appeared to be full of snow. Patiently, the air hostess explained to us there were not enough workers to clear the ramp and it could take a while. Or two. The more impatient the passengers got, the more peace the air hostess started to radiate. Even when twenty men with beards stood up at once, grabbed their hats out of the luggage compartment, and rushed to the back of the plane without taking notice of whoever was in the way to start praying, swinging their hats against the toilet door and the onboard microwave, squeezing the poor air hostess in between them. In vain, she tried to explain the men it was not safe to keep praying there like herrings in a barrel.

Two hours and endless prayers later we took off. Two toddlers started a crying competition for four hours straight. The incredibly patient hostess tried to comfort them. If I had been her, I would have thrown the toddlers out of the window a long time ago. But not her. She stayed calm. She kept smiling. How did she do that? What was her trick?

One of her collegues had the same question, apparently. Because all of a sudden I heard the hostess whisper: “On the outside I might look calm, but on the inside I’m totally stressed.” So she was a human being after all. An amazing one. Bravo.

Riding his bike every day is what Neil Martin loves the most. With his son, who followed in the footsteps of his father and now is one of the world’s better climbers. Or with a group. He just wants to ride his bike. And tell stories. Stories about the Olympics in 1980 in Moscow, how he and Peter Winnen ended up in a packed Russian disco, where they only had two records: ‘something with Moscow’ and the YMCA. They kept repeating both records the whole night long.

He teaches me useful Irish words, like ‘doorfull’ for a very large guy. A guy who hardly fits through a door, as it were, a guy who fills the door. I love that word so much that, in my opinion, we should introduce it in the Netherlands immediately – so grandmas won’t tell their grandsons anymore that they’ve “gotten so big,” they just say: “Boy, you’re becoming such a doorfull!”

I keep forgetting that during his career he lived in the Netherlands for quite a while, in a big farmhouse at the river IJssel near Epe, a farmhouse which I pass by a lot during my training rides back home. That’s where he picked up the language pretty well. I really have to watch my mouth in his company. Before I know it he calls me ‘kaaskopje’ and asks me if I like eating ‘brood met speculaasjes.’

And he’s made sure that I never, ever dare to show up with a dirty bike. “What’s the use of cleaning my bike if it gets dirty again tomorrow,” I asked him the other day, not knowing he’s extremely secure when it comes to material. He pierced me with his bright blue eyes and said: “Tell me, do you think the same when it comes to your ass when you’re on the toilet?”

He used to be known as himself. Now he’s known as Dan’s dad. The proud father of a professional cyclist who once was a professional himself. I never saw a 52 year old who’s so fit and so in love with the bike and everything around it. He happily freezes on a scooter for two hours, so I can do a pace training in his wheel. When I’m about to hug him in thankfulness after the session and tell him that I just cannot imagine my Dad doing a thing like that with me, he says with a twinkle in his eyes: “Ah well. Here in Girona I’m not just Dan’s Dad. I’m everyone’s Dad.”