Just got back from the 2009 Tour of Flanders / Ronde van Vlaanderen tour with Graham Baxter’s Sporting Tours. What a great Grupetto weekend!

Wayne, Tom, Ricky, Dave, Graham and myself arrived in Ghent late on Friday night after our bus crashed into the back of another bus whilst in the Dover ferry port! It appeared as if the driver let out the hand-brake whilst his foot was on the accelerator rather than the brakes. The bus revved and a few seconds later plowed straight into the back of another bus, smashing the front window of our bus, the rear window of the other bus and destroying our radiator. After some delay we had a new bus (Thanks for giving up your time off to drive for us Roy!) and loaded bikes from the trailer into the new bus itself. I think we arrived in Ghent around 11pm, having eaten dinner on the ferry. The only thing left to do now was start the Belgian beer tasting. We found a nice bar on one of the canals and sat outside for a few. Back to the Ibis hotel for not enough sleep.

Not a good start.

Up at 6am Saturday, we ate breakfast in the hotel (where “Continental” Dave was born) and headed to the bus park, 4k from the start point of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen where some of us assembled our bikes and others, specifically, me, just yelled at the Ribble and puzzled at how a chain could become so twisted. After a good few minutes of twisting, swearing, pondering, swearing and twisting, I finally got the chain oriented correctly and utilised Dave’s mechanical skills to turn the derailler allen key for me 🙂 On went the wheels. Job done. Stress over. Phew!

We threw the bike bags (thanks for the loan Clive) onto the bus and rode to the starting point. It was easy to find with a constant stream of cyclists making their way to it. The start point itself must’ve had thousands of riders milling around, picking up rider packs, drinking, chatting, etc. This ride was BIG.

After collecting our packs, filling our bidons and emptying our bladders we rolled out easily with a mass of other riders and rolled along bike paths and small roads out of Ninove.

We were taking it pretty easy, riding past a lot of cyclists and being passed by quite a few too. Hitting the first cobbled section was a bit of a shock. I’d ridden Belgian cobbles before but on a touring-spec MTB with fat tyres at low-ish pressure. This time I was on the Ribble with Vittoria Pave tyres (thanks Laura) at 8bar/115psi! Yes, I know this pressure was ridiculous but I wanted to avoid having to search for a track pump on arrival, avoid pinch flats and see how the cobbles felt first before dropping the pressure. Suffice to say, I was vibrated to hell on the first few sections of cobbles! We were stopping quite a bit for regrouping and adjusting bits and pieces and I used one of these stops to drop tyre pressure.

After only a couple of the long, flat sections of cobbles my hands were in pain – the knuckles ached as I bounced along. To avoid this I would grip the drops and then release until the pain returned and then grip the drops again, maybe move to the tops and alternate gripping and just resting my hands on the bars. At some points, especially longer downhill cobbles, there was just no chance to control the brakes so the bike was just left to run. After about 3 sections I’d got the hang of it and was powering along and just living with the knuckle pain.

The vibrations were causing my saddle pack to unclip. This eventually led to it snapping the velcro strap around the seatpost so I had to transfer my multitool, puncture kit and tubes to my jersey pockets. I should have stuck with the simpler double-velcro type.

The first cobbled climb, the Molenberg, involved another hardware failure. This time, my commuter-tension SPDs let go a couple of times. I had enough momentum (and super-human power and mad skillz of course) to continue without dabbing. At another regroup point I tightened the left pedal. Glad I had the multitool!

From here on I was pretty happy with everything. I much preferred the cobbled climbs to the cobbled flat sections since you weren’t vibrated to hell and my legs are far stronger and better suited to pain than my arms and hands. The climbs are steep but not impossible with 39-25 gearing. The biggest trouble was other riders stopping or weaving wildly in front of you or even, in Ricky’s case, falling on top of you! I think the Koppenberg was probably the hardest climb or was it the Valkenberg? but it was made trickier for me when the guy in front weaved from one side of the road to the other and then stopped dead in front of me. I run straight into his back wheel and had to unclip. I swore at him, remounted and continued on up after Continental Dave.

CS Grupetto atop one of the ‘hellingen’

I’d lost the guys after stopping to transfer my kit and mess about. I upped the pace and TT’d down a long, fast cobbled descent only to be stopped by a copper to let traffic through. I caught up with the guys again at the first feed stop. It was in some kind of shoe factory – Safety Runner or something? It was a construction line with riders first getting their cards stamped and then weaving up and down aisles picking up waffles, stroop waffles, bananas, muesli bars and Isostar drinks.

I guess we were some way over half way done and Dave and I were feeling a bit keen to up the pace and stop the stopping. We left Graham, Ricky and Tom to continue on at their pace. Dave and I started knocking over the climbs, well Dave killed the climbs and I struggled along behind him and then the roles reversed and I rolled down the descents with Dave pedaling. 🙂

Towards the end it turned more and more into my kinda riding – long, flat and fast. Dave and I swapped turns, being passed by bunches (some riding like muppets) only to take them back again after 200m. It was like commuter racing on a grand scale 🙂

The Muur-Kapelmuur was fantastic. It was lined with fans all cheering riders on. It’s the second last climb so guys were getting tired, weaving and stopping and falling all over the place. I was too pumped to let anyone mess up my climb so did my own share of yelling to keep riders going or to get them out of my way. “Hop Hop Hop Hop Hop!!” “On your left!!!” etc. The rider in front of me was speaking Belgian to the crowd and I caught the last word which sounded like ‘applause’. He was egging the crowd on! They responded with a massive cheer and clapping. Fantastically inspiring stuff and just what I needed to continue my assault on the Muur. I caught Dave up near the Chapel and we carried on, safe in the knowledge we were near the end with only the Bosberg remaining.

The finish for us was a bit of a shambles. We were cheered through the finish line but then didn’t know where to go. We turned back across the road following some riders but then it thinned out and we had to check the map. We headed back to the finish line to see if there were any signs. Nope, but more riders were going the other way so we followed them. This was more promising with massive bunches of riders waiting at lights for the police to let them through. Eventually we made it back to the start/finish area. Job done!

After a burger we collected our finishing certificates and polished off a few beers waiting for the others. Turns out they’d already gone to the bus and were waiting for us. Whoops.

Luckily the guys had given them a cover story about us being lost. I think they were being dramatic since we were at the bus only 30min after first being called by Jonathan. It only took 10min from when I noted the missed calls to get to the bus. It wasn’t in the same place and we came from a different street which helped our ‘lost’ story somewhat. We disassembled our bikes in record time and piled on. Back to the hotel for a clean up and then beers and then out for dinner (Mexican) and more beers and I think back to the hotel for even more beers. The hotel bar was staffed by a friendly lady who did a great job getting us to hang around drinking 🙂

Sunday was another early start and then a day of frantic race following in the bus! We saw the start in Brugge, a random bit of road somewhere, the first feed stop, Oude Kwaremont and the Muur.

Euskaltel team car in Brugge

The peloton roll out of Brugge

The peloton is still together after 100k

At the first feed station there was a two man break with 30 seconds on the rest

After showing Wayne (who didn’t ride on Sat due to injury) the Oude Kwaremont climb we headed back up the road to watch from inside and outside a pub, but not before spotting someone wearing a Rollapaluza cap! I was wearing a Rolla shirt so didn’t appear completely mental when I approached him to comment. I needed to get back up the hill for a fast exist though so left him be.

The peloton was now looking dusty and ragged. There were splits forming everywhere. I couldn’t believe the speed they went past and the speed all the cars and outriders went past! Unbelievable!

Wayne and Tom climbing up to get a view from the Muur.. which was basically impossible due to the numbers there already. Roy did a great job of getting us there at all though with some fearless parking!

Stijn Devolder (1) just before he attacks in the winning move on the Muur for his second Ronde victory in 2 years.

We watched the final 10k of the race on a huge screen setup in town near the Muur.

After the race we walked up the Muur for another look before heading back into town for some beers. Whatever you do, don’t take the bottles away from drunk bar women! 🙂

That night after some beer-cheese sandwiches (thanks Chef Wayne!) I ate steak and chips and tried far too many Belgian beers, helped in part by the fact that Ricky and I, along with two of the Manchester blokes, were the only 4 on the bus to tip the winner in the sweepstakes! 32 euro each. Nice work!

Those Manc buggers sure can put it away! We arrived back at the hotel maybe 1 or 2am and they were still looking for more beer. The hotel bar had closed so vending machines and “Nacht Winkels” provided our options. Some time around 4am I finally went to bed. All in all it set me up for a very very hungover bus trip back to London.

What a fantastic cycling long weekend! Big thanks to all those involved.

Grupetto FTW!

cyclingnews.com – stijn devolder

Some pictures from the Tour of Flanders

Update:

Ricky got me the link to the Chorlton Velo club that the four Manchester lads belong to.

www.chorltonvelo.co.uk

I’ve uploaded my Powertap data and Dave and I finished with a ride time of 5h:37m

Duration: 5:37:14 (6:41:19)

Work: 3575 kJ

TSS: 573.6 (intensity factor 1.021)

Norm Power: 265

VI: 1.47

Pw:HR: 4.41%

Pa:HR: 3.25%

Distance: 142.167 km

Min Max Avg

Power: 0 924 181 watts

Heart Rate: 99 187 145 bpm

Cadence: 29 209 75 rpm

Speed: 0 64.1 25.8 kph

Pace 0:56 0:00 2:20 min/km

Hub Torque: 0 90.5 10.6 N-m

Crank Torque: 0 156.7 25.0 N-m