Circumburke Challenge in East Burke, VT: October 23rd, 2011

 

 Clear weather prevailed for the 2nd edition of the Circumburke Challenge race around Burke and Umpire Mountains on October 23rd, 2011. 

18 miles of muddy logging roads and singletrack in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. 88 participants showed up to enjoy the fun.

The event was held in memory of Dave Blumenthal, a talented endurance athlete, designer and dedicated Green Mountain Club volunteer who died in June 2010 during the Tour Divide endurance cycling race in the Rocky Mountains.

Several quotes from the participants:

Most of the route, as the web site says, “harks back to the early days of mountain biking.” There was a lot of rough double-track riding and enough mud to keep any 3 year old happy for months. Dave and I were able to talk throughout the ride and had a great time chugging up the hills and bombing the downhills together. One part of the course that merits mention was the single-track before the second aid station. I don’t know exactly how many miles of it there were, but it was amazing. I’ve ridden on freshly cut single-track many, many times over the years and this was outstanding. Whoever had picked the lines had a great sense of flow on the bike. The fact that they had raked or used a leaf blower to clear the leaves was icing on the cake. I would gladly slog my way back there during the summer months if I could locate that single-track section again. It was that good. 
Mark Tucker ()

"Great trails! Really nice to see the race grow. Well done! The leaf raking/blowing was amazing/crazy...I've never seen such a thing. Wow, thank you." 
Andrew Tripp. (Montpelier)

Last Belgian Race – in the Ardennes

500 meters from the French Border

World’s Biggest Criterium – Post Tour Race in Aalst

The big “Na-Tour” Criteriums happen throughout Belgium, the Netherlands and Northern France in the evenings of the week after the finish of the Tour de France. These events draw huge crowds lubricated from beer tents and bars. These races are exhibition races which resemble a WWF wrestling spectacle featuring “races” with famous ex-professionals like Johan Museuw and Lucien Van Impe, races for fireman, policmen, podium interviews with other famous cycling personalities and beauty queens and the culminating main event, the pro race. These usually occur on large 2-4 km circuits throughout the town with cobbled sections and easily negotiated corners. The outcomes are scripted to please the fans by allowing ach of the invited tour heros to make solo breakaways and be easily recognized by the fans. The Aalst criterium featured Phillippe Gilbert, Ivan Basso, Jelle Vanendert and Samuel Sanchez. Prominent Local professionals and Elite Amateurs are also allowed to compete but peloton etiquette only permits the big names to ride near the front. The biggest name rider is usually allowed to win and often receives tens of thousands of dollars for each appearance at an event.

I took some photos of the Gentleman’s race at the Aalst Criterium and the crowd around the course. The Gentleman’s race started out very slow like a double file parade but as the event unfolded the pace quicken and younger ex-pros like Johan Museuw and Etienne De Wilde forced the pace very high…..and many of the famous old guys started to look uncomfortable began coming of the back. I am not sure who actually won.

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Racing in the Graveyards – Ypres

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I finished one! It was what I needed. Got into Ypres on a nice train about 11:45 found the nearby village about 12:15…amidst the graveyards. Got some Speculous and Crepes from a market. Napped for 1 hour in a church graveyard. Headed over to the race cafe, picked up my number and chatted with an Englishman …formerly of Team Type I …who rqaces here. He slept in a tent for a while.until he  got adopted by a Belgian family.

I did nothing for most of the race and was always afraid to go for the breaks…because I did not want to blow up….but I started to take pulls towards the end and helped reel in a major field split and then the last lap the winning break I chased with 3 guys and almost made it…got swarmed by the field on the finishing straight which was all cobbles but I got a place a least:

http://new.wiebovlaanderen.be/Default.aspx?tabid=373&S=Competitie&WedstrijdNummer=370&Datum=24072011

It is the peak of summer racing season now with post tour Crits for the pros and tons of Kermesse. But the guys in the team house here in Oudennaede are staying until October! Racing all the time.

Oudenaarde – July 2011

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A provincial town with a stunning rennaissance market square to spend a rest day esp. on the day of the Alpe’ D’Huez stage of the Tour De France. Many pros and foreign riders live here.

It was pouring rain all morning and the racers hunkered down inside waiting for it to subside. I spent the afternoon finding a rain jacket to replace the one I lost and a team jersey – both were exorbitantly expensive in dollars term. I then added insult to injury by spending 20 Euros for three very minimal workouts in a local muscle gym…which given that I am racing almost every day…. means only a few back machine exercises and one set of light squats every three days.

The streets of Oudenaarde were eeerily quiet ….then I realized the entire Belgian populace was glued to the tube watching the Alpe D’Huez stage of Le Tour. So I headed over to the Ronde Van Vlaaderen (Tour of Flanders) Museum where the cafe was packed with viewers…there were some Dutch people and one half drunk Friesian entreprenuer telling me how wonderful Friesland is for bike touring. The museum is a phenomenal attraction for cyclists, whcih exhibits memorbilia from Belgian bike racing, posters, bicycles, photos, trading cards and old television broadcast – it also provides a series of very well marked 30 to 80 mile bike routes around the hills of Oudenaarde which cover must of the Ronde route.

We saw Rolland win the stage and Voekler limp in and lose the Maillot Jaune to Schleck…then the crowd filtyered out of the cafe, the sun came out and I did a beautiful spin along the canal  finding my way amazingly back to edge of the old village with its this little piece of New Jersey to provide a suitable local for lost bike racers.

We will attempt a Kermis in Lierde tomorrow.

Flanders Part II – July 2011

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After more than three days getting myself and my belongings consolidated on the way back from Germany, I am back in the saddle, this time in Oudenaarde, possibly the best place for racing and training in Belgium. This small city at the  the edge of the famous range of hills which separate Wallonie from Flanders makes. The town is home to many road and cross racers and an ideal base for hitting races around Ghent and Kortrijk while also maintain some hill form by riding the famed Bergs of the Ronde Van Vlaandern.

My legs got slow from all the climbing in the last ten days and I have suffered in the racing. The weather is crap now, raining hard sometime each afternoon butthis does not stop racing here.

Yesterday, I made it only 20 minutes in the Deinze Kermesse before pulling out, my teeth were chattering and my brakes barely working and stuck up with sand particles. Again I forgot to bring the “Embrocation” which could have saved me.

Today I arrived at the start of the Laarne Kermesse race 6 minutes before the gun but still managed to get a number on and start. But I only lasted 35 minutes before I got caught too far back in field and the elastic snapped. Not feeling very tired but the legs had no snap and I was gapping out of every turn. Some of the other guys in our team house did really well….the kid from Yorkshire made it into the break and made a bold solo bid on the last lap but got caught. I took the scenic route back to Oudenaarde via Zottegem and some of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen parcours and got hit by a heavy rainstorm. Schiesse.

“Arden Challenge” – June 2011

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I traveled into the hilly Ardennes forests of eastern Belgium (where the Battle of the Bulge and Ardennes Offensive occured and 75,000 Americans died)  for this four day series. Stayed in a remote youth hostel, rode to each stage start and back each day! Circuits were usually a 100 km road loop with very long gradual climbs with additional 20 km of criterium loop at the end of each stage. Uphill speeds of the field on these hills were astounding, with some of the best Dutch, Flemish and Wallonian hill riders (No Kermesse Kings here).  I was only able to stay in for 20 minutes, 45 minutes, 90 minutes and 2 hours 30 minutes respectively each day before being “popped” and limping in with other stragglers and often getting lost (One Flemish guy had GPS which saved us from ending up in Luxembourg!) . On the last day…I was going better and survived until  the last KOM – just before the last finishing circuit but my cleat was loosening up from the cobbles and I just cracked…and ended up chasing for the three of the criterium circuits before I got “pulled” with 10 km remaining. I enjoyed the whole experience and exploring this region – my pick as one of the best places in the world for cycling.

Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda @ Wachtebeke June 2011

Ghent Shipyard

Allan Peiper ?

Flahute

On the way to the Wachtbeke Kermis, north of Ghent….I got on the wrong side of the Ghent shipyard complex…..in scorching  89 degree heat. After doubling halfway back towards Ghent and hopping a ferry to get across the harbour, I manage to TT up the other side of the canal and arrive with 15 minutes to spare….. already with two hours in the saddle. On the market square of Wachtbeke.  I loaded up two liters of cheap sports drink but had forgotten to bring a third bottle – a mistake I would regret.  I registerd and got my number quickly and made it to the startline where the imposing figures of the Kermesse Kings skelelton Guy Smet and Patrick Coquyt (Age 52) and there respective entourages of young lackeys indicated that the whole Ghent mafia was there -minus Staph Boone’s team from the “farm” whose man, Mario Willems, stays off  Smet and Coquyt turf because of a falling out with Coquyt.

I felt strangely good, although the legs are slow coming out of the turns….but downshifting and doing a smaller gear -like 53×17 or 16 for the initial jump out of the corners really works for saving the legs. Because of the sweltering heat, the big guns held back until about one hour in…just when I was running out of water. In one particularly dreamlike moment, I found myelf floating up behind Smet and Patrick while Smet rolled out a massive gear on a cowpath a la Spartacus and shattered the field.  I stayed focused on Coquyt’s wheel and after he went through I pulled through hard ….too jerky probably because I heard Smet grunt something to Patrick and they sat up and hung me out to dry… so that ten seconds later I was up the road alone and blown up with heavy legs and barely able to pedal and get back on the train when it hammered through with the remaining peloton. The water situation got desperate but nobody would give me anything….I asked a Flanders guy- hoping he was a foreigner but he blurted something in Flemish and the Jayco Ozzie had some typically incoherent Australian excuse ….showing me his sole bottle …even though his soigneur was in the feedzone with water every lap….the spectators leaning over the barriers would not even give me beer despite desperate gestures and pleas each lap. We were down to 25-30  guys out of 70 starters so I realized that I was in an unusually good and bad situation all at once and theoretically in the money but I just could not stand going much farther without water. My head was burning up, throat so parched and I was wilting mentally thinking about the glasses of amber liquid which glistening in the sunlight and held casually all along the barriers of the start finish.

Two laps later my left cleat was about to rattle off and I cracked mentally and pulled out of the race from the middle of the pack right in front of the announcer after 105 minutes, I piled over a metal barrier like a line change in a hockey game and barged through the crowd straight to the bar for some wasser. The old red noses looked at me with hard faces while the announcer (actually Allan Peiper doing perfect Vlaamse dialect!) said something which sounded quite important about John McGill… Amerikanse Renner three times and the words “stoppt”. I asked a soberer tifosi type what all that Flemish meant, and he said it meant all those silly fools who bet on the American have lost some money! Idiots…they seem to do that every time! Next lap, I craned my neck on tip toes over the beers and spectators on the barriers to watch the battle; and in cames Patrick and Smet steaming 30 seconds off the front with two young customers in tow. The end would be almost inevitable. I noticed Smet won in Saturday’s race too. Another day at the office. He drives a big black Mercedes SUV and does not need to share his winnings with anyone, because he doesn’t need any help. He wins two or three times each week.

On the ride home I stopped off at Staph Boone’s “farm” to chat. I poked my head inside the lair and was astonished to see that the entire flooring, foyer and kitchen had been renovated nicely….not the dump I remember. Emerging from within were a young Ozzie named Colin or Cowan and a big Ruskie kid named Peter  stays there 10 months per year. An American named Ryan Dewald from 9 years ago was back in residence but away scoring dinner…they said he was 32 years old…..with amazement.  They asked me if I would be joining the team. I guess there is not enough time for that…since I am doing the Ardennes thing now.

Strange thing is that this Peter, the Russian Kid, has a bike which looks surprisingly like my own Litespeed which was stolen in Ghent in September 2008 from a nearby restaurant. Too similar I suspect to be just a coincidence. It is the same model, same size and has the same kind of Chris King headset that I had ! He says it belonged to an American who rode for Discovery Channel…hmmm…. least that is what he was told.

Rest Day in the Ghent – June 2011

26.06.2011 Ghent, Flanders (Bike racing Capital of the World)

Hey Onions and Tifosi:

It is Sunday afternoon and I am reposing in the late evening sun overlooking the renaissance era canals, row houses and castles of Ghent- sorry to rub it in.  I find myself again immersed in the very highminded intellectual pursuit of bicycle racing; This afternoon I spent two hours watching the extensive five hour TV coverage of the Belgian Championships. Gilbert attacked everyone at 2 km to go on an almost flat 1.4 ” percent cobbled grade, got a gap on Boonen, and rode away!

Today was a tourist rest day off the bike around Ghent and catching up on sleep . I decided not to stay at the old Kingsnorth International Wheeler’s team “farm” this time because I want to do my own schedule and go farther afield from the flatlands of Ghent. And although the team house is newly renovated, and there is an empty room…..I decided a house full of 20-22 year old Ozzies and Ruskies who watch TV and read bike magazines and tabloid newspâpers all day when not racing - might be unbearable.  Actually there is a 30ish American named Ryan somebody living with the team this month . I certainly would recommend that team for anyone that wants to try the Flemish bike racing life and pay only 100 Euros/month rent complete with soigneur; motorpacer, team car and teammates.

So I am attempting this trip on my own, now staying in a clean, ultra moderne  (and actually empty) hostel, which is affordable and allows me to relax and race while also exploring Belgium a bit more effectively. The disadvantage is that I do not have a soigneur and feed at the races like almost everyone else who shows up to race. I actually take the train to races, if necessary. I have a 10 trip railpass ….I pay a surcharge of 7 dollars for the bike…..and am a firm beleiver that it is a cool way to get around efficiently in Europe if you can read a map and train schedules – even if you are a bike racer.

Limbourger Kermis June 25, 2011

Saturday  I hopped a train out to Limbourg Province for a real elite w/o contract race on a cold foggy day.  Not the same luck for me as the day before, when I finished decently in the pack of a 100 km Kermis Race near Ghent.

These ubiquitous “Around the Church” Kermis races are like very long criteriums which leave and re-enter the center of small towns combine main streets around the village square or church with an often narrow, windy maze of cement cowpaths. These races are scheduled around a village “Kermis” festival which includes beer tents and cheesy music with friendly semi-drunken people, wurst, frites, and a small carnivals with rides and shooting galleries. Shivering on the startline without my belgian Musculor massage oil, I shuddered more to see several big names, someone pointed out one of P. Gilberts teamates, a young Lotto professional (I suspect that younger elite pros are allowed in elite w/o contract races, if they are U23 because they will still get their asses kicked by the Kermesse specialists) . The race started much faster than the day before with an attack up a cobbled false flat into a headwind and we remained strung out and single or double file from then on. The circuit had at least twelve  corners over 10 km and I was  immediately afraid of being dropped but I am learning to become patient and never come around riders when a gap opens up, you have conserve your energy…play it cool ….and let someone else panic and fill the gap. I am more comfortable than usual in the Flemish races, not nearly as nervous as years ao. That helps. I have learned to downshift and then jump out of the corners at a higher cadence out of the corners which really helps and follow the wheels up onto the bike paths if there are cobbles. Nevertheless only 50 minutes into the race at the 40 km mark, I was up front but feeling the legs weaken near the front,. I was on Guy Smet’s wheel (Smet is a 6’5″ 200 lb. giant kermesse star …..seemed like a good wheel to follow unless he attacks.http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=3967)  Somebody up front launched an attack on the false flat with headwind and I gapped…..within 10 seconds I was gassed and the legs didn’t work anymore and I completely stopped pedaling and sat up letting the entire long strung out peloton ride by.  I did not even attempt to catch back on.   It took me 90 minutes to ride the 20 km back to a train station near my youth hostel in Leuven….running on fumes.

Hopefully recovery will come in time for my race tomorrow. I hope to do two  or three more kermesses near Ghent on Monday, Tues or Wednesday; then two days before a four day stage race in the Ardennes  at the end of the week. Looking forward to that despite being teamless etc.