European Bike Racing School continued for the members of my nieuwelingen group, Brandon, Matteo, Tyler, Ben, Maxl and Justin.
One of our mechanics, JW, who is from the area told me about a Tuesday training race on an old horse track oval. The oval is about 1800 meters around and gets quite a turnout. Since part of the purpose for the trip was to experience racing in Europe I felt that heading out to a local training crit would be a valuable experience. The plan was to ride the 30km out to the track with two of the U23 guys who had arrived that day and 3 of the other staff. JW was to meet us out there with one of the vans so that we could ride get a ride back after the race. The race itself had close to 80 riders in it of all abilities and was full gas for 90 minutes. Both Ben and myself found ourselves in groups off the front for a considerable period of time. When we rolled up to the van after the race we saw JW and our other mechanic Ben wrestling with a flat tire (frozen bolts and all). I looked at Ben, asked quietly “how long” and got “could be a while”.
“All right boys, change in plans, we are riding home.” We went the more direct route but by the end of the evening we all had just over 120km in. Let’s just say the boys were a little less talkative at breakfast the next morning and we didn’t do our usual morning pre-race spin before heading to Westerloo for the kermesse there later that evening.
The long day didn’t seem to affect the guys too much as Brandon got on the podium once again finishing 2nd to the impressive Danish rider who had beaten him the previous weekend in Kerniel. Matteo was able to get into a group off the front as well. The Dane was so impressive that the race jury pulled the remainder of the field with 4 laps to go because the race was so spread out. The race was a full blown mid-week kermesse in Westerlo complete with an impressive podium stage and backdrop and a sausage and beer tent with flat screen television set up showing that day’s stage of the Tour de France.
Sunday the crew traveled to Geel where the entire team made their presence known by sweeping the podium. Brandon and Matteo broke away together and forged over a two minute lead. We discovered that it is frowned upon to “pre-determine” placings as Brandon and Matteo came across the line together arms in the air with Brandon “taking the win”. Tyler completed the sweep by winning the field sprint. This began a run of “plundering and pillaging” that continued with Brandon winning solo by impressive margins in Lommel as well as the final race in Driestlinter.
The race in Lommel was unique for this group of nieuwelingen. Following shortly after their race of possible stars of the future was a race with stars of the present: a post Tour criterium featuring a number of this year’s Tour de France stars including Johan Vansummeren, John Degenkolb, Matteo Trentin and the big draw, overall TdF Champion Vincenzo Nibali. The tradition of post-Tour crits is a long one. These races provide the fans in Belgium, Holland and Germany with an opportunity to get close to the stars of the Tour de France. We were fortunate enough to have a cafe table just past the start finish line and were witness to Nibali uncorking quite a “sprint” to take the win. He apparently is a man of many cycling talents….
A few days later I took the guys down to Heerlen to watch another post-Tour criterium, the RaboRonde Heerlen. This one had a different slate of TdF riders including Dutch National RR Champion Sebastian Langeveld, Paris-Roubaix winner Niki Terpstra and eventual “winner” Tom Dumoulin. This is one of the largest post-Tour crits boasting close to 50,000 spectators every year. It also features a women’s race which we made sure to make to cheer on our new frined Kyra Stijns from Team Giant-Shimano whom we had ridden with two days earlier.
The last race was in Driestlinter and Brandon once again took no prisoners. He broke away late in the race with another rider and dispatched with him on the last lap soloing in for the win. We had 2.5 casualties during the race with both Matteo and Justin being taken out within the first kilometer of the race (both were fine although Mattteo’s bike wasn’t). The half was Tyler who went down in a crash in the last 3 km. According to Ben who saw the entire thing Tyler was back up on his bike before he even stopped sliding from the crash, chased back onto the group, passed about 20 guys on the sidewalk and still had enough left in the tank to sprint for a paying position (the kermesses pay deep usually offering 400-500 Euro. Brandon was typically getting around 45 Euro for his victories). For me Tyler’s ride was the one of the day not letting a little thing like sliding on the pavement with 3 km to go getting in the way of making a few Euro!)
LESSONS LEARNED:
On their last night here in Sittard, Billy Innes (USA Cycling Junior Program Manager) and I had every one of the guys come in for a little debrief from the past 3 weeks. We asked them the basics of whether or not they liked the experience, would they like to come back, where they saw their cycling career in the future, etc.
All responded that they had a great time and would definitely welcome the chance to come back.
The question that I really wanted answered was “what did you learn”?
“I learned some skills I hadn’t had an opportunity to do before like proper pace line techniques, paying attention to the wind direction and I got more confident in what I could do from race to race.”
“I learned that you really need to race aggressively over here and that the racing is nothing like what we do in the U.S.”
“I learned that I need to do more volume training. I wasn’t quite ready when I first arrived but I felt myself getting stronger as the trip went on.”
“I learned what it was like to just focus on racing my bike, riding and focussing on that. At home I have a lot more stuff going on and it was nice to just concentrate on that one thing.”
“I learned what it was like to really be somewhat independent for the first time, do my own laundry, stuff like that.”
“I learned how to figure things out on my own, things like how to get around and where things were even though I didn’t speak the language.”
Seven podium appearances and lessons (both cycling and more importantly life) learned. Congratulations to Brandon, Matteo, Maxl, Tyler, Justin and Ben on a job well done.
Hats off gentlemen. This one is for you. Enjoy.
