De Ronde Van Vlaanderen

Get comfortable, because this could take a while:

I went to Belgium to meet some friends and watch the Tour of Flanders bicycle race, which in Dutch is known as the Ronde van Vlaanderen. Here is the story...

I have found myself having difficulty describing my weekend in Belgium to friends and family. I suppose that means that it was indescribable. Hopefully the pictures will do much of the talking. Be warned: There are a lot! I left Prague on Friday afternoon and had a perfect flight. I was met by my Belgian friends at the airport, and we drove to Leuven, a university town near Brussels.

Here we are in front of the old library, a building that was destroyed in both world wars and rebuilt each time.

A better picture of the library:

Belgian architecture is different from that in Prague, and is much more Baroque instead of Gothic. You can see the hundreds of figures carved into the city hall building. I'm always amazed that such buildings are still functioning centers of government after hundreds of years.

The typical Belgian fast-food meal: French fries are your main course, and the hot dog is "on the side." As long as you dump mayonnaise all over the fries, you're in good shape.

On Saturday the real adventure began. Our plan was to drive to the Tour of Flanders Museum and then drive to four of the biggest hills on the race course and pick a good spot to watch Sunday's race. We arrived in Oudenaard and found the museum located right by the town square.

My tourguides:

Inside the museum there is lots to read about the Tour of Flanders. There are displays on the history, the riders, and the bikes. One of the most exciting things you can do is ride a trainer "in the wheel of Peter Van Petegem" as he goes on a training ride up the Kwaremont. We all took turns...

Faster! He's pulling away!

Luck is a big part of the Tour of Flanders because the weather is often terrible, the wind is usually strong, and with all the cobblestones there are mechanical problems of every kind. In our simulation, luck was on my side as I actually beat Van Petegem up the hill! (But it was just a training ride for him and I was dying on the trainer...)

You have to smile when you're on the top spot of the podium:

We bought a newspaper so that we could read all the latest news about the race while driving around the country. And to our delight we read that "Tom Boonen will be signing autographs and postcards on April 1st at the Tour of Flanders museum from 1:00 to 2:30." Alright, I didn't read it because it was in Dutch, but it was translated for me. We could not really contain our excitement. We finished going through the museum at around 12:45 and thought how perfect the timing was, because we were going to be ready to get in line to meet Tom Boonen, the World Champion of cycling and a Belgian native. We asked about where Boonen would be, and were directed to the cafe in the museum. We saw television cameras, and our excitement continued to build. As we walked toward the cafe one of my hosts told the reporter that I was here from the USA to watch the race, and so he interviewed me for Belgian TV about the race, and what I would ask Tom Boonen when I saw him. Then we were ushered to what seemed to be the front of the line. There was a screen with lots of Tour of Flanders logos and pictures, and a card with Tom Boonen's name on it. We walked around it and were met with this sight:


April Fools! They fooled us. "Tom Boonen, Junior" was signing autographs while wearing a miniature World Champion jersey. Of course we should have known better...

The professional race is on Sunday, but on Saturday amateurs and recreational cyclists can ride the course that the professionals will race on the following day. The nightly news said that 17,000 people registered to ride at least some portion of the 258 kilometer (155 mile) course. That's twice the size of the STP. And this is the windy, rainy scenery the amateurs had in the morning.
By the middle of the afternoon the Flemish countryside started to show its beauty, starting with blue skies decorated with huge puffy clouds. Of course, they were moving very fast as it was quite windy, which was probably making things difficult for the amateurs on the rode:

We parked at the bottom of the Kwaremont and walked up this legendary hill. If you take the time to read the reports on www.velonews.com or www.cyclingnews.com you can read interviews about guys who suffered up this hill. It starts out gently, but gets steeper and then is no longer paved but cobbled.

Here you can see the cobbles, the mud, and how narrow this road is. Keeping this picture in mind imagine the 199 registered professional racers trying to get up this hill at the same time. We took it upon ourselves to cheer on (and sometimes help with a push) anyone who was slaving away trying to climb this hill.
After we reached the top of the Kwaremont, we walked a few kilometers and found ourselves walking up the steeper, nastier, but thankfully shorter Patersberg. Ugh. I could feel the respect for the pros and the ameteurs growing as my calves started tightening JUST FROM WALKING UP THE HILLS THEY WERE RIDING UP!
They have labeled many of the roads in this area after famous cyclists. Hence, the Eddy Merckx route:

Picture time at the top of the Koppenberg. This is where we decided we wanted to watch the pros climb, and so we checked it out. By now, the country of Belgium was really showing how beautiful it could be.


After some more driving, we checked out the last major climb: the Muur. This is also known as The Wall. For obvious reasons. What the maps don't tell you is that you ride uphill for about 4 kilometers before the "hill" actually starts. When the race map says that the Muur is only 175 meters, they are talking about this specific section, and not the extremely long climb just to get to the climb. Hundreds of people were cheering on the ameteurs here:
We had a nice Belgian dinner and went to bed early, because we, like the pros, had a big day ahead of us. Beginning with some pre-dawn driving:

We arrived in the city of Brugges at around 8:00. It was raining, windy, and cold, but that didn't stop thousands of people from gathering to watch the racers start. Here you can see that cycling goods are for sale in front of one of Brugges' two cathedrals.

Waiting in the cold. See the umbrellas? It's raining quite hard.

The MCs come out on the stage and start entertaining us with songs in Dutch, French, German, and English. The other cathedral is behind the Tour of Flanders main stage.

The riders appear! They all have to sign in at the table near the back of the stage, and while they are signing in some of the more famous and local riders are interviewed. Here's a Cofidis rider being questioned in Dutch.

Just over an hour out in the rain, but now things are getting exciting as periodically the pros are showing up.

Allesandro Ballan answers laughs with the crowd as Uskatel signs in in the background.

And then the Belgian poster-boy appears! The crowd goes wild and sings a song that the MCs rehearsed with us an hour previous. Tom Boonen, the World Champion, with Olympic Gold winner Paulo Bettini at his side.

Petacchi, Ballan, Boonen, and Bettini. Of course, the focus was on Boonen, as most of the crowd wanted him to repeat his victory from the previous year.

A few people cheered for Lief Hoste, and individual cheers could be heard for Belgium's "other" sprinter.

A good chance to practice German: Andreas Klier and Erik Zabel are interviewed in their native language.

And they're off! I heard the gun but from our spot we couldn't see the actual start. However, we could see the team cars racing off to chase the cyclists.

Dirk Demol drives off after Hincapie, Hoste, Devolder, Eki, Michael Barry, and the rest of the boys. I think it's cool that the Discovery Channel team drives the Czech-made Skoda as their team cars. What I wouldn't give to have been in that car... Or to have what's on the roof.

We drove to the Koppenberg, which we thought would be interesting and where we hoped we could find a spot to see. Luckily there was room by the fence when we arrived at around noon.

Since I knew that we'd have a few hours before the race, I hiked down the Koppenberg and back up. These cobbles are nasty!

After about 2 hours of waiting the hill was filling up with people, and the "publicity caravan" came by, handing out Flemish flags and waving advertising everywhere.

We knew that the racers should be coming soon, so we started to peel our eyes not for the cyclists but for the helicopters that we knew would accompany the peleton. Sure enough three helicopters came into sight in the distance, and from that moment tension started building in the air. You could feel it. And then, from down the hill, an explosion of noise reached us. And then we saw them! The first two riders up the Koppenberg. They were part of a breakaway of about 5 that had had an advantage of 3 minutes, but....

... as they struggled up the hill and we heard more cheering from below we knew that the breakaway wouldn't last.

I thought it was loud before, but then the fourth rider to come up the hill was Tom Boonen himself. The noise level went from loud to loudest. Helicopters filled the air, and people were screaming and yelling in a handful of languages.

While the first few riders looked tired, Boonen looked great. And he was flying.

Allez! Hup Hup Hup!

Perhaps 30 yards behind Boonen was George Hincapie himself! You can see one helicopter in the background. George also looked great flying up this hill.

The Koppenberg grimace: Not everyone looked like they were feeling good.

Peter Van Petegem, a former winner of this race, wasn't too far behind the leaders.

The German legend Erik Zabel, powering his way up the hill.

After all the riders climbed the hill we joined the crowd and walked up to the top where a giant village was created just for fans of the race. You can see the big screen showing the race live in the background.

Tom Boonen and about a dozen other riders formed a breakaway on the descent down from the Koppenberg, which ended up racing together for 30 kilometers before Lief Hoste tried to break away, was chased down by Boonen, and the two of them raced to the finish, with Boonen winning the sprint. The Belgians went crazy!

I had an unbelievable weekend. The Flemish Lion waves goodbye...