7/11/09 - Race 2: GP Stad Geel, Top-Comp, 165 km

GP Stad Geel is a UCI 1.12 race, part of the Top Competition series for U27 riders. The race features a long loop of 120 pancake flat kilometers, which include one cobble sector of two km. Then the race heads back into the start town of Geel, where the streets are lined with fans for the four 12 km finishing circuits. Some of the bigger teams present included a couple Silence-Lotto development squads as well as a Quick Step devo team.

I felt much better before the start than I did at the kermis in Knessalare early in the week. Just the experience of riding in the Belgian peloton (or off the front or off the back, I guess) really helped me break the ice and break through whatever mental block I was dealing with. I was still nervous at the start and felt pretty self-conscious wearing some goofy, four-year-old, baggy kit. But in Belgium if it serves its purpose, nobody gives it a second thought. So whatever. Anyways, I was still expecting some kind of violent, explosive shit to go down and that it would be nose-to-the-stem hard straight from the gun. Instead, it was just pretty fast and steady rolling out of town. At first there were a few hard accelerations winding our way out of town, but on the smaller Belgian roads things got a bit steadier. And it started to pour.

I was super-conscious of positioning, mostly because there was nothing else really to think about. In a peloton of 200+ it is pretty easy to forget there is actually a race going on. “Mullet” racing: business in the front, party in the back. And shit, I am here to race, so might as well be on the business side of things, at least to get a feel for the racing here. So the early part of the race was spent looking for bike paths and sidewalks to sneak up the side of the peloton. In Belgium, the roads are mostly one lane in each direction, plus a bike path on each side. The bike paths are about 4 feet wide and are either painted onto the road as a shoulder, or are separated by a few feet of grass. It means when training you get a lot of respect from motorists and when racing, you have a lot more risky, fun opportunities to try and advance your position!

Heaven!

Anyways, once I was near the front, I started to try and cover the moves to make sure nothing went away with out my team, JBCA (Johan Bruyneel Cycling Academy), represented. It gave a lot of confidence to be riding at the head of such a big race. But the moves were for naught due to the relentless pace in the peloton, which was calculated to be about 46 kph (just a whisker under 29 mph). That was good to know, since try as I might I was going nowhere. So anyways, basically huge portions of the race are a blur of constantly trying to sneak a few positions here, a few positions there in an effort to stay at the front. That and torrential rain! I was aiming to keep about 25 riders back. The funny thing was that the roads we were on were so much wider than most back home and with full enclosure for the race, it meant that the pack was frequently riding 10 or more riders across. So you might see the front of the race, just a few rows ahead… Good position, right? Then, suddenly you turn into a heavy crosswind section, there’s an attack or two or three, the pack strings out, and suddenly fifth row turns into 50th position, at best. Then there’s a split - and guess what, you missed it! True story. There was one big separation in the first 100 km through a 5 km crosswind section and I found myself near the front of the second echelon. We hovered just a few seconds behind the front group even though we were absolutely killing ourselves to make it back. As soon as we turned back onto a tailwind straight, the gap closed in a snap!

The cobbled sector came at kilometer 97 and the 20 minutes leading up to it the peloton was a place of nervous mayhem with everyone jockeying for better position. I came into the cobbles about 30 or 40 riders back - a little further back than I would have liked. The road onto the cobbles was straight, so you couldn’t tell they were coming. That is, until the first riders hit the cobbles. It sounds like a constant, growing, deep rumble of thunder that quickly swallows you up entirely. I didn’t ride over more than five cobbles before I realized that part of the noise was due to a massive pile-up that sent riders sprawling across the road. Did I mention it was raining heavily? Rain + cobbles + bike racing = FAIL. So, I literally went flying off the side of the road, over the ditch and into the grass and then into the weeks, some five feet off the side of the road! The alternative was to join my comrades in agony on the cobbles. I want to get a variety of experiences out here, but I’m just not so eager to experience what crashing on cobbles at 50 kph is like. Judging from the screams I heard, it’s not so fun. The entire two kilometers was spent powering over the side of the road following some bastard’s hub like a donkey and his carrot. When we got through, I was in a group of about 15 riders about 20 seconds behind the peloton, which turned out to be around 40 riders that made it through cleanly. So I had a teammate with me, so we were both working hard to make sure we closed the gap. And bit-by-bit we did, although team cars were passing us, then we were passing them back once we got closer. This made the job easier in one respect as we were able to draft off the caravan at times. But mostly it just made the chase terrifying, since we were coming back into town for the finishing loops and there were lots of twists, turns, braking, and acceleration - not so fun in the middle of a race caravan. We made it back about eight kilometers before the finishing circuits, which was just enough time to reload on fuel and water.

The finishing circuits play out a lot like a kermis, except that everyone has just raced for over 100 km and the legs are a bit tired. The laps are full of corners and jumps, which really feels like hell after the longer loop, but its really important to come into these laps not feeling like it’s a finishing, but rather a substantial portion of the race… Moving up became much harder and there was much more consistent suffering, with the field rarely swelling at all - just a long line of riders through town. However, I did manage to slowly work my way up to the front. With a bit over two circuits to go I was about 25th wheel. It seemed perfect! But apparently, I was in the right spot too soon! Rather than the pace gradually ramping up leading to the finish, there were spurts of intensity, then on narrower roads the pack would get shut down by the Lotto boys at the front, just riding across the whole road! This made it hard to maintain position. In a lot of ways the whole deal is much easier if everyone is hurting and on the rivet. But when it swells up, everyone suddenly has a shot at moving up, which makes things pretty chaotic. There was a pretty big crash in the final lap that nearly took me down, but I scraped through and made it back to the leaders, just in time to watch the field sprint from the back!

We finished more than 100 miles in about three and a half hours. It was hard, but not crazy, but holy shit was the speed high! It was absolutely relentless at the front. It was great to get that one under my belt and my manager was stoked to see my finish with the bunch in my first UCI race over here. I was pretty happy as well. Now its time to start learning a bit more about what to do over here to make the magic happen…

One final note about the start/finish area. Everything was pretty standard, but exceptionally professional. Barricades in the final 250 meters, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250 meters-to-go signs, finishing arches (yes, plural!) and big fatty white line with a black stripe to race towards. The sign-in area was great, a little podium area next to sign in for team photos. Really cool atmosphere. The one strange detail that left me completely baffled was the music. With the highly professional atmosphere, I was shocked by their taste in music. American music, no less. And its not what you might think. Outhere Brothers,"Wiggle Wiggle." Imagine "Thong Song" on steroids if you haven't heard it for yourself. I had never heard the song before, so I guess it was doubly hilarious - once because I couldn't believe a song with those lyrics existed, and second because I couldn't believe that the race was playing it in public, and loudly! I was wondering if anyone understood it, since nobody seemed to think it was odd at all. But most people speak pretty decent English here... Maybe it's one of those "you had to be there" kind of moments. But I had to share. If you are curious, check it out (jump to about 1:00), but be warned, it ain't family/work friendly!

That's all for now. I'll have a bit more on Belgian racing in general and a bit about Belgium outside of racing in the next week. And some photos, too! Stay tuned and thanks for checking in!