It's a long weekend this weekend, and as usual Mark is away, so I have plenty of time to catch up on my things as well as a few of his, like making a new post!
Just to give you an idea: Mark finally started this season back in the end of Feb. In the 60-odd days since then, he's had 4 days free, and in the last 7 weeks he's driven over 10000km. So on the Wed before easter with the weather an amazing 23 deg, sunny and no wind, when I demanded he join me and my friend on the long (60km) detour ride home at 6pm, although he still had work to do before leaving for this weekend's race the next day, and although he put up a good fight, he was not allowed to resist. In the end the smile when we got home said it all.
Even the weekend of his birthday, although he was not away racing, he had to 'work'. The team sponsors at Racing Depot in Norway bought down a bunch of shop owners for a weekend to have a look at the new 2011 range of Ridley's and ride then watch the Tour of Flanders. As there were so many of them, Mark had to cart the loaned Ridley bikes to Gent and back in the team truck. Fortunately for us we planned to do the ride anyway, so it was not a big deal.
I'm not sure if we'd talked about these tourist sportive rides before or not, so let me tell you about our adventures in the Tour of Flanders sportive. Basically this is a massive organised ride with +/- 20000 participants, along the course of Tour of Flanders, including all the famous parts. There were a few options: 259 Km full tour, 140 km part tour, or 75 km 'light' tour taking in only 5 climbs (one of which is the Muur). We chose the 75 km version.
We arrived with the truck and multiple cars about 8.30 am and had to park on the side of the road about 5 km from the start place. Then we had to get our numbers which was a disaster, as although we had pre-registered the numbers didn't arrive in the mail in time, as with all the dutch registrations. Eventually we got going about 10.00 am, as the sun was starting to warm up to a beautiful spring day. One good thing is that you can start at any time between certain hours, so you're not in one big mass-start. So we rode and rode and rode, along the flanderian roads and bike paths. While the route was pituresque through the flanders countryside, unfortunately many roads were main roads and the police were forcing us to ride on the bike paths. Now I don't personally like many bike paths here because it's a bit of a tight squeeze 2-abreast, and a bit nerve-wracking when you need to pass another rider going in the other direction. So add into the mix the 20000 riders on this day, many of whom like to think they're Spartacus himself and smash their way around the course, and you start to get the idea.
(At one of the feed stations, also a junction where you choose the 75 or 140 km)
The route we chose took in 5 climbs from the race: Leberg, Berendries, Tenbosse, Muur-Kapelmuur and Bosberg. The first 3 were mostly easy, but maybe that's just because I took it easy as they were very rough. One of them, I don't remember which one, was VERY long, maybe more than 1 km? Not sure, but it seemed to go on forever, and I was glad to get off it! Mostly because the first half went uphill (not so bad) but the second half went falsly downhill, so you kept picking up speed and it was difficult to manage the braking without doing the wrong thing with the handlebars.
After a while, and a few break stops at the great revitalisatie points, we eventually got into Geraardsbergen and to the Muur. For those who know the ToFlanders, the Muur is where it ALL happens. But not the bottom, which is ashphalt and is so steep in stark contrast to the rest of Gerardsbergen it looks like someone built it specifically for the bike race. It ALL happens at the top, or the last few hundred metres to be precise. So knowing what was coming we toddled on up the first part of the Muur. Eventually we got to the cobbles and found a nice rhythm. Mark rides faster than me naturally, so he got ahead and was able to take a great photo of me coming up the Muur's cobbles.
As I got to that point I realised why Mark had stopped half-way up the Muur and not at the top to wait for me. After all, the steepest part was just up and around the corner, so I wondered why he would stop and break the rhythm. Turns out they were all stopped, as they were only letting a few riders up every 30 sec or so, to give people space to get up the hard bit. For us this turned out to be a bad move, as we never got our rhythm back for the cobbles. About 100 m into the famous steep part where Spartacus attacked Boonen last year, at the same point and time I totally lost traction (I"ll get to that importance later), I heard a loud snap then a "Godverdomme!" (F***). Mark didn't lose traction, he broke his chain. So we had to hike the rest of the way up the Muur. Not possible to start on 20% incline cobbles, and Mark's bike wasn't rideable. Fortunately for Mark he's ridden the Muur before a few years ago, so wasn't as disappointed as I was that it beat me this time.
Also even more fortunately for Mark was that Shimano had their neutral service point at the top by the chapel, so he didn't have far to go to get it fixed. The funniest thing though was how difficult he found it to let the Shimano guy do the work as he prefers to do all his own work. But like all mechanics, Mark had to respect the Shimano guy's (Dieter was his name) skills and tools and let him be. Mark's pet peeve is riders who help themselves to his tools to fix something themselves and usually break it and Mark has to then fix it more, and go looking for his now-misplaced tools.
The chain was a quick fix, and after a quick chat realising we all knew Gil from DFL/cyclingnews-jako/cinelli, we were on our way. 15 km further we were over the Bosberg and back to the finish. Then after a nice hotdog, it was back to the truck and then time to go home.
Now let me tell you about how difficult it is to ride the Muur. It's not the cobbles alone. It's not the gradient alone. It's not that it's in the forest thus the cobbles are usually still moist, alone. It's the combination of all of them that makes the Muur special. Riding cobbles takes skill. You've got to stay seated so your wheels stay on the ground so you don't get air and land badly and crash. You've also got to push a big gear, basically so you're pushing weight down for the same reasons. All the while you've got to be relaxed in the front to let the bars bounce, but with enough guidance to keep the wheel straight. The best position for this is on the tops of the bars, but each to his own with getting the optimal position and weight distribution. Add a little gradient and then you've got to combine all this with climbing the hill, which means weight distribution over the wheels becomes important. You've got to keep it over the back to keep the traction on the back. But you've got to keep the front down else you'll do a wheelie. Thus the rhythm becomes important on the cobbled climbs. Up until about 10% this goes ok. After that you start trying to climb out of the saddle, but on cobbles you can't. Then you get the Muur, and it's 20% part with moist cobbles. You have to stay seated, and if you don't have the rhythm (aka nice weight distribution and ticking over a nice gear) you're never going to make it. A 20% hill alone is hard, and you gotta have the "Lance Dance"-like standing climb rhythm to get up it. But when it's cobbled, you gotta sit and get the weight down. More so when the cobbles are wet like they are on the Muur, as it's in a foresty part and never sees sun.
So this is how a 100m stretch of cobbles really takes skill. And my hat goes off to anyone who makes it up there, and I'm going back one day to do it again when I don't have to stop and break the rhythm and I'm going to challenge the Muur to a re-match.
Till then, enjoy the riding.
Lindsay
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