Baby faced Canadians, and racing in the rain in Belgium.
1992 Found me living in Belgium.
I was living about 20km (12miles) northwest of Brussels in a dormitory style house my team maintained.
(The view from a hill near our house; the Atomium in Brussels.)
And that year I was racing on a Belgian cycling team sponsored by a Russian car manufacturer. Bizarrely, there was another American living there too who was actually a friend of mine from where I was from in the US.
Also living with us was a Canadian we'll call Mark.
Mark was a baby-faced guy around 20. Before coming to Belgium for the season he had been training in Tuscon, AZ.
The Canadians love Tuscon for some reason. If you're ever there training in the winter you can bet you'll run into Canadian cyclists and triathletes.
Anyway, he had gotten himself a bit of a dodgy knee during this time in AZ, probably from increasing his volume too much all at once.
Mark was a mild mannered, well spoken guy. He almost never used profanity and almost never lost his cool. He liked to have fun and often had us laughing so hard we had to pee.
One day, our coach called us at the house and told us we would be racing that afternoon in a town called Gooik. We knew he'd show up in his personal car, pack our bikes into the trunk like tetris, and take us to the race.
He was compulsive about packing the bikes in the trunk of that Peugeot. He wouldn't let us near it or help.
In Belgium there are races called Kermesses, or Kermis. Or, rather, we Americans call them that. A kermesse is a town festival and usually each town puts on it's own race. They usually contain some cobbles that resemble pitted, rutted, tomb-stones, a short punchy hill or two, and a lot of wind.
And often rain.
It's always raining in Belgium.
(A typical scene in Belgian bike racing)
Now, in those days in Belgium is was still novel to have Americans at local races. And we were the butt of a lot of jokes and abuse. It was assumed that we were slower and stupid. And, for as well as I was racing that year, I could see why they would think that about me.
This particular race in Gooik (pronounced hoyk) had a cobbled hill followed by about a kilometer of false flat at the top.
(A church in Gooik.)
And of course wind. Wind was blowing across the road on the false flat. So, we knew echelons would form and the racing would involve gutter groveling.
(Echelons. This was usually my view of them.)
It started well enough. We three north Americans were still in the group and still in the race at the halfway mark.
Then, in the closing stages of the race, the cracks started to appear and we found ourselves at the tail end of the race. The pack was starting to string out in the wind. If you didn't make the first echelon or two, you were screwed. I was on the rivet but knew I could hang in there until the end.
On the 3rd to last time up the hill we blasted up it and as we hit the false flat section I looked over at Mark.
And he did not look good.
We all had mud on our faces but on him it looked like a deathmask. His eyes were hollow and his mouth was agape. He was wrestling his bike mightily to stay in the group.
Then, a Belgian guy looked over at him, looked him right in the eyes, smiled, and said simply:
"Bye bye..."
And Mark positively detonated. The elastic snapped and he came off the back of the pack.
And unleashed a blue stream of cursing the likes of which I've not heard before or since. Like truly creative, uniquely combined, expletives.
Completely unlike him.
I just rode in in the laughing group.
The ride home in the car with our director that night was quiet.
Except for him muttering under his breath about how he should have hired some Russian riders.
I was living about 20km (12miles) northwest of Brussels in a dormitory style house my team maintained.
(The view from a hill near our house; the Atomium in Brussels.)
And that year I was racing on a Belgian cycling team sponsored by a Russian car manufacturer. Bizarrely, there was another American living there too who was actually a friend of mine from where I was from in the US.
Also living with us was a Canadian we'll call Mark.
Mark was a baby-faced guy around 20. Before coming to Belgium for the season he had been training in Tuscon, AZ.
The Canadians love Tuscon for some reason. If you're ever there training in the winter you can bet you'll run into Canadian cyclists and triathletes.
Anyway, he had gotten himself a bit of a dodgy knee during this time in AZ, probably from increasing his volume too much all at once.
Mark was a mild mannered, well spoken guy. He almost never used profanity and almost never lost his cool. He liked to have fun and often had us laughing so hard we had to pee.
One day, our coach called us at the house and told us we would be racing that afternoon in a town called Gooik. We knew he'd show up in his personal car, pack our bikes into the trunk like tetris, and take us to the race.
He was compulsive about packing the bikes in the trunk of that Peugeot. He wouldn't let us near it or help.
In Belgium there are races called Kermesses, or Kermis. Or, rather, we Americans call them that. A kermesse is a town festival and usually each town puts on it's own race. They usually contain some cobbles that resemble pitted, rutted, tomb-stones, a short punchy hill or two, and a lot of wind.
And often rain.
It's always raining in Belgium.
(A typical scene in Belgian bike racing)
Now, in those days in Belgium is was still novel to have Americans at local races. And we were the butt of a lot of jokes and abuse. It was assumed that we were slower and stupid. And, for as well as I was racing that year, I could see why they would think that about me.
This particular race in Gooik (pronounced hoyk) had a cobbled hill followed by about a kilometer of false flat at the top.
(A church in Gooik.)
And of course wind. Wind was blowing across the road on the false flat. So, we knew echelons would form and the racing would involve gutter groveling.
(Echelons. This was usually my view of them.)
It started well enough. We three north Americans were still in the group and still in the race at the halfway mark.
Then, in the closing stages of the race, the cracks started to appear and we found ourselves at the tail end of the race. The pack was starting to string out in the wind. If you didn't make the first echelon or two, you were screwed. I was on the rivet but knew I could hang in there until the end.
On the 3rd to last time up the hill we blasted up it and as we hit the false flat section I looked over at Mark.
And he did not look good.
We all had mud on our faces but on him it looked like a deathmask. His eyes were hollow and his mouth was agape. He was wrestling his bike mightily to stay in the group.
Then, a Belgian guy looked over at him, looked him right in the eyes, smiled, and said simply:
"Bye bye..."
And Mark positively detonated. The elastic snapped and he came off the back of the pack.
And unleashed a blue stream of cursing the likes of which I've not heard before or since. Like truly creative, uniquely combined, expletives.
Completely unlike him.
I just rode in in the laughing group.
The ride home in the car with our director that night was quiet.
Except for him muttering under his breath about how he should have hired some Russian riders.
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