A Big Belgian Adventure Part I: Tour of Flanders Randonee

Ever since travelling to the Gent 6-Day last November, I've come over all Belgian. That accounts for my having taken up cyclocross last winter as well as for all the frietjes and strong beer I've been consuming since then.

All the guys in the shop are planning to ride the 2008 Etape du Tour - 165 km through the Pyrenees from Pau to Hautacam, including the 17 km, average 7.5% gradient climb over the Tourmalet via La Mongie and finishing with the 14 km, average 7.2% climb to Hautacam. Climbing is all about your power-to-weight ratio and while my power is reasonable, my weight is considerable. Cycling challenges like L'Etape du Tour or La Marmotte are not well-suited to someone with my physiology (especially after all that beer) and temperament, but when I heard about the Paris-Roubaix randonee ride in June, I thought I'd found an alternative that might be. And as a warm-up, on a whim, I decided to also enter the Tour of Flanders ride.

So I've just returned from an awesome 10-day tour to Belgium and France where, inbetween watching the pros fly over the roads of the cobbled classic races - the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Gent-Wevelgem and Paris-Roubaix - I was able to ride the very same roads myself. I have so much to write about I don't know where to start! So I guess I'll just start at the beginning. And sorry for the lack of pictures - I was too busy actually experiencing stuff to stop and take many photos.

I travelled by coach from London to Ghent on Friday 4 April with Sports Tours International where 7 of us were to be stationed for the first 6 days at the lovely Novotel Gent Centrum under the entertaining guidance of David Bond.

I was a bit distressed to learn that our bikes would be kept packed up in the trailer overnight. Nevermind the thought of poor Joop out there alone in the cold, dark night, I was anxious about the prospect of putting everything together at the side of the road Saturday morning, possibly in the snow or rain, with no time or resources to hand to sort out anything that might be wrong before setting out on a 140km cobble-climbing day of suffering! But I was confident that my mechanical preparation, mostly involving a tube of Loctite 243, was complete and that I'd be ready to go.

I needn't have worried. When my Tour of Flanders randonee ride was over after 10 miles, it had nothing to do with rushed bike assembly on a wet verge in Ninove and everything to do with a fortnight-old act of stupidity and naive optimism that meant I'd mounted my tubs without proper valve extenders - mainly because I didn't want to have to put up with the inevitable incessant rattling of the protruding valves in the carbon rims. What was I thinking?

Last summer, someone came into the shop with a pair of deep section carbon-rimmed racing wheels and complained of having trouble getting a tight enough seal with a simple screw-on valve extender to properly pump up their tyres; with air leaking out of the extender, there was no way to accurately determine how much pressure you'd pumped into them. I took a look at the set-up, sucked a breath in through my teeth, and said, "That's not the way I would do it." Oh no, I do it properly with the valve core replaced at the end of a set of Vittoria extenders, secured at all joints with a few winds of PTFE tape. Yup, that's the way I do it. Usually. But not this time.

Without an extender, there was enough of the valve tip protruding through the rim that I could turn it open and closed so, to prevent the rattling valve problem, I decided to just leave them like that and to use a simple screw-on Zipp extender whenever I needed to inflate the tyres. The problem with this method, though, is that you have to screw the extender on really tightly in order in order to get an adequate seal. So tight, in fact, that when you go to unscrew it, you unscrew the valve core along with the extender. And then you're not able to re-insert the valve core tightly enough to prevent that leaking. And sometimes, the nut on the tip of the presta valve sticks open inside the extender and to fix that you have to remove the extender, which might also remove the core again, etcetera, etceteraaaaarhg!!!

So I had a pleasant 10-mile ride out from the start - No, actually it was only a pleasant 5-miles before I could feel my rear tyre softening -- No, actually even that first 5 miles was cold, and wet, and not at all pleasant -- before I decided I'd better stop to see if I could get any more air in before hitting the first cobbled climb. (I was hitting rim just going over innocuous cracks in the tarmac.) Long story short: I couldn't and resigned myself to turning around. I had taken the tub off and re-fitted it and was only able to get about 60 psi back in, so it was a pretty slow and hairy roll back to the start-finish area against the tide of traffic. I was so angry with myself! Devastated, I found comfort in the rain that hid my tears and disguised my sobs as shivering.

When I got back to the start-finish area and found that I hadn't in fact put a 10 euro note in my pocket as I'd intended and therefore had no money for a consolation frietje or even one euro to park my bike while I warmed up somewhere indoors, I had to call the shop, distraught, for some sympathy and soothing from Ronan and Warrick. Perked up by their pointing out that I'd still have plenty of opportunity to ride during the trip, that I'd be able to buy a pair of valve extenders and do what I should've done to begin with, or in the worst case use the spare wheels I'd brought, I was ready to head back to where the coach was parked to wait for everyone else to finish while planning for a better-prepared trip next year.

However, when I returned to where we'd been dropped off, next to the Ninove Nijs Nissan dealership, only the trailer that had transported our bikes was there, not the coach nor the minivan. I quickly evaluated the options and decided to stay put, trying to shelter from the wind and rain and not feel too sorry for myself.

Luckily, it wasn't long until Mr. Nijs invited me in and offered me a cup of coffee. Of course the conversation immediately turned to cycling and I asked, "Are you by any chance related to Sven Nys, Belgian cyclo-cross champion?" But of course, yes- Sven is his cousin! He showed me some photos and told me that, in addition to preparing 36 vehicles for tomorrow's Ronde van Vlaanderen for VIP shuttles and the media/publicity caravan, he supplied all the race vehicles for many of the Belgian races and had also got Nissan to provide a new Pathfinder for Sven every year. The first year they did it was 2005, when they had one painted up in World Championship colours waiting under wraps at Rabobank's World Cyclocross Champs after-party. They were very relieved when he won! "Otherwise we have had to wheel it away with our tails between our legs," chuckled Mr. Nijs.

It also happens that Mr. Nijs is a descendent of someone-or-other Percy, Duke of Northumberland, and has spent a lot of time visiting English castles. But that's not nearly as interesting a relation as Sven, is it?

So after a dispiriting start, things could only get better. And boy did they, and how!!!

I'll try not to take too long to write-up further instalments.

Tot ziens!