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Team Bikeman -
Race Reports
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Written by Mike Hoover
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Tuesday, 19 December 2006 |
Cyclo-Cross World Cup #7
Igorre, Spain,
December 3, 2006
 | | Yup, that is him (and me!). |
This may be a bit dated, but I’d like to think the value of my story is not about the results of the day, but more about the experience itself. I had the opportunity to spend a bit of time in southwest France, and while I was there, I decided to head over to Igorre, Spain, to check out the CX World Cup. Having had some good and some bad experiences with my CX season this fall, I was excited to get to see how the world’s best perform.
The experience was great. When I got to the venue, there were a couple of riders milling about just inside the entrance area. One had the distinctive Belguim championship jesrsey on, so I thought I’d be nice to get a picture with that rider. Trust me, this photo is not touched up in any way!! My first benefit, how often do you get to saunter up to a world champ and ask for a photo?
Next it was on to the pits to check out the different bikes before the racing began. All the bikes were completely accessible, no fences anywhere. What was most interesting was to see that each of the Fidea riders, as well as Sven, had their own mobile home. This must come in handy when you get 10k folks at an event; there were probably only 3k folks at this venue. The other item of interest was the Rabobank mechanical van. This van had a minimum of 50 wheels pulled out and ready for use. All were tubulars, all were Dugasts. Also, while I was checking out the pits, I thought it was pretty cool when a real world champions jersey rolls by you.
 | | click to enlarge |
Finally, on to the race. It was very well run, but looking back, the event was no bigger than Gloucester. The only differences I could tell was that they had a nice set of finish line seats set up, and they had an amazing wash system set up for the pits. There was no lack of water pressure or stations to clean bikes at the pits. I watched the race from a high point on the course. Here’s a shot from where I was standing. The riders rode up to where the shot is taken from, and the course twisted back down the hill. The course went right up the driveway of the house in the left center of the photo!
 | | click to enlarge |
The start went off right as scheduled, and the pace was high. A Fidea rider went off the front, Nys chased with Wellens on his wheel, went past Wellens’ teammate, then dropped Wellens himself, and solo’d to the victory. Impressive performance, its incredible what the right drugs can do for you. Vervecken looked pedestrian, later read he was sick. Wellens looked pretty good as did Mourey.
 | | click to enlarge |
The track itself was on the verge of going from sloppy to tacky. I was impressed with the way that Nys carefully chose his lines in the corners. Overall it was well worth the journey. Here’s a few shots of the action.
Mike
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