 The fairy tale of hanging out in Spain wondering why I brought that thermal jacket and Goretex coat on this trip had to come to an end sometime. That time came as soon as we arrived in Belgium. It''s always good when you wake up the first morning to steady rain and don't have to wonder if the weather is going to hold or not, it's clearly not. That's fine with us though. We figure anytime we get to use the Michelin "green meanies" (old skool 1.7" wildgrippers all Stan's'd up.) it's cause for celebration. Even if celebrating means licking our wounds at the local Frites stand with the Canadians, talking about skiing and Luke Pennington, of all things...
Now that I used the words "rain" and "green meanies" to let the cat out of the bag on the weekends conditions, I'll elaborate a bit... Do you like running (walking fast?) with your bike? If so, you too can come to the Spa-Francorchamps Grand Prix Circuit in the Ardennes of eastern Belgium and do a lap of the World Cup Circuit, which is now open to the public for their enjoyment(?). A typical day of pretending you were a world cup superstar (or average guy) would go something like this:
Line yourself and your trusty steed (hopefully shod with said super mud tires and coated with cooking oil) up on the start line of the F1 track, pointing downhill into turn one. Imagine 250 crazed riders surrounding you and fans stacked a few deep along the track as far as you could see. The gun goes off and you've got over a kilometer of paved racetrack, 200m downhill, 200m steep uphill, then a really long time on a dragging 3% uphill, to maintain your position. Somehow you maintain, going into the woods around 30 or so, wondering how your teammate fared (turns out my teammate Carl went into the woods in the solid triple digits). You charge down some muddy grass and into the woods, only accidentally running over and (probably) slightly maiming one of your fellow bikers. Slippery offcamber muddy rooty proper woods riding (kind of exactly like Bangor, Maine) for a K or so leads you back toward the starting paddock and the four minutes of twisty up and down pavement transition gives the only respite of the next half hour lap. You might want to eat a Gel or drink a bit to get ready for what's up next. Suddenly (not really, but there sure would be alot of puckered euros standing there) the course drops off the tarmac into the deep, dark Ardennes forest. High speed root doding for a few will trick you into thinking this will be fun. Oh no. Turn Left and start trying to stay on your bike, picture yourself doing a standup job of acutally riding your bike up the ridiculously steep, rooty and muddy climbs while a bunch of random swiss guys run twice as fast as you're riding. Now back down, thinking this might be fun. Now back up, this time you're going to ride faster than those running. Oops, some guy is working on his bike in the only ridable line. Off and running yourself... Now, some sections you could piece together if your heartrate was less than 1 bazillion, off and running again. Finally, you're back on the bike and traversing, really covering some ground. Up to the top of what has to be a sweet descent, serious elevation. Somehow the course finds some really ledgy rocky mud to head straight down the fall line through. Maybe you too will be lucky enough to come barrelling down on the ragged edge only to have a yellow flag waved in your face, noting the presence of a German guy on a backboard after what must have been a horrific crash. Take the alternate line past and try to make the next climb. Nope. Off and running. Try to remount your trusty steed for the last pitch. Sweet, you made it, bonus log drop for you. Up onto the F1 track for a few hundred meters and back into the woods where you turned in off the starting straight. Whew, only four more times around and you too could be Julien Absalon, laying it down proper for his second win in as many weekends.
Or you could be me, riding around at below average pace, somehow holding down a position in the 30's most of the time, depending on if I was getting passed running or passing guys descending, while laughing. Ending up 35th.
Or, for a more diverse experience, you could be Carl, flatting just after settling into race mode, running about 2k without really passing or being passed, because everyone was running regardless, then passing a ton of guys to finish solid double digits, in 94th.
Thanks for reading, hope ya'll enjoyed the virtual tour. This week in Scotland we're totally going to be in shape. And I hear it's snowing there so the racing should be real nice for guys like us. Cheers, Adam and Carl's Virtual bike racin tours. Oh yeah, we're thinking about offering virtual tours of us buying four laps of the Nordschleiffe curcuit at the internationally renowned Nurburgring and then cruising (at the limit?) said four laps of the 21 kilometer road race course in our trusty rental minivan. Giving fits to some very stern looking BMW and Audi drivers in the process. Not sure if it's a good idea though, as there was alot of schoolgirl like giggling going on in between the passenger squirming as percieved braking points passed for us to give any type of tour that wouldn't be extremely incriminating for our employer and rental provider... Might be the best monday ever. |
