This is the start-finish on the Grand' Place in Saint-Ghislain. Maxime Monfort won the race. You may never have heard of him, but he's not a nobody. He finished 28th of 156 riders who finished the Tour de France. He rides for Team Columbia, along with the American George Hincapie. If you're interested, you can see complete results here.
This is a couple of the elite men, complete with team cars and race official's cars, blowing through town. I think that's Sébastien Rosseler in the front. He finished second. Surprisingly, there were only 11 elite men. It is a small country. This day was for all categories, though, from beginners to pros, men and women. Even the young riders have a team car following them. But since they aren't allowed to use radios, a lot of the cars had loud speakers with which the coaches could give instructions. Most of the "instructions" consisted of "Go, go, go, go, go, go." Only in French or Flemish, of course.One of the junior rider's was on a tight budget, and the whole operation seemed to be a family affair. His spare bike was riding not on a roof rack, but on a trunk-mounted bike carrier, nylon straps and all. And his communication with the team car consisted of his little brother leaning out the window and screaming at him.
I love this scene. One of the riders parked his bike outside the bakery, and these guys are checking it out. Last minute carbo-loading, I guess. (Good bakery, too. According to our cheese man, the baker is originally from Alsace.)
No, these are not entrants in the father-son division. It's just a father and a son out for a ride on the 11-km course. An interesting feature of a small, big-time race like this is that, while they close the course to cars, pedestrians and cyclists can continue to use it. We saw these guys, joggers, race participants warming up or cooling down, and old ladies going to the store. On the elite course, they did ask cyclists to stay on the sidewalk.If your only idea of big-time bicycle racing is the Tour de France, this is very different. The entire Tour route is locked down, by cops, hours before the first rider comes through. In our race they let cars cross the course between riders. And the hordes you see standing on the mountain stages in the Tour? The entire crowd in downtown Hautrage consisted of the baker and her family (different baker), another extended family of about eight, a visiting colleague, and me.
3 comments:
Even before reading your explanation of the Father-son bikers, I had guessed they were not in the race since they ate not wearing helmets. (There must not be a bike helmet law in Belgium for non racers.)Interesting report.
Nope. In fact, the more bikerly the nation, the less likely people are to wear helmets. In the bikeriest land on the planet, The Netherlands, nobody--and i mean nobody--wears a helmet. Around here it's about 50-50 with exercise riders, but none of the little old ladies going to the store and none of the kids wear them. And outside the race, some of the guys warming up or cooling down were helmetless.
NAH-UH!! Ashland is the center of the universe. The sign leaving town says so. Plus, we were on the Today Show for it.
And what.
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