World Leaders in Cycling

Everyone knows that the Netherlands are the world leaders when it comes to bikes and everything cycling. But if you don’t know, or are still in denial about the last sentence, let me prove it in the next few weeks with the few freaks I have found. It will be an ongoing program of convincing, but I am sure at the end of the few stories, you will wholeheartedly agree as well.

Everyone knows the old saying that ‘there are more bikes in Amsterdam than there are people’, well they are probably right, but that’s a story for another day. In the meantime I will show you a couple of great inventions I have seen around the races, and a race of local invention. First up I will bring you a couple of local designs, only found here in Holland, but will be looked upon as possible favourites to copy in the future.

As a country that seems to prefer riding their bikes than driving, here is an invention that will make even the diehard car freaks look up and pay attention. Now I have seen many HPV’s (human powered vehicles) in my short time on this earth. Most of them are made by bike nerds, more interested in the aerodynamics, rather than the stability and ease of riding the machine. Most of them can’t turn a corner to save themselves, and most of the time you have to remove limbs before you can fit inside them. Plus the other reason I really don’t like them, is that they are a very close cousin to recumbents (my worst enemy when it comes to working on them), which feature almost at the bottom of the bicycle evolutionary scale (along with 20”BMX bikes).


The front on view, headlight and driver on mobile.

This thing came past my legs so fast and quiet, I hardly noticed it. If it was not for my alertness and intuition I would have missed it altogether. Lucky I had my camera on my belt as I had a couple of shots off before you could blink. Being three wheeled, gives this machine a bit of stability, where others have failed. This was still in prototype mode, but being directed towards the commuter market with it’s front and rear lights, easy operating rain cover, and comfortable cockpit. From the speed to which he accelerated away from us as he left, I was astounded. As he took the corner at about 25km without braking I was impressed. Up close it was well manufactured, with a very simple set of controls, which I managed to find on the net here. From the read of his website, sounds like he used to work for another company making the same models, he just shifted and gone on his own. I look forward to seeing more of these around, as they look pretty cool, and super fast on the road. I await for Armageddon before we see more of them on the road replacing cars, but otherwise a great start in the right direction.


From the rear, nice and smoth and very fast looking indeed.

Next up this crazy bike I saw hanging around the pits at a local crit. This crazy machine looked pretty spanky with it’s graphics and wheels, but as I was have a good look around, blamo, it hit me. Something that I have never seen before, and never thought I might ever see. See if you can spot it?


Close up of the bike and frame, notice anything a bit different about it?

Well give up, well just like me, it took me a minute or so looking before the rear seat stays (the frame stays that comes up from the rear wheel and attach to the seat tube just under your saddle) became very obvious. Where there would normally be carbon poking out of the frame, this time it’s a very nice, well prepared, piece of wood. Now before you start to get all funny, think about it, all those alloy frames with carbon rear stays are trying to achieve the same idea. The wood is there to absorb road trash, or the vibrations coming form the road surface. Wood is as good a product as carbon in this situation, not as light in some instances, but just as cool in this case. From the looks of things, GER is a Dutch bike company, but this frame is not featured on their website, but maybe when they update in the future you might see it. As for the future of this idea, I ‘m not so sure the general public would accept this, as they like all the bling about new frames. Convincing them wood is the way of the future is going to be a rather hard sell.


And a close up of it, doesn't it look nice.

I like it, looks pretty unique, and felt pretty reasonable as far as weight goes. As far as the spank factor goes, this rates pretty highly. Hope we see it more in the future, I am all for modern materials mixing with a bit or old school. Now all we need to see is the fusion of ‘Unobtainium’ with ‘Drillium’ and you are on the way to my perfect bike material.

And last but not least, a race to end all races. Starting in a few days from our neighbouring village, a 4000km road race. Working on the idea of the old Tour de France, a non-stop tour of massive proportions, raced throughout the night, day till it ends. I will endeavour to be at the start on the 30th and try to catch the finish a month or so later. This is just to see the freaks that have entered, and to see if anyone finishes at the end of it.

I was out on a training ride last year as I got passed by some dude on a TT bike, out in the middle of nowhere, it was a strange sight. He was moving pretty fast, and was covered in advertising, with a support car not too far behind. I didn’t think too much of it till I got home and remembered looking into it more. I then found out the finish was 4km from home, I looked into it a bit further, as it was the winning solo rider I had been passed by out on the road. After 4000km he was still moving pretty fast, I had to look into it more, as our sport is full of freaks and hard men, but this was the hardest I had heard of to date.

You can check the race out here, and watch what happens over the next month or so. Expected arrival is about the 8th sept, but don’t quote me on this.

Tour of Bira, video.

While awaiting a new bit of software for my video clips, I found this from the tour of bira, nothing special happening, but you might like it all the same. Stage 2. After stopping for a moment to water the trees, we move though the caravan. In no real hurry, it's not normally this relaxing. We were still in yellow, but the race was under halfway, no action as yet.



With the new software I should be able to have a lot more fun with the video that I have captured over the year. At the moment, the program I am currently using needs a couple of University degrees (or a child) to work it. I have not really had the time to master it, so I looking forward to messing with the new program which has been designed for dislexic, lefthanded, ADD sufferers like myself. Maybe I can give it the hour or so to master it this time, rather than throwing it in and going riding. I have been sitting on some good stuff, but looks shit unless its all spliced into a story. more on this later.

The new program will also enable easier photo downloads for people wanting to steal my images, sweet, and making it easier to upload them for me. This should be interesting as I was getting tired of waiting for updates with the old system

GP Gerri Knaterman

A few days off, cleaning and sorting out the bikes from the last week, time to get ready for the next race. The Giro de Italia is looming. The second biggest stage race of the year, and it’s serious. A few tubulars to glue, only about 25 this time around, a couple of bikes to build (TT), and the truck and other vehicles to organise and we would be on the road. We have just purchased a new van for the longer stage races and some of the smaller close to home races. Will be kind of nice, as it means that we can transport all of the riders, bike and equipment we need for the day in the van and one team car, instead of taking the truck to the start/finish towns. This will be great in some of the mountain top finishes, where even a small truck has great trouble negotiating the old narrow street. And it means the truck can stay parked up, and connected (power, water), and ready to work the moment we arrive home.

But before we leave for Italy, we have a small race in the north of Holland, and will head for sunny south Europe directly afterwards (at least 1120km south to Bordeaux for the night anyways). The GP Gerri Knaterman, a memorial race for a famous Dutch rider, in it’s second year now. Jean-Paul used to ride in the same team, and raced with and against him for years, so it is important for him be present himself and with the team in tow.


Mirjam getting the last bit of food into her before the run to the finish.

There was a full start line, as usual for Holland, with four laps of a very squirelly, and tight course, it was not going to be easy. We raced, and raced hard, for some of the gang it was their last preparation for the Giro in three days time. For me, I could not really concentrate as Italy and the Giro was on my mind. But I hang in there, but we had car number 24 in the caravan, and we could not see a single bit of the race. We did get to see the riders being dropped, not that that is any fun, but it was a start anyway. The race continued for another hour or so, then finally some action. After many attempts to breakaway from the bunch, we were successful with Mirjam. She has been in super form the last few weeks, and was just out to stretch the legs for the day, there was about 40km to go, so she would get a lot of stretching done today.


Almost there, with the bunch on two minutes, you can relax.

She raced hard, the bunch chased hard, but they were having trouble getting themselves organised. A few broke out and tried to make contact with Mir at the front, but to no avail, but they were caught by the bunch in no time at all. Mirjam was looking good out the front, lucky we could take the car from the back of the caravan, through the bunch to sit at the font of the race (when there is more than a minute between bunch and riders we get to move up to the break). She had her head down, was focused, and looking driven to win. It was a long road from recovery after her accident last year, so it was good to see her back in a good place again.


What a nice feeling having those arms back up in the air.

Well she managed to hold off the impending chasing bunch, it was a fantastic day for not only Mirjam, but JP (the husband and boss), the mechanic and the rest of the team, as she rolled over the finish to the roar of the crowd. You could read her body language as she was close to the line, we could all sense the joy and excitement on her face as she passed the line. The team was ecstatic with her being back on form, and to see her after her win, she couldn’t stop smiling. Almost a year of recovery, training, focusing, thinking etc paid off for her, congrats.

A quick pack up of the bikes and gear, and now the drive begins to the Giro, 1457 km to go, yeha.

Tour of Zeeland

I thought that I might use this week to get my blog up to date. Things have been busy enough not to sit down and spend time writing, sleep normally comes first, unfortunately. But, with a little bit of a break in the racing for a short while, I thought I might try and remember what has happened in the last month or so. So much to report that I can hardly remember some of the races, so small, precise and not too detailed reports, will be the order of the day, until I catch up.

The Tour of Zeeland (Ster Zeeuwsche Eilanden)was in a very beautiful part of Holland, nice and close to home for a change. We were running a small team of Dutch riders for this race, as most of the younger riders were using this race as preparation for the upcoming European Champs (Under 23yr for Women). So we had our small, but very serious team for the week, Mirjam, Iris, Loes G & M. There was a huge start list with quite a few of the trade teams present, as well as a hoard of local club teams, about 170 on the start list, I think I remember. Most of the teams had a full complement of 8 riders, we were doing it tough with 5.


Rudd working hard as usual.

The race was only three stages, with a prologue TT 7.5 km, and two long 140km road stages, short and sweet for the riders, and even better for the mechanic, that’s me. But of course we had to start with the prologue ITT, my favourite part (a bit of sarcasm there) of any stage race. The course was pretty standard for this part of town. A few corners, ten or so, plenty of bricked roads, cobbles and a couple of roundabouts, perfect, a shit course which should suit our girls fine. I get to arrive about three hours before the team to set up for the day, not really trying to think about the prep the night and morning before. I also get to deal with the carpark Nazi’s first hand, as they decide where to put me and how much space they are going to let us have for the day. I call them Nazi’s for the normal reasons, give them a little bit of officialdom and the power goes to their heads. Hey, we know what we are doing, we do it almost every day, and the teams we work with all over the world, so we tend to look after each other. All the mechanics turn up early, to get a good spot, find space for the cars and other vehicles we have with us, setup the bikes, trainers, tents etc, etc. We are pretty good at making space for other teams (the ones we like), helping them park and setting the bigger stuff up together. We have got to work well together, as we are often crammed into hotel car parks all over Europe, borrowing power and water off the trucks that are hooked up, and general emotional support (more like giving them shit) for each other. So there is no real problem with teams not finding space.

Finding the perfect spot is and art form, we have to read the weather, sun, wind etc, to protect the girls and setup for the day. Close to toilets, this is important for the girls for the long day. Places for the following team cars, to get in and out of a cramped start area. Not to close to the speakers, as there will be untold noise from them all day. We also try to keep away from the odd team, some of them are constantly bothering the staff and riders, they may have nothing to do, and take it not so seriously, we are there to race. So getting back to my little friend in the carpark, which was so big you could of fit another 10 teams that were not on the list, other than the twenty they were expecting for the day. So I picked my spot (and it was a good one), parked, then preceded to setup. Once my stairs are down, and a bit of stuff is out, we don’t move, otherwise they will shift you many times, because they can. So with in a few minutes, my little carpark Nazi decided that he wanted me somewhere else on the other side of the carpark, no reason, just that he thought we would take up to many spots where I was (Duh, same space wherever we go). Things continued to get worse, with not only me, as he would disappear every time more teams arrived. I found out later he was shifting and messing with teams all morning.


Just love the countryside here in Zeeland

It was quite comical for me, I would put a tent up, position it where I needed it, then he would come over and start shifting it himself, he would leave, I would put it back. The cool thing was, that his English was as bad as my Dutch, so we couldn’t really communicate well enough to get the compromise I was looking for. It seems he was spending all his time at my spot he liked it so much, maybe he thought he might win the battle. Every time he thought of getting some help, he brought over one of the race officials, (which I know pretty well from other races), they told him to leave me alone, but he wasn’t listening. An hour later, he was still on my case, trying to take my tents down, shifting things into one small park space, I thought he would have given up by now. Now I got serious, I found the race organiser (I knew him well) told him the story, he called the guy over, who by now was livid, and got him to show us both the space I could use. This is the funny bit, as the carpark was really empty, most of the teams were present, all he wanted was me to move the tents about half a meter backwards, I refused, but gave him the only option, I can move it 20cm only. He thought about it for a minute, said it was fine, and left, thanks, you dickhead.

The camp was finally safe to finish setting up, the team was due soon, so I got my shit together. In quick time, bikes were ready, tents were sweet, chairs, trainer etc were all ready when the team arrived, and they missed out on all the fun. Prologues are not so demanding as other TT’s, as the order of the riders is set out in such a way that the timing is even between the riders. With 20 teams, and one minute between riders, I am sure you can work that out, but just in case, it’s a 20 min gap, for a 7.5km race, sweet. I got some time in between to play with, but not too much. Just as the first rider was off the start line, the rain came down, and pretty hard for a while, long enough to wet the roads to the point of danger, damn it, it was going to be a long day. I got the first couple of riders out the way, no problems, but then there was a major, Iris was out for a pre-ride of the course in the rain, and managed to flip the bike and herself. Upon a quick assessment of her bike (her injuries were not so bad, a few scrapes and holes), I found the TT bar broken in a really important place. A quick start would probably break it right off, so panic stations, I had ten minutes to set our spare we had organised for Mirjam to fit Iris. I worked like hell, including getting another rider to the start, but just scraped in, seat and position was fine, a stem change, a bit of magic and she was under way. We got a second place with Mirjam, just 3 seconds to Vos(DSB Bank) (World, European and Cross champion), who was now the leader.

Love the shadows here late in the afternoon.

The next two stages were full of the usual dramas, plenty of attacks, plenty of chasing and plenty of fights, as Vos struggled to keep her lead. We tried everything we could, but nothing really happened until the last couple of hours of the race. We had a good break with two of us in it, plus a few others, the leader Vos was nowhere to be seen. We took off, and managed to get about a 6min lead, enough for Mirjam to become virtual leader, DSB chased like hell, with all their eight riders working hard. They couldn’t close the gap, and the end was getting closer by the minute. Then we see the classic move from the team car, cruising the caravan to see if he can buy a team to help with the chase. Believe it or not, it happens a lot, it’s the side of the sport that sucks for teams like us. We are strong, we made the move, escaped and held on to the lead, the race would be ours if DSB don’t get some help soon. They moved down the line to the last car in the caravan, it was the only team that wanted to help, here is where it gets real dirty, when cash is waved in front of the team and the riders, things change pretty quickly. Vrienden van het Platteland (VVP, or friends of the flat land) made the move to the front, DSB were paying them cash, so time for them to work chasing.


Mirjam still getting lots of attention from the press.

It took about an hour to chase the break down, even with the new help they were struggling to control the race. By now the whole race has seen what happened, and with the miracle of radios the whole peloton was aware of the buy (sometimes as much as a few thousand Euros, and as little as a few hundred) of VVP by DSB. We then sent in our two problem solvers Iris and Loes M, brought up in the Dutch crits that so many pros fear, the girls got to work trying to hinder the chase. Not much you can do here, except try and mess the front of the chasing group up a little. This is not really sporting, but neither is buying riders, so they kind of cancelled eachother out. They tried their best, and what we could see from the car, they were doing a great job, I wouldn’t mess with them at this stage. Then we saw a swipe from one of the girls at Iris, then another hit, she fended her off, but this was seen by the jury following close behind (they do work sometimes). Penalty for both girls, the chase continued, the break was caught, so we sent out Loes G for an attack, as we knew that DSB was finished. She got up to 2 mins away, when almost an hour later they caught up with her. Another attack from Mirjam, with 10km to go, this was looking good, but now Vos chased herself, piping Mir at the finish, to take the stage win and the stage race. Oh, one of those ‘what if’ moments as we settled on 2nd place, but we would keep the favour and return it as soon as we needed to our friends from the flatland.


The last break of the race, Loes G and Susanne DeGoode try to escape the bunch, the birds were startled, not the peloton.

My car park Nazi was quite friendly for the other stages, he managed to force a smile everyday when we arrived. I did my best to take as much space as I could both starts, spreading out everything as much as I could. He was busy with other teams, think I got the better of him in the end, next year I just run him over with the truck, problem solved.

Got a couple of photo albums for you to look at, both here and here on my Flicker.

Finally some answers.

Bjarne Riis confessing up to a bad past (Team Easy On, is a Danish sitcom about a young team of very loose club racing team).

Tour of Bira, spain

The Tour of Bira, or more likely should be called the Tour of Spain, but they like to feel special here. Just over the border of France, into the Basque region of the Pyrenees mountains, with some of the best looking climbs that I have seen for a while, and don’t forget the food, ummm. But we had a few races to contend with so the tourist part of me had to subside for a while and the mechanic had to surface for the week. At least the weather was looking good, and with temperatures due for the week in the 30-40’c range, with no rain, I think we were winning already. We had the same hotel as last years, so the hotel we knew, the food we knew well, and the coffee was fantastic as usual. It always makes for a good start to the weeks racing, when things are much like you remember from the season before, that’s assuming that things were good.


The last 300m of the TTT, prologue.

We had a strong but small team for the week, Susanne L, Loes G, Luise, Susanne VV, and Mirjam, looking and feeling fit. Fist of all we had the race a day before the tour starts, this I still think is rather a strange thing. First it starts and finishes in the same town as the rest of the tour starts around, it’s the same organisers, same staff, and uses some of the same roads and climbs as the tour. But we race it anyway, and the cool thing is we pass the little hotel we stay in at the top of the last climb of the day. The hotel (more like a huge house on a hill, with a wickedly nice and busy restaurant, and a bar and a few rooms, more like half of the house for the team, and the other half for the family who run it) staff all wait out on the road to see us pass, in all their Flexpoint caps and stuff, must really piss off some of our competition. But first up a one day race, directly preceding the tour, a race just called Durango Durango, Susanne won this last year, so we were defending champs. But it is so long ago, I can’t even begin to think about who won, but it was not us, I know that for sure. Still we have the tour of Bira starting the next day, so plenty of time to make up.


The nice lush countryside, gives a good contrast with the riders.

The cool thing was, (not for the mechanics) there was the prologue, which was an up hill Team TT, for 3.km, just enough to gain some good time on the race. The hill we climb up is also the last 5km on the final stage, so good time to look around at that as well. No TT bikes were being used this time around, and our job was to make the bikes as light as we could. All the small carbon wheels came out, cages off, computers and SRM cranks off. The bikes were looking sweet, now to the start, we were drawn about middle of the teams, so were not paying attention to the teams starting in front, just the climb ahead. The climb was pretty nasty for the first km, with almost 15% gradient in places, then a little bit flatter in the middle to about 10% average, the team looked like they were standing still at this point. We had spent Suzanne VV, and Luise by the halfway point, but the three left were flying, Luise was still hanging off the back. They raced like idiots, with Susanne L pulling the last km to the finish. It was a long time in the car, it seemed like ages to get to the halfway point. I sorted the bikes and the girls out with some fluids, and JP and Klas went for the finish line to take some times. At this stage it looked like we had the fastest time, but there was a few good teams to come behind us. We waited for a while, then the boys came back with big smiles on their faces, we had won, and were leading the race by about 18 seconds, sweet. Susanne was in yellow, and we held the first four places, and four jerseys, sweet.


Alright, who we waiting on this time?

The next few days were as you can expect, full of attacks and action like we had not seen before. But it was early on in the race, and the race was not sewn up yet, anyone could win. With two days to go, we started a pretty mean TT, this was one of those fantastic double stages days. With a TT in the morning, so early that you have to work through the night to get things ready for racing two races. No time in the morning except to throw a bit of food down and race to the start to find the campsite for the day. We would be staying for the day, and starting the evening stage about 8pm the same say. Some teams opt for a drive back to the hotel, but this take up about 2.5 hours, half of what you have. We normally camp out for the day. Plenty of shelter, liquid and tables full of food, almost makes up for the 20 hour day, with 5 riders all leaving in the last 15 mins of the TT. But we got all the team away, the course was pretty sweet, in back country streets, full of vineyards and orchards, some nice little demanding hills, and some pretty technical sections. I was on bike duty as usual all day, making sure each girl gets to the start on time, with a perfect bike, a car ready to escort her around, with spare wheels etc. I did get a ride for the last out for the day, Susanne, she rode well, not her best but still I think she got a third, loosing no time on her other GC contenders, sweet. Now for a few hours relaxing, some coffee and a few photos, what a great way to spend the day. But one more race to go, thank god it’s only 80km, but then another late night for the last start in Bilbao, an early one at that.


Theres a light at the end of that tunnel.

Everyone raced well, there was some great tactics, and some shit ones as usual being thrown at us during the race, but we fought well, reading every danger well. The last stage was going to be the decider. With three cat 2 climbs and a cat 1, this was going to be good for the climbers, and good for Susanne. We raced well, and chased down most of the attacks, the team was getting pretty tired by now, so were most of the attackers, things settled down for the most of the race. Near the end of the stage, the rain came down, turning the descents in to dangerous slides on every corner. There was a small break away, Susanne was in it, lucky, but a few still got away on the last 9km downhill. But a crash soon put a stop to a couple of the break riders, the rest relaxed. We came in about 4th, but still holding the Yellow Jersey, all week long. Winning the teams classification was nice as well, and if there was a prize for the cleanest bikes, we would have won that as well.


Hanging out before the start of the last stage, Bilbao center.

Now a nice home cooked meal at the hotel we are staying at, then a small 1400km drive home for the night. The girls were not too happy either, having to catch a taxi at 5am to make the airport in time for their flights home. But the meal was fantastic, the biggest and nicest tasting Paella I have even seen and tasted. But then they brought out some very nice roast lamb, so nice tender, I can still taste it now. But I felt a little guilty when they told me it was a lamb leg, as from what I could work out from the size of the delicious leg getting smaller on my plate. Also the bone was small, like I have never seen before, coming form the country that made roast lamb a national pastime. The bone (that had some of the nicest meat I have ever tasted around it) was no bigger than half a pencil. I would hate to think how small and cute that delicious lamb was, so what’s for desert.


The last days beautiful run down the coast.

All the photos are loaded for your viewing pleasure, you can find them in two places now. And still the best option if your internet is fast enough is the slideshows, almost like a moving story board. If you are interested in any of the photos for your own use, go ahead, borrow them. The Flicker photo pages gives you the option of a small or full size download, have a look around, most of my pics will be stored here in the future.

So here is the first gallery, and the second one.
Then we got the Flicker accounts here, for a one, two, three,go.




The final podium for the week. Plenty of Flexpoint riders here.