Although I was dubious about the prospect of driving 300 km each way to watch the spectacle with Jim and his fellow cycling obsessed friend, Ben, I was glad to have witnessed one of the cornerstones of Belgian culture. In Belgium, cycling is the only sport that counts. I would compare it to America’s obsession with football. I found it really interesting to see a bunch of smoking, beer guzzling fans who look like they might never have ridden a bike in their lives, get so excited for a bike race. In the U.S., bike races are generally watched only by other cyclists. Since cyclists generally are white men from upper-middle class backgrounds, the crowd is pretty homogeneous. In Belgium though, cycling is really a blue collar sport. The spectators looked more like a European version of NASCAR fans.
Ton Boonen is a Belgian cyclist and has rock star status in his homeland. Belgians affectionately call him Tommeke so Jim and Ben began a relentless campaign of adding eke to everyone’s names. I had to hear them call each other Jimeke and Beneke nonstop for two days.
For those of you not married to a cycling fanatic who revels in his knowledge of obscure cycling trivia (aside from the occasional Team Discovery blunder), professional cycling has a series of races in the spring called the “Classics”. The Classics take place in March and April in Belgium, France and the Netherlands. These races are one day races in extremely difficult conditions. The weather is usually cold, gray and rainy which makes the cobblestones incredibly slippery and dangerous. Thankfully, the weather cooperated or I would probably have spent the day in a café rather than watching the race.
We left early in the morning for the race so that we would be able to stake out a good spot on the climb. As we passed through sleepy Belgian towns, approaching Flanders, older people came out of their houses to watch the traffic going by. I’m guessing not a lot happens in some of these towns so a traffic jam counts as a special event.
Once we secured our rock star but illegal parking and calmed Jim’s fears of getting towed, we walked the course to get a sense of what the riders would endure and to scout out a spot from which to watch the race.
We decided to camp out in front of a huge screen T.V. so we could watch the finish of the race and also know when the riders were approaching. Since the riders were by in a flash, I’m glad to have been able to watch the race on the big screen or it would have been a bit anti-climactic to have driven 4 ½ hours for a couple of minutes of a bike race.
I couldn’t help but be swept up by the excitement of the race by the thousands of cheering fans around me. Unfortunately, I was rooting for Tom Boonen (completely based on his looks rather than any cycling statistics or ability) along with the rest of the Belgians around us, but it was his teammate, Stein, who actually won the race.
I’ve added a video down below so that you can get a sense of the excitement of the event. However, you may not be able to hear much else besides Ben screaming like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert. I was worried he was going to pass out with excitement, and I didn’t have any smelling salts on me.
Not to be outdone by some professional cyclists, a testosterone fueled Jim who I think may be doped to the gills (another expression I heard all day), had to make sure to drive home at high speeds on the autobahn.
It was a successful day, but I don’t see myself traipsing around Europe to watch bike races; no matter how cute their little butts are.
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