Vandaag in de Vikingtour een lesje in nederigheid gekregen. Bruco: DNFⁱ. Voor het koersen op z'n Hollands ben ik duidelijk nog niet klaar...

Direct bij de start (officieel was die geneutraliseerd...) aan den lijve ondervonden wat het betekent als 100 man voorin willen zitten. Wringen, valpartijtjes en bermguerilla. En toen de koers eenmaal werd vrijgegeven (wat mij betreft waren we al los) amechtig afgezien om ook maar iets van contact met het peloton te onderhouden.

Dat hield ik (en met mij vele, vele anderen) niet lang... Met drie mede-slachtoffers nog ettelijke kilometers achter de meute aangejaagd, maar we kregen het gaatje niet dicht. Ik geloof dat ik de enige was die er ook ècht voor ging (wat kunnen wij Nederlanders toch praten, tijdens de koers).

Uiteindelijk kwam er een aardige 'B-groep' van circa 25 geloste renners tot stand (velen waren toen al afgestapt), waarin best goed werd rondgedraaid en redelijk bekwaam gewaaierd (best wat van geleerd). Die groep deed 't best aardig. Maar ik voelde aan m'n water (voorzover dat nog niet verdampt was) dat we terrein en kostbare secondes aan het verliezen waren.

Na een km of 50 doemde 'ie op, de bezemwagen. Race over.

Ervaring rijker. 'Illusie armer.' We konden wel een flink stuk Parijs-Roubaix meepakken (de lokale kroeg zette er zelfs AZ-Vitesse voor uit).

En e.e.a. was perfect georganiseerd. Wegafzettingen, motards, dat soort werk. Toch wel een belevenis, zo'n eerste èchte koers...

Broomwagon Blues

For Bruco today's Doeland Viking Tour was a lesson in humility.

It was not about the parcourse, which was extremely nice (indeed, almost 'Flemish', as advertised). It was not about the weather, which was splendid. And it was not about the mindset, which was ready for some serious deep-digging.

No, my friends. It was the Opposition that killed us. Big style.

Dutch racing is notorious for guerilla-like starts (a bit like cyclocross; only with more people and a harder cushion to land on). So I was happy that the 100 or so riders were meticulously lined up for the start (everything was perfectly organised today) and that were told that we were going 'neutralised' for the first couple of km's.

Neutralised? My arse. All around us (we were pretty far to the back), it was swerving, elbowing, and even crashing that set the tone. Almost everybody was keen on moving up as many ranks as possible, while the director's car was still controlling the pace.

Once the race was really on (I was by then happy to have both rubbers down and my stomach contents still in me), enter the Hammerfest. I've never experienced something like this. The peloton was flying (well over 50 km/h), and I was sprinting just to keep something of a contact to the rear. Il Boiaⁱ was a couple of wheels ahead of me, but hardly any more comfortable, as I could tell.

Whatever the guys up front were thinking, their plan was working: the peloton was rapidly thinning out. Soon, Il Boia and I found ourselves in a grupetto of four in idle pursuit of the bunch. Given that it was not really riding away from us, I tried to re-establish contact. That was ambitious... And with only more and more folks throwing the towel, it proved to be beyond us.

Stuff it. One by one, we collected the spit-outs (that is, those who didn't quit altogether) and formed a second (third? I don't know) peloton. Cooperation was fairly good, each doing short, hard pulls up front (Bruco meanwhile taking an echelon class; experience will come in handy later on).

The body adjusted to the pace (which wasn't too bad, actually) and the spirit sort of accommodated to the 'outrankment'. Hammer, hammer, and if too slow, hammer some more. By itself, riding hard over 100 km (which was today's assignment), shouldn't be too much of a problem.

But instinctively I felt that we were losing valuable seconds. The Viking Tour regulations say that you are out of contention, once the gap between you and the leaders is four minutes. This is an eternity, even an impossibility, to bridge (unless you have the legs, but then you wouldn't be in this situation); but by no means--not even by 'pro' standards'--an 'out of contestation' margin.

And there it was, somewhere at the 50 km mark, halfway the race: the dreaded broomwagon. It slowly passed us by, the co-driver jotting down our numbers and eventually passing the verdict: race over.

So we finished our lap (riding the entire 'race', if only to see more of the nice route, was not really an option), and found ourselves a café in order to enjoy the remainder of Paris-Roubaix.

Nice race. Paris-Roubaix, that is (helmets off for O'Grady!). And this Viking Tour? Well, that was a double Vinger DNF, but by no means the end of us 'overreaching'. Who knows, one day, one race...