Cycling – Ronde van Vlaanderen

Cycling will be the basis for me to work on my fitness and make it possible to sport for over 12 hours on one day. With la Marmotte, les Trois Ballons, the Alpenbrevet, the Arlberg Giro, the Claude de  Criquielion, Amstel Gold race and Limburgs Mooiste, I have already a bit of a track record in long distance cycling (tour/cyclo sportive). This year, my cycling goals are riding ‘gold’  on les Trois Ballons (after achieving the silver diploma two years ago); compete in local training races and ride the Ronde van Vlaanderen.

Ronde van Vlaanderen

That event took place last weekend and it is known for the cobble stones on short but steep climbs. This blog will spent a bit on my adventure of last weekend. The “Ronde” starts in Belgium’s Brugge and finishes in Oudenaarde, distance: 239km officially. The first 100km is flat and boring. The weather forecast was ok, with a bit of rain predicted before the start, which was between 07.00-08.00. In turned out to be full raining until around 11.00, with 4 degrees and wet it was very very cold. I did not anticipate on this possibility so my choices in clothing weren’t suitable for this.

Very dirty bike after the race

From the start I was aiming to ride within groups to safe my own energy as much as possible while maintaining a reasonable speed. The course was not that exiting, although hazardous in the rain and with the typical Belgian style roads. i.e.: Cycle stroke at the side can move half a meter to the left or right out of nothing, or even worse, differs around 5 cm in height with the main road. Have seen multiple riders go down on these sudden changes. The route through villages caused delays at traffic lights and therefore large groups are created.

After the first refreshment (60km) I decided to ride more on my own, mainly to increase intensity in order to increase my body temperature a bit. The first part I did with an average heart rate of 128 beats per minute, which is quite low. The higher intensity resulted in about the same speed but less stress and a little more warmth. The route continued into the cobble stone strokes, and hills and I could keep my effort on a good level.

The only hill that I could not do on my bike was the Koppenberg. This 22% steep cobble hill was still wet and dirty, therefore slippery without enough traction on the back wheel. From all people around me, I’ve only seen 1 guy reaching the top on his bike. After this disappointment for me, I had a little dip in my moral and also got over careful on the following cobble streets. But after 15km or so, the strength and confidence came back step by step and I kept that up until the finish. What really helped in this stage was that I kept on passing other cyclists all the time. Not that I was the fastest, there were some people passing me as well, but it boosts you when you feel strong and passing others after 200+ km.

Close look at the dirt...

At the end of the day the figures showed 262km (the extra km’s is for getting numbers, go to the start etc.), with an average speed of 27.36 km/hour, and average heart rate of 137 beats per minute. The total height climbed this day was close to 2.000m. Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/279248479

Pictures and movies (look for number 3777) http://www.sport.be/rondevanvlaanderen/2015/nl/mypage/?bibnumber=3777&mailing=true

Tour or Cyclo

Tour (Toer/toertocht) usually has a time window in which you are allowed to start, like with the Ronde van Vlaanderen. Time is measured sometimes but not always, and a ranking is not made afterwards. So no need to make it a race at any time. Examples of this are the Amstel Gold race, Limburgs Mooiste, Veendendaal Veenendaal, and thus also the Ronde van Vlaanderen.

 A so called “cyclo”, or “cyclo-sportive” is more like a race. All participants start at the same time (or might start in 2 to 4 starting groups). In front of the pack it is really a race, people want to win and speed is very high. More in the back, people might ride a cyclo in the same way as they do with a tour, but most often there are certain time challenges to retrieve a Bronze, Silver of Gold brevet. Most often, cyclo’s are organized on a challenging parkour (hilly/mountainous) and speed and intensity are high. Examples of this are La Marmotte, Les Trois Ballons and Claude de Criquielion.

Evening before Ronde van Vlaanderen - "Biertje op de goede afloop"

Training figures since last post (2015-03-25):

2 swimming trainings, approximately 4kms in total.

1 running training and 1 running race (paasloop Pijnacker), 21km in total.

9 cycling rides, 871km in total.

1 “Inspanningstest” to determine my fitness, power, and heart rate training zones. More on this in another post.

Training goals coming weeks:

With holidays coming up (23^rd April till 5^th of May), I will take it a little bit more easy on training. Probably 3 runs, and 2 swims, and cycling outings when possible. First training race on the bike still need to be done and a training run (“Trimloop”) at AV40 is planned to be the first 10k nonstop run in my preparations.