Ronde van Belgie

Tornado Tom

With a weekend off from racing Sammy, Nathalie and I loaded up the Opel and spent a day following stage 4 of the Tour of Belgium on Saturday. After the ITT the gc was pretty much decided, but stage 4 was to be a tough stage with several incredible climbs as the race made its way from Herzele (close to home) to the Ardennes.
Our first stop was the stage start in Herzele to take the opportunity to get close to the riders and say hi to some of my friends. As we cruised the team area both Sammy and Nathalie were surprised at the number of pros who recognized me and said hi, I think I just got lucky with de Neef, Penne and Roesems rolling by within five minutes of each other, but they know me and I do train with them so it was genuine. As we were chillin the masses on the start we spotted the usual crowd favourites including Boonen and Nuyens. Just as Nuyens was about to roll to the start he took of his riding cap and tossed it into the crowd. I was pleasantly surprised to watch it just get missed by grabbing hands and land right at my feet for me to grab. I am now the owner of an official Cofidis cycling cap.
Our second stop was a climb along the route that I raced up last year and will be racing up again in a couple of weeks in the Bertem Interclub. It was a steep pitch, but not long enough to really break up the group although we did witness some riders who seemed to be in great difficulty.
We then hopped back onto the motorway in the direction of Liege and made our way into the incredibly beautiful French speaking region that marks the beginning of the Ardennes. I really like this area not only for its incredible natural beauty, but also for the feel of its towns and cities. The region is incredibly lush and fertile, and with its numerous rivers and topographical outcrops it is a cyclists dream. Our last destination to few the race was the Muur van Huy, in the town of Huy. This monster of a climb is not that long, but the gradient that it presents to the riders makes it the ultimate test of strength. In this case it was placed late in a nearly 200km stage ensuring that it could serve the purpose of breaking up the race or deciding the fate of a long breakaway. In other races such as the Fleche Wallone it is the final battle to decide the champion of one of the world's hardest one day events. The Muur was alive with anticipation of the riders and as the sound of the television chopper approached I made some final adjustments to my trusty Canon and got ready to witness the carnage. In the linked Flickr photoset from the day you can surely appreciate the agony on some of the rider's faces.
After the action on the Muur we made a rapid exit in an attempt to view the finale on television back at home. Unfortunately Sammy's navigation system did estimate our arrival time correctly and we didn't get to see the young rider from Rabobank take one of his most beautiful victories to date. It was an incredible day, following a big race like this one by car is a great experience. next up we will be checking out the start of the Tour de France.

Ronde van Belgie Photoset