Off to the races!

It's official! I am going to be heading to Belgium once again to ride with the big guns. If you have been following the blog the last while you know already. I have been reluctant to announce it without the plane tickets in my hand, but now it looks like just a couple of small details regarding exact flight dates and times needs to be sorted out and then I am good to go. I should be out of here by the 18th of April and returning on the 15th-19th of June in time to take a bit of a break before lighting it up in Quebec City for nationals. After that I will do BC Superweek and any other races I can get my hands on.
I will be riding for the High 5/RDS Bikes squad based in Liedekerke, Belgium. The team is managed by Tino Teirlinck and directed by the great Willy Tierlinck. Our sponsors include High 5 Sports Nutrition (world's best tasting sports nutrition!!), Spiuk (clothing, helmets, glasses), Mendiz Bicycles (Spanish beauties), RDS Bikes (shop) and Rotor System (cranks, chainrings). The team has been doing well so far this year with at least one win that I know of and some other podium appearances.
This team is an amateur squad which means they compete in everything from the local VWF series races, to pro kermesses and interclubs. My racing time will include about three interclubs, mostly amateur kermesses and if I am feeling especially inclined to ride myself into the ground, pro kermesses. For most of you these names mean next to nothing so I will start my coverage of Belgium o6 with a little tutorial that is essential to understanding the posts that will follow once I arrive in cycling's heartland.
Amateur Kermesse
This is the classic kermesse that Belgium is so famous for. Kermesse is actually the Flemish word for "carnival". In the old days when the carnival came to town there would be a bicycle race as part of the entertainment, the name stuck and now kermesse for most English speakers is the name for the type of racing I am about to describe.
Kermesses are scheduled daily in Flanders, during a typical week I could race daily if I wanted to and be able to ride no more than 30 km to most of the starts. These races are not open to professionals and depending on the course and the prize money the fields range from about 60 - 200 in size. The courses are well known in terms of their difficulty and prize money is published in the papers in the race ads so riders pick and choose their battles based on what type of course they like. If the prize money is low it won't attract the best riders so if you are looking for a result these are often a good bet. On the other hand if you want a large, strong field go to the big money events. Although true pros (pro in Belgium means you get paid a salary to ride your bike, unlike so many Canadian "pro" teams like Ital and JetFuel etc.) don't race these the level of racing is still very high with many foreign riders and Continental level full time riders.
These races are typically between 125-140km in length with several laps of a 10-15 km circuit making the distance. The traditional kermesse race is truly an amazing cultural phenomenon. Even if a race is scheduled for a Tuesday afternoon at 1:30 you get 150 guys on the line and all of the urban portions of the course lined with spectators. Another important thing to note is that all races in Belgium regardless of the level result in full rolling road closures with police escort. That means the entire road, not just one lane, no matter how big the road is. Last year I did a race with about 60 guys and they closed a 4 lane main road into Brussels. The best part is that when the road is closed for the peleton to pass people get out of their cars and cheer the race on, it's like a rolling flow of spectators!
Professional Kermesse
This is the same as the amateur version with a couple of very important distinctions. First of all the race is open to professionals meaning that they will show up! Depending on the money and the prestige of the event you can get some big names on the line. One of the pro kermesses I did last year was won by Glen Chadwick (now on Navigators), and included names like Bart Wellens, Sven Nys, Frank VDB and many others. The other one I did was in Ninove and included all of the Belgian Davitamon Lotto riders, a handful of QuickStep boys, a couple of Belgian Cofidis and AG2R riders, 15 Chocolade Jacques, Mr. Bookmaker etc. It was fast!
The other major distinction is that the distance is longer at about 180km on average.
InterClub
These are races only open to teams. The kermesses can be entered as an individual as long as you have the appropriate license. Racing in teams means that 6-8 riders must start the race, you need a team car etc. These races are usually about 170 km long with about 140 km being done on a big lap and the rest of the race being decided on shorter finishing circuits of between 4-10 km. A favorite is to make the finishing circuits brutally hard with lots of climbing and tons of cobbles. Until you have ridden in Flanders or northern France you have never seen cobbles, Gas Town crit is not cobbles! Teams have to apply to start and organizers pick and choose, you can safely bet on at least 2 or 3 Continental squads showing up. Last year when I rode for Drukkerij van Lijsebetten (European Continental Tour) we were expected to place well in these events.

There you have it. I will do my best to keep up to date with results, pictures, Flemish lessons, cultural tidbits and everything else. Also, stay tuned for a more complete race schedule.

I guess this is an appropriate time to announce and thank some sponsors for 06 including Giant Bicycles (bike), Rudy Project (glasses and helmet), Bicisport (big money), High 5 Sports Nutrition (if I havn't given you a "green apple" flavoured gel yet you really must try it, I still have some samples) and perhaps some more to come....

Just incase you missed it here is the article from the team presentation that I posted a while back.

http://users.telenet.be/high5team/