Guest Blogger: Nigel Manson
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
From the opening lines of Dante’s Inferno.
A few years ago, when I was in my late thirties, I found myself in my own ‘forest dark’. Restless at work, lacking focus, and feeling empty and lost, I could feel midlife cloying around me like an itch I couldn’t scratch. The crisis was sure to happen, but what would it be? I could leverage up and buy an Aston Martin… or I could dye my hair back to the colour of my youth, wear black jeans and a leather jacket, and have a ridiculous affair with an inappropriate 25yr-old dirty blonde? OR, I could take up a ridiculous pasttime where I could set myself some ridiculous goals, obsess about data to the nth degree and equip myself with some hi-tech, weapons-grade kit. And so I found cycling. I honestly thought I’d made the choice that would be both better for my marriage and cheaper. In hindsight, I was probably wrong on both counts.
Initially I was attracted to the big mountains. With Hollywood Blockbuster titles like ‘The Ventoux – The Giant Of Provence’, ‘The Tourmalet – The Sentinel Of The Pyrenees’, ‘The Mighty Galibier’. Big. Scary. Goals. United by the size of the obstacles they present, the gravity-induced relentless purity of suffering, and the clarity of summits achieved. But I lack the pedigree and discipline to get even vaguely competent at this (although, even today, I still try)… With a dense physiology honed from years of red wine and chocolate abuse and a weak and stuttering diesel engine more akin to a Lada than a locomotive, I find it hard to relate to those delicate, fragile climbers who appear to effortlessly dance on their pedals and soar in the high mountains. Physics just isn’t on my side.
Instead, I was increasingly drawn to the hardmen of Northern Europe… The Belgians, the Flahuten, with their coarse weathered faces – stoic and unsmiling; their deep-set, dark and brooding eyes that spoke of untold suffering – both taken and dished out; and legs like old oaks: hard, gnarled, strong. More workmen-like, human, grittier. And I quickly grew to love the Classics, the one-day races staged in Northern France and Belgium on atrocious cobbled roads, in often atrocious conditions in early Spring every year. And I knew that I had to ride these roads and watch these races.
Foolishly, I chose Flanders as my first, as I felt that – with the smoother pavé and more varied topography – it wouldn’t be as brutal as Paris-Roubaix (oh, how wrong… As I know now, they are both evenly matched in their diabolical natures!) And, whilst it wasn’t always the hardest man who won the Tour of Flanders, it was frequently the smartest. I fancied my odds better.
And that is how I found myself in Gent, in the dark at 6am on a Saturday morning in April 2011, shivering with several thousand other fools, ready to attempt the Ronde Van Vlaanderen parcours. Those nice lads from La Fuga had picked me up from the Eurostar, ensconced me in decent lodgings near the start, helped me reassemble Harriet in a cage in some underground car park, my trusty bike #2 from her bikebox, fed and watered me, and delivered me here… The rest was up to me. I’d studied the terrain, had trained hard, had formulated a plan – I was, errr, prepared.
100km of flat, leg-softening Belgian roads later it was all going so well.. I’d even seen the clichés of tree-lined boulevards and windmills, against bleak, otherwise featureless terrain. I’d kept myself in check, hadn’t overextended my legs, and had eaten and drunk well. I thought I’d got this Belgian thing licked. And then.
The Muurs and Bergs. The cobbles. Their fury. 17 of them in relentless succession over the next 169km. Each an almost manageable, bite-sized chunk on their own, but collectively?… Like a shipwrecked sailor being smashed to pieces by wave after wave on the rocks of a stormy Atlantic Coastline, with not enough time in between each pounding to fully recover, unable to take in enough air in snatched gulps, and in about just as much control, I was steadily and surely broken down, battered and drowned. And how I loved it. The savage steepness of each slope; the utterly alien, strangely painful and seductively addictive sensation of riding on pavé; and the history of places like the Koppenberg, Taaienberg, Paterberg, Kapelmuur, Molenberg, the Bosberg flowing through my consciousness like a river. With unseeing, thousand-yard stares we rode through places like Oudenaarde, Kwaremont, Geraardsbergen before reaching the end of our suffering in Ninove, in the outskirts if Brussels.
Collapsing into the La Fuga Van, clutching our RvV medals in sweaty, grimy hands blessedly numbed from their pounding over the cobblestones, we stuffed our faces with anything and everything and excitedly began exchanging experiences. How cool was that! I texted my friends back home in Ol’ Blighty: I am now a Flandrien! Those of us who had done the full parcours joined the dinner late, applauded and cheered as we entered the dining room, weary but revived, all too happy to join in the camaraderie and break bread with fellow riders.
The next morning we got to watch the pros ride the course, expertly guided round the Belgian countryside in our van by the irritatingly cheerful and boyishly enthusiastic Ian Holt, La Fuga host, to see various points of the race… Now, three years later, my recollections are like a montage of greatest hits, largely shaped by the photos I’ve revisited many, many times since:
… the start in Gent at the teams signing on, standing on the stage in the packed main square and waving to rapturous crowds like the rockstars they are, banners proclaiming ‘Spartacus, please have mercy on us’, ‘we love you Tommeke!’ (He wasn’t even there), ‘GO THOR!’ waving in the limpid, damp air…
…the neutralised section where everyone was cheered through, international superstars stopping to sign autographs – Hincapie, cycling cap backwards, effortlessly casual and languid atop his frame; Cavendish, tense and highly strung, visibly awed by the occasion; Thor Hushovd in the world champions rainbow jersey squaring off against a tanned, sculpted and supercool Cancellara; Tyler Farrar, looking like a chubby schoolboy next to them.
.. an early cobbled section where we saw Geraint Thomas floating above the pavé in a way and at a pace we never could, leading the chase to hunt the breakaway down…
… somewhere in the countryside around Kwaremont, leaning into a car window to watch the action with a couple of enthusiastic (and drunk) Belgian fans on their portable TV, waiting for the race to come to us, instantly brothers in our love of bike racing and communicating in laughs, staccato names of cyclists, shouted and lots of pointing…
…The foot of the Muur de Gramont, to watch a defiant but frustrated and outsmarted Fabian Cancellara angrily gesturing and shouting at Sylvian Chavanel to take a turn at the front, who was able to shrug apologetically, insouciantly whilst pushing 400w, the kind of panache only the French can do.
…The foot of the Muur de Gramont, to watch a defiant but frustrated and outsmarted Fabian Cancellara angrily gesturing and shouting at Sylvian Chavanel to take a turn at the front, who was able to shrug apologetically, insouciantly whilst pushing 400w, the kind of panache only the French can do..
… TV pictures from the helicopter zooming in of a rider being shelled out the back, with the commentator’s voiceover, heartlessly, in a thick Flemish accent “Matthew Harley Goss… (dramatic pause)… Fatboy”…
… laughing out loud as I turn round to see a massive ‘Topsport Vlaanderen!’ banner, ubiquitous on TV coverage, with a fan in his chair sitting in front of it, ready for the race to come by…
…The foot of the Muur de Gramont, to watch a defiant but frustrated and outsmarted Fabian Cancellara angrily gesturing and shouting at Sylvian Chavanel to take a turn at the front, who was able to shrug apologetically, insouciantly whilst pushing 400w, the kind of panache only the French can do.
…celebrating with the crowds of euphoric Belgians in the town square of Geraardsbergen, throwing Frites (smothered in Mayo, of course) up in the air, as Nick Nuyens, one of their own, took an unexpected but thoroughly deserved victory, watched collectively on the big screen; the grupetto stopped, amusingly, en masse and mid-climb to watch it too, their race long over, their heads in brightly coloured cycling helmets turned round and up to watch the screen.
… and then walking up the Kapelmuur after the race, the calm after the storm, litter blowing like tumbleweed across this most iconic – and now eerily empty – of places.
…And afterwards, the rushed goodbyes to new friends and the charge to Lille to catch the Eurostar home, to return to London and normalcy. On the way, catching sight of a signpost to Roubaix… for another time?…
What a weekend. Brilliantly organised by La Fuga, a fantastic experience I’d recommend to anyone interested in any way, shape, or form in cycling, in bike racing, in watching any kind of live sport. And you’ll be looked after extremely well by these boys.
Whilst it’s less than three hours by Eurostar from London St. Pancras, I realised the gulf between what I’m capable of on a bike compared to the talent of these pros is light years apart. But – whilst this gave me a newfound and deep respect for their Godgiven talents and willingness to repeatedly put themselves through these bike races – it nonetheless doesn’t stop us from riding the same roads, achieving our own ambitions and creating deep and lasting memories for ourselves. Do it. I urge you. This trip set me on a journey that I’m not even close to finishing.