At the risk of overstatement, I'm willing to say that Belgium is perfect in every way. Beautiful landscapes. Delicious, inventive cuisine. Rich, well-preserved history and architecture. Friendly, generous people. Proper beer.
I would love this country even if it weren't for the cycling. But, oh, the cycling.
Belgium is like a parallel universe where the bicycle is on equal if not superior footing with the automobile. Who among us have not dreamed of such a world? Safe, well-marked bike lanes run along every major road. Parallel to the country's many rivers and canals run wide, paved paths for pedestrians and cyclists, making it possible to ride from Holland to France, at speed and in a group, without interruption or hazard. Drivers expect cyclists at every turn and yield accordingly. Not once this week were we honked at, even on a few occasions where we were in the wrong.
Perfection? Well, there is the matter of the weather. The elements forced us into booties and multiple layers most days. Winds were severe, rains frequent. Truly, this is a hard country. As it should be. If Belgium were easy, then anyone could be Belgian.
The target of this trip was the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Easter Sunday's historic Tour of Flanders. "High mass," it was called by our host, Ludwig Ombregt, father of our dear friend Pieter.
The day before the big race, we would join tens of thousands of cyclists to ride the course ourselves, like a game of two-hand touch in the Superdome the day before the Super Bowl.
We had five riding days leading up to the Ronde. Each was exquisite in its own way, but two stand out.
The first great ride was on our second day in the country.
Ludwig collected us in the early afternoon and led us south along a canal to his "playground," the hills in the Ardennes that over the next two weeks would be not a playground but a battleground for Tom, Fabian and the others.
He took us over some flat sections of cobbles, and I must be frank: Nothing in Hillsboro or along Sheridan Road could prepare us for Belgian cobbles. They are larger than bricks, and the crevices between each stone is deep and wide. The result is a bike that bucks like a bronco, threatening to send its rider headlong into an irrigation ditch. Any give in the chain bounces off the chainstay, and it seems impossible that one's fork won't snap in two. Extra violence meets the poor rider with a climber's physique. Oddly enough, I found my ears feeling it most, as if I had a bucket over my head and someone was attacking it with a jackhammer.
And that's just the flat sectors.
Ludwig then led us up the historic Oude Kwaremont, a long, stairstep climb. The climbs are even harder, of course, in part because you cannot get out of the saddle, lest your rear wheel bounce away from you. Imagine the climb of Snake Alley, but not nearly as smooth and five times as long.
The path was lined with fans awaiting the E3 Prijs race taking place at that very moment. Indeed, just as I hit the top, I heard the beeping of a police motorcycle behind me. We dismounted and staked our positions on a grassy overlook. Helicopters presaged the coming drama. It would be another 15 minutes before the first riders came, but come with fury they did.
Boonen, Cancellara, Flecha. Up the Kwaremont they tore, perhaps twice as fast as we had come. The crowd, two and three deep for a kilometer, roared with approval. Many held beers from a nearby viewing party. Some had laptops on which they were able to watch the coverage.
Seconds later, Pozzatto sped by in his futile chase, and then the remnants of the peloton. The knowledgeable crowd shouted each rider's name as he struggled forward.
No time to waste. Ludwig led us down a narrow road to another climb that the riders would soon be navigating. Minutes later they came. This hill was asphalt, so the riders ascended even faster this time. Boonen was pushing the pace, and Cancellara seemed comfortable in his wake. And indeed, when we stopped at a cafe an hour later for coffee and [i]panenkoeken[/i] -- tasty crepes topped with butter and powdered sugar -- the big-screen TV showed the Swissman winning, having caught Boonen off-guard a kilometer from the finish.
Best ride ever?
It would get better.
Tuesday, Kirby and I again headed south toward the Ardennes. Our destination was Roubaix, France. Looking at the map and using my index finger as a makeshift compass, I figured it would be about 70 miles roundtrip. Maybe 80. 90? Surely no more than 90. Surely.
A light drizzle started the ride. If we were home, this would have sent us back indoors for a few hours on the trainer. But this was Belgium, so we donned our rain capes and bushwhacked our way into a terrific headwind. We alternated pulls, sitting in front and eating the wind or sitting second and eating that famous mix of dirt, water and road grime known as Belgian toothpaste.
It tasted of caviar.
After spending a lot of time considering the muddy rooster tail that now soiled Kirby's previously white bibs, I wondered whether anyone had ever dubbed it "Belgian hemorrhoid creme."
Wet and cold, we stopped in Oudenarde for warmth, snacks and coffee. Workers were setting up for that day's stage of Three Days of De Panne. We swung into the Tour of Flanders museum for a quick dose of history.
Rolling again, we got a little lost heading into Roubaix, but finally found the velodrome and did a few laps under the watchful eyes of workers preparing the stadium for the upcoming Paris-Roubaix. Our odometers read 52 miles.
Thankful for a tailwind, we returned north, got lost again and eventually found ourselves going 30 mph under negligible effort as we approached Oudenarde. Indeed, this tailwind was suspiciously strong. Turning to the right, we saw a dark, ominous sky pulling itself over farmland. Drops soon started to fall, so just in time we ducked into an Oudenard waffle shop as the sky opened.
It was still raining when we finished, but with daylight running out we couldn't afford to wait it out. Off we went, 20 more miles in the cold, rain and growing darkness. As we approached the farmhouse that is our bed and breakfast, the clouds receded and, 105 miles and 9 hours after we'd departed, a sunset was our final reward on this very, very rewarding day.
Best ride ever?
It would get better.
Saturday Ludwig picked us up at 6 a.m. and we drove to Bruges, where Kirby and I would walk across the same stage that the professional riders would walk across the next day, and our adventure began: 255 kilometers, a nearly meter-for-meter, cobble-for-cobble simulation of the great monument.
Funny thing about the Tour of Flanders. Until preparing for this trip, the race's length had never registered. That's because television never shows the first 100 miles, the length of which takes riders north and west from Bruges, then down the coast until breaking east into the Ardennes and Ludwig's playground. And the reason this 100 miles is not broadcast is because, well, it's sort of boring. For us, it was not unlike a typical American century. We sought groups of fast riders with whom we could paceline, and every 35 miles or so we stopped for water, bananas and waffles.
Oh, and it was very cold. And rainy. And windy. And we wouldn't have had it any other way.
Happily it was dry when we hit the stretches of cobbles and the Den Ast, the first of 15 named hills -- the hellingen. (Surely the "hell" in hellingen is no accident.) But this one wasn't so bad. It was a picturesque approach, so with my left hand I had taken out my camera to take pictures. Only when Kirby pointed it out later did I realize that this had prevented me from shifting into my small ring. How 'bout that.
The Kluisberg was next. I liked this one. We had attached ourselves to a fast train of six, three of whom appeared to be skilled riders from the same amateur team. At first they were wary of us rotating through their echelon, but eventually they stopped sniffing at our presence. And it was with satisfaction, then, that I dropped them on the climb, a windy, paved kicker that wound through a town filled with spectators.
At this point there were not many groups to attach ourselves to. People slowed, either to save themselves for each subsequent climb or to enjoy the majestic scenery.
Funny thing about the climbs and stretches of cobbles. They are not unlike rollercoasters. When you are on one, you want nothing more than for the ride to stop. Your head rings, your fingers palsy from clenching the bars in terror and your body screams for mercy. And then once it is over, you wish you could go back and do it all over again.
A few other climbs stand out.
Oude Kwaremont. This may go down as my favorite, perhaps because it had been my initiation the week before with Ludwig. I could not resist the temptation to attack, nor would I on any of the climbs: As soon as the road pitched up, I clicked down a few cogs and charged ahead. Most riders smartly took the center of the road, the smoothest line, so to pass I had to go on the ouside, where the cobbles were extra choppy and frequently splattered with mud from the adjoining farmland. After I caught one rider by surprise, I heard him mutter, "Oh-la-la, Tom Boonen!" I took that as a compliment.
Paterburg. This one doesn't start so bad, but then you round a bend and the steepest portion comes into view, and on it one sees dozens of people struggling up, if not dismounting to walk. For me, this is like a lion rounding a bend and seeing a wounded antelope. My eyes got big and I pounced. At the top, I dismounted myself and filled a pocket with stones, souvenirs for myself and gifts for others. It reminded me of the scene in "Saving Private Ryan" where upon another successful landing the staff sergeant scoops a can of Norman dirt to add to his collection of conquests.
Koppenberg. Ludwig had encouraged us to ride this earlier in the week, as it is nearly impossible to ride with the traffic of the Ronde, but we hadn't found an opportunity. Too bad. I'd have been curious to know if I could have made it up its 22 percent grade. As it was, mud from a recent shower had turned the cobbles to ice, and halfway up fallen riders created an impenetrable wall. Not that walking was any easier, given the slippery slope. A method I found to work was to hook my cleat on the top of each jutting cobble and pull myself up, like an alpinist hooking a pick into the glacier.
Mollenberg. This, too, was a slippery slop, probably the messiest of the day. To make matters worse, the spaces between the cobbles were deeply rutted in the direction parallel to one's wheels, each one a bear trap waiting to sink its teeth into your front wheel and send you flying over the handlbars. A day later, this is where Cancellara would make his first decisive move to get away with Boonen.
Muur-Kapelmuur. The granddaddy of them all. Just when you think it can't get any steeper, it does. And just when you think it can't go on any longer, the road turns and you see you're still far from the church at the pinnacle. I tried to stay in my second-to-lowest gear, to keep one shot of morphine in reserve. Is that not what Tim Krabbe tells us shifting is? A painkiller? Seconds later, the road pitched up one last time, I killed the pain with a shift into the 26 and let out a roar as I crested.
Happily, it was downhill from there. Ten hours of ride time after we started, we cruised into Ninove, soaked and chilled to our core. We did a mock sprint for the line -- can't give you a result; we're still waiting for the photo finish -- and found Ludwig and his family, who took us to their home in Kanegem, where Pieter's mother, Vera, and his girlfriend, Jen, who had come from England to ride and visit the Ombregts, had waiting for us an impressive spread of soup, fresh bread and dried meats.
And of course Ludwig treated us to two of his finest trappist beers from his cellar, and Kirby and I raised our chalices to a job well done. To us, to the Ronde, to Belgium -- and to Pieter.
Best ride ever? Perhaps. But we'll have to see what next year brings.