Zwaffled by the Zwolle

My first European UCI race is in the books. I managed to nab the title of highest American finisher, but unfortunately that was only good enough for 89th overall. I've been meaning to do a write-up about this race for a while, but the experience was so taxing that even thinking about it makes me tired and puts an ache in my legs. Instead of going through the race blow by blow (which most of you would hate anyway) I've decided to present you with the inside scoop from our embedded reporter, Mr. Jeroen Janssen, aka JJ, the Flying Dutchman. I've added my own comments in bold. Enjoy!

‘Omloop het Nieuwsblad’, or ‘Het Volk’ is the classic Belgium season opener for the big pro’s, whereas the equivalent Dutch opener is the ‘Ster van Zwolle’ a brutal race for any rider. I’ve ridden for several Dutch teams and this is the race where you work towards all winter and you want to be selected for. Your team manager keeps telling you in the early season training rides that this is the first goal of the season. Endless echelon training rides should pay off here. 172 kilometers and every manager tells his riders that it is crucial to ride in the first twenty of the bunch. A change of direction and the wind can come from the side, which means you’re either in the first echelon or hanging on for grim death in the gutter. Positioning is everything. Not surprising the first 20k of the race can be a bit stressful, with almost 200 riders wanting to be on the first row.

With all of this in the back of my head, I felt pretty nervous before the start. Comments from friends who have done the race many times didn’t really help either: ‘just be in the first twenty of the bunch all race and you’ll be fine, just watch out for crashes as everyone is trying to get to the front’. Right…. Fortunately I was the only one who had done the race before and with riders and staff not knowing what to expect, there was less pressure coming from the team. Just the pressure from everyone who looked at the Dutchman with the famous Raleigh name on his jersey…

The weather at the start was typically spring classic weather: lovely wind, cold and a bit of rain. (I was absolutely freezing! I had on twice as many layers as everyone else and I was still shaking uncontrollably.)The pressure disappeared straight from the word go, the focus on getting to the front took up all the energy (most of which went to the use of the elbows). (Contrary to JJ's claims the pressure did not disappear. It increased about 100 fold. The "neutral" section was about as neutral as Germany in 1939. It was a 200 rider battle royal; elbow anyone near you, shoot a too-small gap, lock up both wheels, sprint, repeat.) Seven of our eight riders managed to stay out of trouble, unfortunately Phil got stuck behind a crash early on and never got back in contact with the peloton. The rest of us kept fighting and after several splits and regroups, we were all in the main bunch. At this point there was a group of seven up the road. Not wanting to ride this race anonymously, we got organised and brought the gap back from 2 minutes to 10 seconds. (Prior to this Jamie had seen the break rolling off and full tilt past 150 riders IN THE DIRT to get to the front and then threw down a massive solo chase. It was like watching the love-child of Eddy Merckx and Sven Nys get freaky.) This cost a lot of energy though and after another switch into a side wind, the teams with riders in the break took over and organised themselves too so that we wouldn’t catch the break.

The nervousness started again; it was not long until we would come into another crucial point where the race would definitely split for good. (Prior to this is was so exhausted I was so exhausted from the chase that I almost dropped out. It was so chaotic and flat out for the first hour and a half that I hadn't eaten or drunk anything, which probably didn't help.) I was placed well enough, but lacking some interval and race hardness, I couldn’t hold on and had to let the front group go. Matt Cronshaw however managed to place himself really well and got in the front split with mainly riders from the Rabobank Continental and Jo Piels teams. Dan Fleeman was one of the few who got across a bit later on, a remarkable effort. The rest of us were behind in different groups on the road, which all came back together towards the closing stages of the race. (Dan and Matt tried to get organised to get Matt up there in the sprint for 6th but ran out of energy and luck and rolled across the line in the first major group, a very good result.

The rest of us crossed the line about 5 minutes later in the second big group, worn out from the wind, the fighting and the hard racing. (Worn out is an understatement. The last ten miles seemed to take as long as the rest of the race combined.) Only just over half of the starters finished, so with 7 out of 8 of Team Raleigh crossing the finishing line we can be satisfied. Racing in echelons on dykes all day is not something we do often, the Dutch riders are specialists at this, but for the team to finish a good hard day of racing in the cold and wind meant the morale is still sky high, we all learned a lot and are very confident for the next races! Bring on Eddie Soens!

That was, hands down, the craziest damn race I've ever done. You needed laser focus the entire time, because you never knew when the next curveball was coming. CRASH-slam on the brakes and swerve around it! ROAD FURNITURE-find a gap in 200 riders on a bikepath sized road and squeeze into it in half a second! TURN-cut the corner through the dirt and grass to make up a few spots! You can't lose focus for even a second or your day could be over. That meant that while the race was indeed one of the most physically challenging of my life, it was far and away the most mentally taxing. It was like riding a technical crit, except that instead of seeing every turn 60 times you never knew what was around the bend. Loco!

Here's a link to a bit of video form the race. Most of the footage comes from pretty late, so you don't get a true sense of the chaos.
1:22 Group of us at about 100mi into the race. I'm the only guy in blue leg warmers, and you can see JJ, Jamie, Cricket and Jonesy as well.
3:52 A good look at echelons.
4:00 Fleeman slamming back to the front group, followed shortly by the rest of us. We never did close that 12 second gap, but Flee-digity rode all the way to the front group!

Here's another sick vid which actually shows JSparls playing one-man wrecking crew on the front of the race at 1:22. The rest of us are tucked back in the top 30 and I'm overheating in my blue leg warmers.

If any of you guys are really hardcore cycling fans you can head over to cyclingtorrents.nl and download some legit race coverage from the 2011 Ster van Zwolle.

The only thing harder than the race was the drive home. After cold (and I mean freezing, f%$&ing cold!) shower in the locker rooms and enough Dutch dick sightings to last me a lifetime (turns out the baby bald look is quite fashionable) we got into the cars and drove back to England. That's right, we raced the hardest race in most of our lives and then got straight into a car for a 3.5 hour drive + 2 hour ferry + 4 hour drive. I just don't even have words to describe the agony... so I'll just paint a picture:

That ferry(sp?) shot pretty much sums it up.

Never fear! After a bit of a two day driving hangover we were all chipper as chipmunks and back on the bike slamming around getting fired up for our first British race of the year, the Eddie Soens. Finally, a race where people will understand when I'm swearing at them!

Before I sign off I have to give props to my boy Matt Kippling. He had the honor last weekend of taking the first race win of 2011 for Team Raleigh, and he did it in style.

I'm pretty sure he managed such dominant sprint because his legs were unencumbered by silly, sissy leg warmers. But, believe it or not, that's only the second best photo recently taken of Kippo. Here's number one:

That's right, folks. On top of being a sleek, race winning machine Kippo is also an accomplished ballroom dancer. I'm not entirely sure he's isn't British Secret Service. All I know is that if I were you I'd hide my daughters.

I actually know one other bike racer-cum-ballroom dancer, and I'd hide my daughters from him too, but for entirely different reasons. Oh! You don't believe me? Scoot on over to the Viennese Ball website from 2005 and search for Rand Miller. Also, scope this video evidence. Good money says that it is the one and only Rickets posted up in the foreground just 30 seconds into that video. Rand, if you're reading this, we want pictures.

That's if for now. See you all after the Soens.