Christine Vardaros: There's more to Belgium than just great chocolate
(BY: Christine Vardaros, marinig.com) :: EVERY winter, I travel to Belgium to race my bike. Some friends question my sanity for voluntarily heading to bitterly cold, snowy conditions. And others are overjoyed that they can live vicariously through me since racing in Europe is considered "every bike racer's dream." What these opposing parties have in common is that they do not know what it is really like to experience European bike racing. Last weekend's activities were as typical as they come.
Saturday morning, after a hearty breakfast of dark coffee with bakery-fresh bread and jam, my friend Hilde and I drove from Everberg, Belgium, my residence near Brussels, to Li}vin, France for a World Cup cyclo-cross event. According to Mapquest, our trip should have taken 1 1/2 hours, but it turned into a 3 1/2-hour odyssey.
As with most cars in Belgium, Hilde's car had a GPS navigational system. After a brutal duel between two stubborn women and one machine, culminating in 10 U-turns looping between the same two exits on the highway, we were finally glued to it for the rest of the trip.
Shortly after we got to the race site, I ran into some other gals from USA and Canada. It was an English-speaking frenzy.
After my preparatory workout, we washed the bikes, packed the car and headed over to the hotel 2 kilometers away. We arrived 30 minutes later. Hilde dropped me off and headed back for the Belgian Scott Racing team presentation that evening.
The hotel provided a separate room for all the racers' bikes so we did not have to bring them up to our rooms. That proved to be very helpful when my Velo Bella teammate, Barb Howe of Larkspur, and I opened the door to our room and found it was no bigger than a closet. It contained two svelte beds flush against the walls, separated by an abbreviated desk.
Thankfully it was a luxury suite; our toilet and stand-up shower (that dribbled semi-lukewarm water) were IN the room.
As usual, dinner was an adventure. The menu was in French, but since we are in France where nobody speaks English, we were on our own to translate. As a stout vegan, I had nothing to eat on the menu. In very broken French, I was able to order pasta and vegetables, which is exactly what I got - sans salt, oil, flavor. This custom meal came in at $25. I washed it down with a small $10 bottle of glorified tap water.
The next morning, Barb and I met Jan, my friend/mechanic/manager/translater, for breakfast in the hotel lobby. The food was typical European hotel buffet style: fresh bread, jam, cheeses, mystery meat and museli. We spotted a few famous bike racers such as France's Laurence Leboucher, two-time cyclo-cross world champion, and Spain's Miguel Martinez (former mountain bike world champion who was even tinier in person).
A few hours later and it was time to race. Thirty seconds after the official announced "one minute to go", the gun sounded. As usual, there were big crashes in the first two turns of the course. As many of us ran up the steep grassy inclines, we watched the leaders ride away.
For the next 40 minutes, I really suffered. Part of it was due to trying to recover from being sick for the past month and the other part was that my cyclo-cross ride with the Belgian national team in the local forest earlier in the week may have put me over the edge when I was supposed to be recovering. Anyway, I held in there for 24th. Only a week ago, I was on the podium. But that is bike racing.
After the event, my mind was on eating and changing into warm, dry clothes. But since we were in France, I headed over to Doping Control stationed in a nearby daycare to see which American would be chosen for the "random" drug test. I was the lucky one.
By the time I left Doping Control 3 1/2 hours later, everyone was gone. I will surely see them soon enough, at the next race tomorrow morning.
Saturday morning, after a hearty breakfast of dark coffee with bakery-fresh bread and jam, my friend Hilde and I drove from Everberg, Belgium, my residence near Brussels, to Li}vin, France for a World Cup cyclo-cross event. According to Mapquest, our trip should have taken 1 1/2 hours, but it turned into a 3 1/2-hour odyssey.
As with most cars in Belgium, Hilde's car had a GPS navigational system. After a brutal duel between two stubborn women and one machine, culminating in 10 U-turns looping between the same two exits on the highway, we were finally glued to it for the rest of the trip.
Shortly after we got to the race site, I ran into some other gals from USA and Canada. It was an English-speaking frenzy.
After my preparatory workout, we washed the bikes, packed the car and headed over to the hotel 2 kilometers away. We arrived 30 minutes later. Hilde dropped me off and headed back for the Belgian Scott Racing team presentation that evening.
The hotel provided a separate room for all the racers' bikes so we did not have to bring them up to our rooms. That proved to be very helpful when my Velo Bella teammate, Barb Howe of Larkspur, and I opened the door to our room and found it was no bigger than a closet. It contained two svelte beds flush against the walls, separated by an abbreviated desk.
Thankfully it was a luxury suite; our toilet and stand-up shower (that dribbled semi-lukewarm water) were IN the room.
As usual, dinner was an adventure. The menu was in French, but since we are in France where nobody speaks English, we were on our own to translate. As a stout vegan, I had nothing to eat on the menu. In very broken French, I was able to order pasta and vegetables, which is exactly what I got - sans salt, oil, flavor. This custom meal came in at $25. I washed it down with a small $10 bottle of glorified tap water.
The next morning, Barb and I met Jan, my friend/mechanic/manager/translater, for breakfast in the hotel lobby. The food was typical European hotel buffet style: fresh bread, jam, cheeses, mystery meat and museli. We spotted a few famous bike racers such as France's Laurence Leboucher, two-time cyclo-cross world champion, and Spain's Miguel Martinez (former mountain bike world champion who was even tinier in person).
A few hours later and it was time to race. Thirty seconds after the official announced "one minute to go", the gun sounded. As usual, there were big crashes in the first two turns of the course. As many of us ran up the steep grassy inclines, we watched the leaders ride away.
For the next 40 minutes, I really suffered. Part of it was due to trying to recover from being sick for the past month and the other part was that my cyclo-cross ride with the Belgian national team in the local forest earlier in the week may have put me over the edge when I was supposed to be recovering. Anyway, I held in there for 24th. Only a week ago, I was on the podium. But that is bike racing.
After the event, my mind was on eating and changing into warm, dry clothes. But since we were in France, I headed over to Doping Control stationed in a nearby daycare to see which American would be chosen for the "random" drug test. I was the lucky one.
By the time I left Doping Control 3 1/2 hours later, everyone was gone. I will surely see them soon enough, at the next race tomorrow morning.
posted by Ryan Amirault at Monday, January 23, 2006
