4 Riders, 8 Bikes, 1 pit monkey and a van! – the North West goes to Flanders
Colin Humphries trawled for any riders wanting to try their hand at a real, Belgian ‘cross the other week…. All happened – here’s his report from a great weekend of Cross for the North West riders at the latest round of the Superprestige in Gavere.
Departed Preston 7.00a.m. Friday, arrived about 10 hours later in Oudenaade cyclo-central, Belgium.
Hired a small terraced 2 bedroom house which had a ground floor garage and bike workshop 20 minutes from the venue, ideal!
We decided to concentrate on the big event so spent a couple of hour’s pre riding and getting used to the venue on Saturday. Conditions were quite dry and at this point little rain. 2 long killer climbs with lots of technical descents plus a spectacular purpose built bridge over one of the spectator access points. Nothing in the UK compares to these courses, if you get the chance you really need to get over there to check them out – unreal.
Tom Clarke and Tyla Loftus represented the league in the Junior race with Jack Humphreys in the under 23’s and the elite finale including the very best in the world; Sven Nys, Wout Van Aert, Kevin Pauwels, Brit sensation Scott Wilson and many more.
I spent Saturday night gluing on one of Jacks rolled tubs from practice, lucky to find a local shop with the magic sticky stuff. Elite Scott Wilson was a jabbering mess, more than a little apprehensive prior to the race of his life.
Up early Sunday morning and thank goodness we had the great Scott with us who was our ticket into the elite parking area. A few funny looks as we emptied our tardis like van but the media frenzy soon showed that we were justifiably in the correct place. But seriously everyone made us very welcome including many curious spectators and autograph hunters. Yes I’m not joking our NW riders were treated like stars.
Overnight the rain had moved in and conditions were similar to last year’s mud fest. Juniors were up first. I had the best ‘seat’ in the house in the pits surrounded by thousands of spectators. Tom and Tyla did the NW league proud expecting the get lapped early on stayed in there until the last lap in really testing conditions – kept me busy too with half lap changes. Fortunately the venue provides jet washers along with guys dressed in yellow rubber baby grows to spray down the bikes but I still got covered head to toe in mud within minutes. The live TV streaming started for the under 23 race so I was able to watch the start on one of the big screens with a certain amount of apprehension as the guys sprinted off at an insane pace dropping down into the tree lined mud following the broken tarmac start strip. Again Jack gave everything and didn’t look out of place up against the best U23’s in Europe, the tub held firm with half lap changes and he finished a strong 25th.
The star turn was next with Scott Van Wilson slowly circling around the start arena with Sven taking his wheel obviously checking out the new kid on the block before the start. Scott told me later that he was close to hyperventilating with a combination of adrenalin and sheer fear. Traffic light start – Go!
Massive crash, bikes flew through the air but our man skilfully avoided the mayhem and followed the leading group into the woods, fantastic Scott you really did look the part. The plan was to stay out there as long as possible and he did, only getting lapped with 2 laps to go (obviously slowed by the crash at the start!). He said the highlight was the crowd, willing him up every climb, cheering his every successful decent, 4 or 5 deep either side of the course all the way round.
For me, one of the best weekends away racing that I’ve been involved with, fantastic experience for the juniors, more experience at the highest level for Jack and I think, no I’m sure a dream come true for Scott.
Thanks for making it a great weekend guys and hey let’s get more NW vans, NW helpers and NW riders for next time.
