January 16, 2024 9:18 a.m. ET
Nowhere is cyclocross more important than here in Belgium. In addition to the national television audience, 15,000 fans attended the Antwerp race, a serious number for a country of 11 million people. Crowds crowded onto the track, just a few yards wide, screaming as their favorite riders raced past. A giant tent in the center of the course features a 60-foot-long bar and a stage with a DJ. Fans stomped and danced to the thumping techno music, some holding pitchers of beer in each hand. At one point his one of the french fry stalls ran out of mayonnaise and the staff desperately searched for more.
“Belgium’s national pastime is standing up and drinking beer in any environment, whether it’s a bar or a Christmas market,” said Clara Honsinger, a 26-year-old racer from Portland, Oregon. Americans reach the top level of the sport. “Bicycle racing is no exception.”
Races begin in the morning, with juniors racing in the afternoon on the same courses used by elite pros. Several American teens had just finished the race, including Vida López de San Roman, a 17-year-old from Northern California’s Sonoma County. “I really hope to get on the podium here soon if I can,” she said. A few weeks later, she won a race in Hulst, Netherlands.
As the time for the men’s and women’s elite races approaches, fans flock to the races, pulling rain boots out of the trunks of their cars and donning woolen hats. Campers are clustered near the entrance, each a trailer home for the rider and perhaps his teammate or two. The big stars of the richest teams own a full coach bus and a second van for spare bikes and a mobile mechanic’s workshop. Wout, the Belgian superstar and perhaps the best one-day cyclist of the past five years, and his fans, his Aalto, weaving through the crowd in his yellow jersey after a few practice laps. To go. Children find their heroes and run after them, shouting for autographs.
Van Aert’s biggest rival, Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, is also currently racing. The pair have been competing in cyclocross since they were teenagers, and now both regularly win big one-day races like the Strade Bianche and stages of the Tour de France. Their rivalry has a strong claim to being one of the greatest in professional sports. Also on the course will be Briton Tom Pidcock, who won the Olympic gold medal by beating Van der Poel in the Tokyo mountain bike race and won the legendary Alpe d’Huez stage of the 2022 Tour de France. Masu.
In cyclocross, riders start en masse and sprint along 100 yards of asphalt for the best position. Within seconds, they started the day in a grassy field that quickly turned into a muddy, rutted path. The course is only a few yards wide, and spectators lean against the metal railings and cheer as riders zip by inches from each other.
A funnel of fans takes them up an incredibly steep embankment, then forces riders to dismount and run up the stairs and down the slope on the other side, before descending. The course then takes them out to the beach, winding through the dunes until most riders have to dismount their horses again, before sliding down the open sand. Most people aim for the waterline, where the sand is most tightly packed and the waves are crashing. Then all the work he repeats 6-7 times.
The race is relentless, and the one-hour race is much shorter than the typical professional race, but there’s no time to coast along in groups or grab refreshments from the team’s helpers, known as soignières. . “Condense a three- to four-hour race into its most difficult moments,” Honsinger said.
Cyclocross is an old sport, invented decades before modern technology like suspension forks and wide, knobby tires. Currently, rules limit the types of bicycles riders can use. Tire width must not exceed 33 millimeters and no suspension is permitted. It also requires a road bike-style drop bar, which can be difficult to handle, especially when tearing up near-vertical sand banks. Legend of the sport is that it was invented by riders looking for shortcuts over fields and fences during races from town to town. The first national championship in France was held in 1902, the year before the first Tour de France.
The bike’s limitations and centuries of tradition make it difficult to explain to outsiders, even the riders themselves.
“That doesn’t make much sense,” Honsinger said. “Why limit tire size or disallow suspension when you’re riding something that really needs suspension?”
For Belgian fan Victor Veckenia, who was watching the race in Antwerp, the explanation is simple. “Very strong men running around in the mud.”
“It’s heroic,” said Kari Koster, a decades-long cyclocross fan, standing on the beach just a few feet from the waves that washed over the riders. Why would riders like van Aert and van der Poel put themselves in such conditions when their teammates usually spend the winter resting and training in sunny, warm Mediterranean countries? “It’s fun, they like playing in the sand,” Coster says.
That’s not far-fetched for Honsinger, who spent two years competing on the prestigious Road Cycling World Tour with pro team EF Pro Cycling.
“It’s definitely the most fun because you’re not just challenging yourself on the course like you would on a mountain bike course,” she said. “But then it becomes a challenge to throw in that atmosphere and audience and do it over and over again.”
In Antwerp, 21-year-old cyclocross world champion Fem van Empel won, giving Dutch riders a complete podium. Van der Poel took the lead in the men’s race. He seems to have found another gear above Van Aert and his other rivals, and has now finished first in 10 consecutive cyclocross races, leaving us wondering how much more he can accomplish on this Road World Tour. This is a hot topic in the bicycle world. Year. Pidcock spent most of the race struggling for the lead and finished eighth after crashing on the first sandy turn of the race.
“How does this make me a better World Tour rider? It doesn’t. It makes me a better all-around rider,” he said, sipping a drink on his bike at the finish line. Ta. Van Aert was 29 seconds behind Van der Poel, to the frustration of Belgian fans who had come from all over the country to stand in the sand and mud hoping for Van Aert’s victory.
But that’s part of the fun, said one fan, Veckenia.
“Cyclists are going through some very tough times,” he said. “So we have to suffer a little bit too.”