It was short before 4 O'clock in the morning of Sunday, 25th March 2012 when I was in my car on my way to Deinze, where Gent-Wevelgem kicks off later that Sunday. I was going to pick a friend up on the way who lives in Belgium just over the border of Belgium and Luxembourg.
From my humble domicile, it was about 300km of drive. The temperature was between 4 and 7 degrees Celsius. It was strange and intriguing to see the digital display of the outside temperature in the console of my Ford Ka rise and fall rather rapidly many times. It seemed that wind shields created by ridges or hills had something to do with it. Some warm lumps of air hid behind the wind shield. When driving on a long stretch of freeway without any particular objects to keep the air movement, the temperature was generally 4 above zero.
Anyway, the drive was easy. I made several stops along the route to hydrate and dehydrate (if you watched the movie "Jarhead," you know what I mean). I needed caffeine to keep my head clear and the very substance prompted a series of bladder activities so the frequent stops were absolutely required.
The surface of the road, however, did not stay as smooth as you may wish. Some stretches of freeway in Belgium surrounding Brussels where traffic is intense and thus not well maintained (because road maintenance requires road blockage and creates traffic jams?) have potholes. A lot of them! You have to stay alert in order to avoid them just in time. I know their presence by now and can stay clear of most of them by now but earlier I swore a lot whenever my Ka, whose tires have a profile of 45 (ratio: height/width) which means that they are very thin, drove over those and made a terrifying noise.
My travel and race watch companion was also a road race fanatic. I met this person, I think, in 2006?? or 2007 (when Christoph Moreau won a stage of Dauphine Libere, anyone remember?) on top of Mt. Ventoux. Acutually we had a close encounter days before when D.L. had a short prologue. I later found this person in my photo taken that day.
I was painting on the road about 100m down the finish when they (with a friend) talked to me and pleaded with me to paint "Vino" just beside the car they were staying in (very cold and terribly windy up there! people). And speaking of this incident, my Facebook profile photo is the very picture taken on this day.
Years later, we are still friends and still remain road race fans.
といきなり英語で始まりましたが、本当は英語で日記を書いても良いのですが、このFC2は日本語のブログ日記です。英語の別のブログを当初（そうとう昔）は書いてましたが、面倒になり英語版は機能してません（笑）。でもその気になれば、別に英語でも良いのですけど。特に区別しなくても良ければ、ちゃんぽんでいきましょうか。
さて、午前8時半過ぎに現地のDeinzeに到着。いつも不思議なのが、同じGPSナビを使っているにも関わらず、毎年到着する位置が違う。街へ入る道が違う。今年着いた場所は一昨年に着いた場所。昨年はスタートのサイン台を挟んで逆側に到着した。
外は霧。ベルギーの確かSpyを過ぎた辺りから霧が断続的に現れ、明るくなったこと7時過ぎからはもうずっと霧の中を走行してた記憶がある。
テーマ:自転車ロードレース - ジャンル:スポーツ
- 2012/03/26(月) 14:48:55|
- Bike Races in Belgium
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