By Fred Dreier
Photo:
The shit really hit the fan on lap number three.
Some Euro with tree trunk legs and a wavy mullet charged to the front on his time trial bike and took a monster pull. Our group had swollen to more than 100 riders, and we were already chugging along at a descent clip. I knew right away that things were about to get crazy.
The acceleration shredded the group just as we were barreling into a tight chicane. I focused ahead and prepared to navigate the tight s-turn. But I caught a glimpse of such a bizarre sight I had to look up.
Photo:
A sea of riders converged on the turn, and in the gaggle was just about every shape of cyclist and bicycle imaginable — fat, skinny, old, young slow and fast. I saw two sets of tandems, a handful of mountain bikers and an old man on a flat-pedal commuter rig. I saw a kid, no older than 12, on a bike bigger than he was. And then there was the girl in short shorts on roller blades.
I braced for an impact that, happily, never came.
We sped onward. A billboard above showed a smiling cartoon saying, “Welcome to Zolder!”
Indeed, all cyclists, no matter age, creed or ability level, are apparently welcome on the Zolder group ride.
The name Zolder probably rings more bells with the auto-racing crowd than with fans of bicycle racing. The small town in southeastern Belgium is home to the Circuit Zolder racetrack, which hosts large-scale automobile and motorcycling events including a stop on the Renault World Series and the GT Belcar championship. Bike racing does have its place in Zolder (we’re in Belgium, of course), and the 4km long racecourse hosted the UCI world championships in 1962 and again in 2002, when Mario Cipollini took home his one and only set of rainbow stripes. Zolder also hosted the cyclocross world champs that year, and in 1970.
Photo:
But in the pantheon of amateur cycling, the racetrack is ground zero for the most furious and crazy group ride on the planet.
Tuesday through Friday evenings, when the roar of engines dies down and the stench of octane dissipates, Circuit Zolder opens its pristine asphalt and banked turns up to cyclists. And they show up, by the hundreds.
I was tipped off about the Zolder group ride by David Alvarez, an American who works for Speedplay and lives a few towns over. The tales he told of the fast pace and utter chaos piqued my interest.
Photo:
“You’re going to get smoked by a bunch of 50-year-old guys on steel Colnagos and no helmets,” he said.
The tales of a group ride on an auto racetrack sounded too good to be true — I had to see it.
A few years back I penned a column on my love of good, fast group training rides, the kind that hurt your legs like a race, but leave your wallet unscathed. I found my entry into cycling in the group ride scene in Santa Cruz, California. Getting stuffed in the hurt locker by a mob of 50-year-old men on the weekly Saturday ride first perked my taste for pain.
Since then I’ve tried to sample as many as possible: I’ve shot out in Tucson, charged up to Lake Wolford on Swamis and been left gasping in Colorado Springs.
Photo:
But never before have I ever seen anything quite like Zolder.
When I rolled into the parking lot at a quarter to six a handful of guys milled about the parking lot in Lycra. I gave the group the quick eyeball. Let’s just say I didn’t see Philippe Gilbert or Stijn Devolder.
I found the entrance to the track and saw a few more riders, some spinning casually, others stopped and waiting. Nobody looked to be in any sort of hurry, and one guy was munching basket of frites.
Some ride, I thought.
A small group of six guys whizzed by and I jumped on. They were speaking Flemish, so I discretely sat a ways back.
Within a few seconds two more riders jumped on my wheel, then three more, then five, then 10. Within a half lap our group was nearing 30. And the pace was picking up.
How would I describe riding on the racetrack? An eerie calm — with no roaring car engines, the air was punctuated by the clank of chain on sprockets and the whir of deep section race wheels. As we embarked on our second lap I looked back and noticed the tail end of the group was still snaking through the chicane, while the front had already finished the straightaway. I counted between 10 and 15 guys in Quick Step kits. A few looked like they could pass for Tom Boonen’s domestique, but most did not.
That surge on lap three led to a 45 minutes block of furious racing. Groups got off the front, were reeled back in and went again. Riders got dropped, lapped and then rejoined the group. After 30 minutes the yo-yo snapped on yours truly, and I spun out the back for a breather lap. As I soft pedaled around the track, no less than 10 smaller grupettos sped by. I saw individual pelotons of mountain bikers, women on road bikes, old men clad in day-glo and kids.
Even though they weren’t in the fast and furious main group, these pelotons were racing. All of them. Even the guy on his commuter rig.
By 8 p.m. I was smoked. I had logged more than 50 miles, survived a flurry of attacks and even put in a few digs of my own. The main peloton was beginning to die down, although a few eager souls still poured on the gas.
A thought hit me — in two and a half hours of bicycle chaos, not once did I hear anyone yell, scream or curse. Sure, there were a number of close calls and near disasters. I myself had too many to count. I felt sorry for anyone riding behind me through the chicanes.
But the ride never succumbed to the chippy attitudes I see too often on group rides in the U.S. No one was belittled for not taking a pull. Nobody bellowed “Hold your line!” in the face of some skittish newbie. The infamous attitude of the snobby roadie was nowhere to be seen.
As I spun toward the exit, I saw the Euro guy with the feathery mullet riding alongside a portly old man in a weathered Mapei jacket.
I passed under the sign reading “Welcome to Zolder.”
It had a whole new meaning.
