Holy Thursday!

And speaking of winter weather in spring jongens...here's some great photos of the 1975 Ghent-Wevelgem.   A little old school throwback to whet your appetite for cycling's holy week.

It was a year very likely before your time - almost 40 years ago.  To me it seems like yesterday though.  Back when racing in wool through winter was just what was done.   No fuss.  

In the end this one was a sprint of greats.   With Freddy Maertens winning the sprint battle in true flahute weather.   From a break of 100% 'flandrien hardmen' (It's safe to include Francesco Moser in that category I'd say!)

The faces say it all.  


 From left:  Gerben Karstens (4th) and Frans Verbeeck (2nd) are so close.   Rik Van Linden (3rd), Marc DeMeyer (5th) and Andre Dierickx (7th) are hidden behind Freddy Maertens.   The '74 World Champion Eddy Merckx on the far right (6th) looks none too happy.  A young Francesco Moser (8th) and Belgian Champion Roger Swerts (9th) are at the back.   Check out the video of the sprint here.


 And how about riding down the Kemmelberg in the snow!  Check out that road.  

If those conditions happened this year, they'd probably have cancelled the race.   Not carbon rim compliant. I may be wrong, but I don't think there was the same general hand-wringing about the weather by the media, organizers and riders back in 1975.   No whining about the cold, snow and rain with these guys.  

Flahute's law:  The amount of rider whinging about bad weather is inversely proportional to the availablity and abundance of modern winter cycling thermal-insulating-high-tech apparel.


Every guy in that break was a champion.   Michel Pollentier is in this picture too, in the hat between Maertens and Moser.  

Those were the days, eh!    Hope we get to enjoy a similar showdown Sunday with a slugfest between Boonen, Cancellara, Sagan, and company.

Comments

  1. Diablo ScottMarch 29, 2013 at 3:51 PM

    This is my hope as well. Boonen realizes he has to do something crazy since he's not 100%, Sagan afraid of going too early and waits too long, and Cancellara afraid of going too late and goes too early.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time tested, old school early season training advice

Image
I just love the article below. I found it on the web years ago. It's a lecture by Dr. Marco Pierfederici, a trainer who used to work with Eddy Merckx and Italian pro teams back in the ’70 and ‘80s. He delivered this talk at a training camp in Miami organized by a long-gone business called 'Italia Velo Sport'. They imported Battaglin and Francesco Moser frames, Campagnolo and Gipiemme components and other Italian clothing and gear. This innovative, early discount mail order company brought champion Francesco Moser to a winter camp with US amateurs in 1982, and then brought over Giovanni Battaglin and his teammates, I believe in early 1983. The pros spent the days logging early season easy miles with starry-eyed US amateurs, and spent evenings giving clinics to imparting old world 'knowledge'. An old friend and CCB teammate Rick Graham attended that camp. A few weeks later as we were tapping out the miles around Gloucester Mass., I remember Rick talking ab
Read more

Benotto dreams...

Image
Before the US National Road Race Championship, August 1982. Hard to believe now jongens , but once upon a time I could sprint a bike through a crowd fast enough that somebody actually saw fit to sponsor me. It's a faded memory I needed to keep drawing upon several times this past season... Way back in 1981 I was recruited by Constantin Negulescu to join his Northstar Bicycle Club.  The ex-Romanian national team rider had put together an elite US Amateur team, sponsored by a slate of leading Italian cycling brands:  Bicicletas Benotto, Gipiemme components, Ambrosio rims, Hutchinson tires and IscaSella Saddles.   With the exception of Hutchinson (who still makes killer tubeless tires... raced this whole season on one pair), most are brands either dead, or largely missing in action.  But back in '82, well, it was the perfect gear. "Good enough for Roger DeVlaeminck or Moser, good enough for you!" Talk about Christmas morning... I can still remember being in
Read more

Lost races of the Northeast: Le Tour de la Gaspésie

Image
Ever wonder what it's really like to ride a Tour? C'mon, admit it.  Most of us amateurs, from the time we first stomp on pedals in anger, from that first adrenaline rush riding in a peloton, that sound of whirring chains and wind, incubates a dream of riding a ' Tour '.   A real stage race, one longer than the 3 or 4 day long weekend versions available nowadays.  A race with  commissaires,  run from town to town in a place where the road signs are in a foreign language.  A race with stages measured in kilometers, one where words like revitaillement, grimpeur,  hors-delai and  voiture balai  are quickly added to your daily vocabulary. Back in the 1980 and '81, if you were a New England based Cat 1 or 2 rider longing to ride a Tour, you basically had two options:  Get selected for the internationally known Coors Classic in Colorado, or work your way onto a team doing Québec's Tour de la Gaspésie.   While I had neither the talent nor the  palmares for the form
Read more