Thursday Thoughts: Belgians

This year’s edition of the vaunted French pharmaceutical and bicycling extravaganza starts on Saturday.  That will be the “prologue” stage.  It’s being held in Belgium.  The stage will be a typically Belgian “suffer party.”  It starts out flat, but coastal.  Coastal rides in Belgium are flat, windy, and likely to be chilly and rainy.  (Punish the climbers.)  It’s a long stage, 191.5 km, about 119 miles.  Then it turns inland and starts climbing.  (Punish the sprinters.)  It will take a hardman to finish this one close to the front.

I like that about he Belgians.  They don’t avoid tough stuff.  Instead they seem to seek it out.  They are, generally speaking, fanatic cyclists, and purists.  (Long time readers will remember my friend Johann.  He’s an occasional contributor to this blog and very much a Belgian.)

Belgium is a country about twice the size of the state of Connecticut.  It has a population of 11 million.  Every day close to 4 million Belgians ride their bicycles to work, to the market, and for simple pleasure.  That is 36.4% of their population.  (NOTE:  Belgium is in northern Europe.  The weather there is not that nice!)  If an equivalent portion of the US population used their bicycles every day, 127.3 million of us would be riding.  In fact, we have only about 2 million regular cyclists, and most of them don’t use their bikes for any kind of utility activity.

My friend Johann is a fairly typical Belgian sports cyclist.  He is 5’7” tall, and weighs 170 pounds (1.7 meters, 77.3 Kg).  He can bench press a pickup truck.  His daily commute is 31 miles.  One way.

You may have seen Johann at any number of the local group rides.  He doesn’t talk much.  He always arrives early.  He stands quietly over his bike until ride time.  At the beginning of the ride he sits in, riding with calm assurance.  Once the group leaves town he moves carefully up to the front, and then simply rides away.  He always completes the entire ride, and is usually the first or second to arrive back at the start point.  He shakes hands with anyone who is present then, and then simply rides off to go home.

Johann has one very interesting talent.  I’ve seen this on any number of occasions.  He likes to ride in bad weather.  On a really nasty day, Johann looks as wet and muddy as anyone else, and yet his bicycle looks showroom clean.  At the end of the ride, he will look as mud-caked, wet, and gritty (but somehow never disheveled) as anyone else.  He will exhibit a stoicism about this, and a level of enthusiasm for it.  He enjoys it.  Then, ten minutes after the ride, his appearance has changed.  He is somehow clean, dry, and fresh.  I don’t know how he does this.  It’s a Belgian thing.