Let the Cobbles Wreck your Bike (Leave your Triple at Home)...Ride two of the gluttonous cycling extravaganza and I've done my best to fully immerse my homies in the language of the cobblestone. I'd give you the minor details of day one (Liege-Bastogne and La Redoute), but that's been covered not so extensively, here and here already. On to day two.
No rest for the weary, should be the standard cliche for those riding the Ronde Van Vlaanderen route. I've ridden all of the climbs associated with the Ronde and they NEVER get any easier, particularly when your gearing bonks on the initial climb of the Oude Kwaremont (thanks to a old cassette/new chain combo.) In case you don't know, the Kwaremont is a 2km cobbled climb maxing out at 11% grade, as a warm-up. But, it's fun, no really it's fun.
Brutality is another association produced when discussing the cobbled climbs of the Ronde. After departing the Kwaremont the race moves in the direction of the world-class, crash when wet, oh my f'ing God what have I gotten myself into, Paterberg. A relatively short cobbled climb measuring 800 meters with a max (cobbled) gradient of 20%...watch your language. I've personally climbed it 4 times and when it's wet it's like trying to dance barefoot on a glass floor covered in baby oil. Still, a classic climb and simply a must do for all serious cyclists.
The Koppenberg is unfriendly. He's a serpent of destruction drawing you to his menacing grin with false hope that you can survive this helligen (dutch word for MFer of a climb.) You MUST be a bad ass cyclist to climb the Koppenberg without stopping and falling over and sliding down hill and taking someone with you. The K'Berg is a beast at 22% on cobbles placed in a pattern similar to 7 drunk monkeys putting together a jigsaw puzzle in a dark basement. It's really a two-part sufferfest with the 22% section dragging you through a tree canopy only to spit you out (just when you think you've finished) onto a 13% finishing ramp to the top. What's that kid, you trying to pass me on your full carbon rig in the small ring of your triple crank? Not today...eat my 39x21, it hurts.
Next up was the Steenbeekdries and it's endless supply of bike-breaking and arm-cracking cobbles. From the perspective of a mostly roadie/part time mountain biker this section is tortuous. On an MTB it would be cake, but on a full road rig it was like riding your bike down a km long escalator, but with more bumps and cars on the escalator. Fortunately for Eric and Paul I took them down the hard section of the SBD...I tried to push them over to the soft side, but they weren't having it. No easy routes for the newly created Belgian Strongmen - Suceurs de roue.
Of significance, but not worthy of posted photos, we crossed the Molenberg the Taainberg and closed the berg session out with the Eikenberg. All of the bergs are hard, but none as hard as the Pater and Koppen. However, the Eikenberg is punishing and long and painful unless you ride the asphalt placed on either side for the sissy pro riders to use during the real Ronde. The Eikenberg is where Eric made his move and was subsequebtly dropped by a resident pro rider known for PED's and illegally holding onto car windows when riding. I'm not naming anyone, but his picture is nearest to this paragraph. The Eikenberg is, how should I say it, merciless and inhumane.
It was great ride with great friends over some of the most classic cycling roads in the world. After visiting Oudenaarde and the closed Ronde Van Vlaanderen museum, we made our way back to the car via a flat stretch and another pounding up the Kwaremont where Steel E dropped me with 20 meters to go (after I gave him a head start of 200 meters and then hammered my way back to him after I crashed into a hornet's nest and was chased by angry trolls and my EPO faded.)
Paul loves the cobbled climbs.
Eric owns them.
Let the Cobbles Wreck the Bikes.
