The hardest race I’ve ever done is the Giro d’Italia 2017, more specifically stage 16 where we did Passo di Mortirolo and Passo dello Stelvio, the latter twice! It felt like a never-ending stage with more than 222 km of racing.
The team asked me to try to hit the breakaway, so I did, and after 50 km of racing I was in the front group of 25 riders. The gap never grew bigger than one minute and when we reached the top of Mortirolo I now found myself in the peloton, which was reduced dramatically already – and that was when I realized that we were yet to climb Stelvio, not once but two times! On Stelvio, I was dropped as result of the extreme pace, so I found my own pace and joined a group of about 15 riders. From here it was one long survival to the finish line, which we found after seven hours of racing. After the stage, my Garmin suggested that I needed 67 hours to recover properly 🙂
…is the funniest rider on the team
I want to answer Pieter Serry, but if that’s not possible, I would say Tim Declercq. He always forgets something on a trip and experiences things others never do. During one period of winter training on the Eddy Merckx track in Ghent he forgot his helmet a handful times so he had to use a rental helmet from the Eddy Merckx track.
But the best thing about Tim Declercq is that he takes everything with a smile and has a lot of good sense of humour.
The craziest thing a DS said in a meeting…
My sports director at Topsport Vlaanderen Walter Planckaert once jokingly said, “If the finish is very close and someone of the team is alone on his way to the finish and you ride in the front of the peloton, leave a gap by missing the next turn and send the peloton another way.”
My pre-race routine is to..
Eat as much as I can! I eat everything! Even all the sweet stuff but I try to keep away from food or products with a lot of fat in it.
Pieter Serry put in a great performance during Strade Bianche to finish ninth. Photo: LaPresse – Ferrari / Paolone
The funniest conversation I’ve had in the middle of a race was with…
We laugh a lot during training rides (when we’re not suffering). But we also make jokes off the bike. When I was neo-pro my teammates decided to play a joke on me, which I didn’t think was so funny at the time. But now we laugh about it.
My teammates filled my suitcase with bottles full of water and hid it under my clothes. They hid it well and I didn’t see it when I closed the suitcase. At the check-in at the airport, the flight company saw that I had 10 kg overweight in my luggage – full of liquid. That was a pretty stressful moment until my teammates told me to open my suitcase…
When I’m suffering up a climb, I think about…
The birth of my son, Maxim, who was born on 9th November last year – or the pain my wife had to go through during the birth!
My first road bike was a…
A Concorde…It was a bike I inherited from a family member. I rode on it one year and just before my first road race I bought a Colnago (the one Mapei rode on).
Header Photo & thumbnail: Sigfrid Eggers
Last modified: Jan 20, 2020
