Today I participated in the Granfondo Steven Rooks Classic for the first time.
It is traditionally on Ascension Day – last year it fell a lot earlier in the year and the weather sucked.
It has been beautiful for weeks now – only during the Hell of the Mergelland did I end up with water in my shoes – and today, too, it was beautiful weather for cycling.
I prudently registered for ‘only’ 110 km which turned out to be 118 km anyway due to problems at Herve.
But it was a) just 3 days after my double trip last weekend and b) Saturday the next Vacansoleil 4 Challenge awaits, which will most likely involve crippling winds again…
We had already collected my bib-tag on Wednesday and we had even booked a hotel in nearby Berg en Terblijt.
That saved me having to drive back and forth on the same day and a lot of traffic jam misery in the morning.
Moreover, we had a delicious meal at La Casa in Valkenburg 🙂
Around 8:40, I was ready at the start and I was allowed to continue straight away – the start was in blocks and I fell into the 8:30 – 8:45 block.
After some wanderings south-east of Maastricht – with the mandatory climbs and passage through Moerslag – we headed towards Belgium.
The more serious challenges were to be found there, but I honestly believed at times that the real challenges were being avoided.
Most important climbs today were the Côte de Foret, Les Waides, the Côte de Hallembaye and the Thier a la Tombe.
The other intermediate climbs have no names on the route map…
A somewhat disappointing elevation gain for the day – probably partly due to a forced adjustment to the route, because there are beautiful cols in the municipality of Herve, which we avoided.
Despite that, the excellently organized tour, supervised by countless volunteers, was challenging, especially with a still irritated/painful lower back.
By the way, it was near comical that we had to stop at one point, because we crossed the route and those who started later came from the right, while we had to go straight.
A nice dilemma, as neither road had priority, right would get priority. That would mean we could have waited for a long time…
In the end, the traffic controller made us wait for a minute or two and then cleared the crossing for us…
For me it was a successful event, by MIR (Sports Marketing), with the help of many volunteers.
It was probably fun at the MECC for a long time, but because I arrived quite early and never linger (for long) anyway, I didn’t experience any of that.
Mirjam & Co. Thank you!
The Polar recorded:
118.3 km
Net trip time 3:58
1,425 elevation meters (that’s disappointing)
18% maximum
I ended 38th overall in the 110 km classification (1,895 participants registered) – in total I spent almost 30 minutes at the rest stops. The 1st was indeed time consuming because of the crowds and took about 20 minutes, the 2nd was almost deserted and it went a lot faster there.
On Les Waides, despite my ‘handicap’, I reached the summit 2:30 minutes faster than during the “Hell”: 7:35 against 10:05 – but that was early in the season and I was already soaking wet and numb 🙂
