Beyond Virtuality… The Meet-Ups!

Maybe everybody thinks they were born at exactly the right time, but personally I can make a pretty good case. I can say I remember the 60s (maybe a couple days?), I saw Apocalypse Now! in theaters, and a bunch of other stuff, but all of that is debatable. What is not is that people my age have the healthiest understanding of modern technology, especially the internet. We can remember clearly what life was like before it. [Funny story, I used to play basketball in my friend’s driveway while, I found out much later, his dad was helping to invent the internet, sometimes just 100 feet away in his home office.] We have the pre-internet perspective of how life was, and I’m not just talking about being able to use a rotary phone.

And yet, I was young and childless enough (then) to be able to engage with the ‘net to a reasonable degree, particularly social media. Starting as it did in 2006, the Podium Cafe was populated for a while by people unaccustomed to making online friends. We were the last generation to be suspicious of relationships that didn’t form face-to-face, but as opposed to our parents, we were open to the idea that it wasn’t necessarily a recipe for disaster, on par with picking up hitchhikers at night on the freeway.

So because this is a sports fan community, and a rather civil one compared to the ball sports world, we inevitably started planning in-person gatherings at races. I personally have been at six events where we got organized as a community and had a solid quorum, which are rounded up below. I know other PdC folks have done similar things. And because all of my experiences wound up confirming the real, meat-space-style friendships that I thought I was making online with you guys, I want to spend some time reliving the events we shared. Here we go!

2009 Amgen Tour of California

Background: Being in Seattle is not a great way to connect to pro cycling, at least logistically. You can meet the occasional athlete (hi Tyler Farrar!), but the events themselves are far away in both space and time. For a while, though, the Amgen Tour of California occupied a spot in the World Tour calendar, first as an elite February training stage race, and later as a more intense, but less well attended alternative to the Giro d’Italia in May. And it was a short flight to Seattle.

The Gathering(s): The race moved around a lot, up and down California, a state roughly the size of Italy plus Switzerland, but the time trial was held in the wine country above Santa Barbara, and the next day’s start was nearby(ish), so we plunked down at a bungalow in Los Olivos on the ITT course, and hosted a larger gathering that same night. Sui Juris, Crashdan, Jimbo and I shared the rental house, and I think we even made Crashdan sit on a bike once. Gavia, LyneL, Clydesdale, NikkiCyp, and a few more whose names elude me joined in the fun. This may explain the lack of clearer memories:

Clearly those narrow frames hindered my vision and I had no idea what was happening.

Racing Highlight: It was an ITT, so it was more like a steady stream of fun moments. I guess you could say seeing Lance Armstrong race at a time when it didn’t (yet) make us angry?

Non-Racing Highlight: I could take the high road and say catching a friendly word with Tom Boonen on the startline in Santa Clarita the next day. But if I’m being honest, it’s Sui Juris losing his car keys, touching off some anxious moments, only to find them sitting on the trunk of the car. Glad he chose the white Oldsmobuick and not the red Mustang or whatever passed for a sporty rental option in podunky Saint Babs International Airport back then.

Links: Here is an announcement of festivities and an ITT thread, from Crashdan.

2010 Ronde van Vlaanderen

Background: One of the highlights of my life — which you are really supposed to reserve for family events, but! My brother was with us, we rode the cobbles together, and he met Fabian Cancellara at the baggage claim! So this counts. I arrived a week early to play at being a journalist at the pre-Ronde warmups, and Mr Van P showed up in time for the gathering to get rolling, including riding the Flanders Sportive the day before the big event.

The Gathering(s): Flanders Eve, at the Pub (now called Martiko), right on the Grote Maarkt. Solid turnout including Jens, tedvdw, Jsallee and his friend (forgetting pdc handle) who got the hero photos, Omnevilnihil and his friend Celerity, Mathieu G and friend and their Quebec flag, Albertina (who we rode with that week), and of course Sui Juris. All met for the first time, except for my bro and Sui, and tedvdw if you count sharing a pad starting the night before. Pete and I were late because we rode so goddam slow at the Sportive, in part because we had to hit every warmup hut in between snow flurries. Also the 150k on the old course caught nearly all the cobbles, which I ceased thinking of in purely benign terms. But being cleaned up and dragging our carcasses over to that toasty-warm pub, feasting on stoofvlees, frites and trappist ales, while meeting this group of PdC first-ballot hall of famers… just unforgettable.

Subsequent gatherings the next day in the same spot for the Women’s race departure, the Muur for the rest of the day, the GP Dottignies the next day, and the Scheldeprijs on Wednesday. Probably some other stuff, lost in the fog of time and trappist ales.

Racing Highlight: Take a wild guess. Recall that we are talking 2010.

Non-Racing Highlight: A lot to choose from, but I will go with just sitting at a table in a square on the Vesten, just below the Kapelmuur, with beer service from the adjacent pub, and watching the finale and aftermath on a giant screen, tingling over what we just experienced. What a day. Even better than talking to Cav in the HTC team car as they got stuck behind a truck on the Koppenberg.

Links:

Gathering in the Pub

Race Day Oudenaarde

At the Muur

GP Dottignies

Scheldeprijs

Mark Blacknell

2013 Louisville CX Worlds

Background: Cyclocross had crept into my Flanders-obsessed brain by 2010 — thankfully, as it was a great era in the sport’s history. It started catching on in the US too, with CrossVegas bringing the pros over (ask me about Bart Wellens racing in Seattle!) and the amateur scene catching fire, including my neighborhood race ranking #1 in the world by participation (over 1000 finishers this year!). So while it seemed bonkers on its face, when announced a couple years earlier, that Louisville, Kentucky would host the World Championships at their new, cleverly designed Eva Bandman CX park, by the time the date rolled around it made sense.

And then things did get crazy. Heavy rain and snow swelled the Ohio River beyond its banks, and what seemed like a sweet venue on many levels was scheduled to be submerged on Sunday, when the elite events were set to go off. On Friday, while I was in the middle of a one-on-one interview with Marianne Vos (I know!!), word came down that all four events were happening Saturday, back-to-back, with junior men, open/elite women, U23 menand elite men in what would go down as quite a day for the sport. Unless you ask any fans from Europe who were en route Saturday for the Sunday specials. Somewhere in Belgium, in a Sven Nys Supporters Pub, you can hear people muttering “fuck Louisville!” into their beer.

The Gathering(s): Also bonkers! We rented a large house about 10 miles away, so we could have a great space, even a hot tub! But the snow Thursday made a holy mess of things, and the planned party fizzled. But we had a post-race event close to the event at a place called Sergios, packed to the gills and boasting a huge, Belgium-facing beer list, so it worked out nonetheless.

And of course we were hanging out at the decisive hill location, our PdC banner on display, with Sui Juris, Ant1, Megabeth, Drew, Elvisgoat, his son (future major shredder), and lots of other friends with or without PdC handles.

Racing Highlight: The Women’s race was it. The course started off covered in snow and ice, and the tricky hill was just non-stop action of the slipperiest kind. By the men’s race it had melted, and while still muddy and slick, it was more predictable.

Non-Racing Highlight: Uh, well, with Sunday off and nobody flying out til Monday, we hung out all day drinking (etc.), watching the Super Bowl, and hitting golf balls in the snow.

Links:

Race Day coverage

Sui’s mega-photo gallery

Post event wrap, where I am proud to have typed the sentence Mathieu van der Poel is almost certain to be a guy who, in a decade, we look back and say “I saw him when he was a teenager.

2015 Richmond Road Worlds

Background: Following Louisville, the decision to award the Road Worlds to a middling Southern city was a complete head-scratcher. The Virginia capital had no particular connection to the sport, and we all feared that the terrain would make for dull racing. At least when the Worlds came to Colorado Springs in 1986, the culture and terrain were a clear fit. We didn’t complain though, before, during or after.

The Gathering(s): Having learned from Louisville, the PdC House was all about location, and we ended up in a row house just a block or three from the finishing circuit course. While it ended up being an open house most days, the official PdC event was at the New York Deli, a sprawling indoor/outdoor pub not far from home base with the food and beer list worthy of our crowd. This was perhaps our biggest gathering of all, though as usual I was not sober enough to track something as difficult as a head count, but between the official event and many hours along the 23rd street cobbles it was quite a crew. I can’t possibly name them all, but Crashdan, Jimbo, Sui Juris, Drew, Jens, Megabeth, JSallee and Ant1 were at PdC House, with appearances from many, many PdC regulars: Elvisgoat, Majope, Lyne, Hapagal, (Joy), French Kheldar, … the failure of my memory is a recurring theme in this post.

Racing Highlight: I’ll default to the last race, the Elite Men, with peak crowd energy and the big moves happening on 23rd Street, in view from where we stood.

Non-Racing Highlight: Antoine’s beer handups were a microcosm of the weekend, just easy, awesome fun. Also Jimbo accosted Eddy Merckx on our way back from the pub party and Eddy… let’s just say he has mastered the art at spotting and quickly eluding drunken admirers.

Links:

Kickoff

PdC House

U23 Race

Wrap

2017 Ronde van Vlaanderen

Background: Seven years wiser, we returned to Flanders for a second week of watching and riding. The course had changed to its current iteration, and the internet had brought all the nuances of the Ronse-Kluisbergen-Oudenaarde triangle into our homes. I had been riding my trainer to a video circuit in there, picking up the Koppenberg, Oude Kruisberg, Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg. 2010 was exploration; 2017 was confirmation.

The Gathering(s): I don’t remember declaring any formal thing. Jens rented a spectacular place in Ronse with lots of outdoor space, a giant (working!) hot tub, a walk-in fridge stocked to the gills with beer, all in the heart of the Flemish Ardennes. The party didn’t need any declaring. Drew, Jimbo, Sui Juris, Megabeth and Jens were the regulars, welcoming WillJ, Broerie, Pigeons, Susie H., and my/Drew’s high school friend Paul to the perpetual hot tub.

Racing Highlight: This was another unforgettable Flanders, with the tension of Phiippe Gilbert’s way-too-early attack building steadily from his first Paterberg pass to his last, aided by a huge screen showing the various developments. Gilbert never had much of a gap, which made for 90 minutes or so of nailbiting fun.

Non-Racing Highlight: The riding. Which one… it’s so hard to choose. the options were Broerie’s Secret Ardennes Circuit, Will’s curated West Flanders History Tour, and the Paris-Roubaix sportive. I’ll go with the middle one. Injured Drew was able to trail by car what was our version of Gent-Wevelgem’s history tour that they have pivoted to recently. It was more than a bike ride.

Links:

Jens Kicks It Off

Flanders Day!

After Flanders Notes

The Magic of Flanders by Bike

2022 Fayetteville CX Worlds

Background: Our cup ranneth over. For some reason, without many American athletes, we got another round of ‘Cross worlds, brought to Fayetteville, Arkansas by the Walton family of Walmart fame. They have lavished some of their wealth on cycling causes, and who am I to complain?

The Gathering(s): With kids in the fold, this was more of a family affair. The hanging was by the course.

Racing Highlight: Hard to pick one. The general theme was that the venue, a pretty dreamy network of trails, had a lot of vertical, essentially a big hill that the race course went up and down various ways. But a warm, dry spell made for fast, tight racing.

Non-Racing Highlight: Just a lot of good friend time. Fayetteville is probably fun if you know it, but we didn’t.

Links: Just the race recap.

*****

Please, jump in here with additional details and tales of your own meet-ups with fellow community members. And of course, the Cafe may be stopping but the gatherings will go on! Please stay in touch y’all!