The HG Cross Dendermonde opens the cyclo-cross season over here, at Grembergen, and for the first time it is no longer a World Cup round. Jurgen Mettepenningen asked Mario De Clercq to redraw the course, the finish has moved from the Hamsesteenweg to the Compost Vermeiren grounds, and the sand slope we used to go down, we now go up, on foot.
I read that on WielerFlits with a coffee, at the kitchen table in Ronse, and the first thing I thought of was not the first man to the top of the slope. It was the fifteenth. The one walking up behind everybody, bike on his shoulder, who won’t be on television because the camera will already have gone back to the front. At the front, I couldn’t tell you. At the back, I can: when you walk, you talk. A little. Not much, you haven’t got the breath.
WielerFlits recalls that in 2020, at the first edition, Wout van Aert and others walked a good part of the lap. That I find fair. For once everybody is at the same pace, the pace of shoes. And last year there was a big semi-sprint, Thibau Nys against Tibor Del Grosso, Laurens Sweeck third. We saw the duel. We did not see the tenth man of that semi-sprint. What he did, I can’t tell you, the camera was at the front, and I was in front of my screen as well, so I saw what it wanted me to see.
The forecast is dry, up to 15 degrees. No mud, no compulsory hot soup. We will be fine at the barrier, watching the ones who carry their bikes.
I have the Koppenberg segment on foot. With the backpack. We can talk about it.
And there are 100 kilos of mussels at stake, for the front. For the one walking at the back, there will be the coffee, once the podium has been taken down. A coffee has to be earned too.
It’s true, we checked: WielerFlits.
