Puck Pieterse is in her off-season after a long year of road and mountain biking, and she has not made any plans yet for her cyclocross winter. That I understand. Neither have I, and I did not even have the season.
What stops me is what she says about Fem van Empel’s comeback. “I maybe didn’t expect to see her back so ‘quickly’, but I had had a bit of contact with her,” she told WielerFlits. And then: “I had seen a few photos go by on Snapchat, so I already thought: well, she’s on her bike quite often.”
A few photos. And a rider notices that someone is on her bike quite often. That is all, and it is already more than I get. Me, I post my ride every Sunday from the square in Lasne, setting off at twenty past nine, with the average speed, the climbing and a coffee at the summit as the closing photo. Nobody has ever noticed anything. My brother-in-law gives a thumbs-up, sometimes.
Van Empel, for her part, terminated her contract at Visma | Lease a Bike earlier this year, joined FDJ United-SUEZ in mid-September, the team of Demi Vollering and Lars Boom, and made her official return at Meulebeke in mid-October: fourth. Last weekend at Heerde: fifth. Quite often on her bike, then, and back quicker than expected.
I went back through my own photos from the summer. The Kwaremont (the cobbled climb of the Tour of Flanders) with the backpack, the red light in Oudenaarde taken as a selfie because I had the time, it was red. Take off the backpack, the light and the café, and what is left is a 47-year-old man posing in front of a sign. Van Empel, with a few snaps, got noticed by Puck Pieterse. Me, with ten years of snaps, I got my brother-in-law’s thumb.
Your photos, Xavier, all I can see is the chain. It is dry, mind you.
At the café, I showed my latest segment. We talked about the weather.
It’s true, we checked: WielerFlits.
