Around the World with Rowena

EURO TRIPPING: A tale of masquerading as a roadie in Europe

It’s coming to the end of my stint with the Jayco/Ais National Women’s Road Team. I’ve been in Europe since mid March racing with the girls in World Cups and several other UCI Races. It’s been the Classic’s season, the big One Dayer’s, and I’ve been lucky enough to have gotten to experience the 2 biggest women’s Classic’s, Flanders and Fleche Wallone. These are also massive races on the Men’s Pro Tour calander. The great thing about these two events was that we raced the same day as our male counterparts. An estimated crowd of 700,000 (you read correctly) was present at Flanders and racing on the iconic cobble climbs with a massive Belgian crowd was unbelievable. Of course, being a Mountain Biker, I obviously loved the cobbles . Unfortunately, Spratty, our protected rider, had a crash and needed a wheel so I gave her mine and had to wait a few minutes for service (the crash was carnage across the road). Despite chasing hard and bombing the cobble sections, I never saw the bunch again and it was race over for me. Loved every minute of it though and I love the role of working for team-mates, something that doesn’t occur on the MTB.

The AIS cycling base is located in Varese, just near Milan in Italy. It is a bit of a home away from home, and we always head back there for training. After Flanders, we arrived to sunny Varese! Two solid weeks of training, sunshine and possibly some gelato and pizza, were next on the program. Varese is fantastic for training. Good weather, lots of good rides and plenty of climbs. You can whip over into Switzerland which is only 30km away from the base. During out training there I think we rode into Switzerland 5-6 times and waved to Cadel (who lives on the Swiss border) on 3-4 of those occasions. It is totally surreal to wave to you fellow compatriate as you ride along in a foreign country. Especially a yellow, pink and rainbow jersey wearer! It is also common to see Ivan Basso on training rides as well as Mick Rogers, Leigh Howard and Simon Clarke. They all live in the area too. Fair to say it’s a pretty sensational place to live and train.

Post Varese training it was off to Holland and Belgium. Thank goodness we flew rather than the 12 hour drive! The Drenthe 8 and Drenthe World Cup were up next. Holland loves its riding and is known for its flat roads, canals and strong winds (very strong). The World Cup was full on. The crosswinds were howling and although flat, there was a short steep climb (a man-made one over a rubbish tip). It was a constant battle for position on the narrow roads and trying to move team-mates up was hard work. We managed to get two riders in the front group on the last climb but the insanely talented Marianne Vos (a Track, Road and Cyclocross World Champion) won the kick.

Next was Fleche and we were all excited for this as our team-mate, Ruth Corset, is one of the World’s best climbers and the final Mur de Huy is a crazy steep hilltop finish. The whole team was working for her. We didn’t let anything go on the early rises and once on the final 25km loop we were looking good. We had Ruth and two other girls in the front group of 40. The plan was for Ruth to attack on the Mur but with 8km to go she crashed really heavily and was taken to hospital with a suspected fractured pelvis! Fortunately it ended up being bad bruising and the disappointment of the finish was replaced with relief that Ruthie was ok.