If you’re a fan of the sport, there’s nothing quite like a trip to its Belgian heartland for the full ‘veldrijden’ experience, and its charms may be best outside the crowded holiday period.
Daniel McMahon
Daniel McMahon is a longtime writer, editor and cyclist who has worked for Bicycling, Time, Business Insider and other publications. He’s covered the Tour de France and other road races, but this was his first trip to Europe for cyclocross, and is his first story for Escape Collective.
We all have our own ideas of the perfect vacation, a friend reminded me not long ago. For some it centers on a sunny beach, but for me it usually features bikes. I’ve been fortunate to ride in some of cycling’s meccas, from Marin County to Mallorca and on roads in between, and I’ve covered several Tours de France as a journalist. Yet I’d never scratched the itch and traveled to the world center of cyclocross.
But after breaking my collarbone on a training ride in September, and seeing my own amateur cyclocross season in Chicago end abruptly, I found myself restless with pent-up energy. I wasn’t used to not riding. Long walks helped, a little. I can ride the trainer for only so long. Then one day it just came to me: I’m going to Belgium to watch cyclocross races. It was as simple as that. Finally, a trip I’d dreamed about for years.
Kerstperiode CX gallery, part 2: It’s a Mud, Mud, Mud, Mud World
A bumper festive gallery with star turns from Mathieu van der Poel, Fem van Empel, Wout van Aert and Lucinda Brand among many others.
I didn’t go about things the usual way, though, which is to visit Belgium during the Kerstperiode, or around the holidays, when there’s star-studded cyclocross racing almost daily. Instead, I decided to go in mid-November. My cycling friends gently protested: Go for the Kerstperiode. Namur, Hulst, Diegem, Zonhoven, the legendary races. But I wanted to see exciting racing, I wanted to see group racing, I wanted to see racing before – forgive me – Mathieu, Wout, or Tom turned up. As much as I love seeing those guys do their thing, when they start racing cyclocross, later in the season, it’s all too often a one-man show. I still watch, but it’s not the same.
Clockwise from top left, in Bruges: A scene in the center of town; a bike ride along the canal to Damme; the hard-to-find-but-so-worth-it De Garre tavern; a Tripel van De Garre.
There were other considerations. I was going for nearly a week and a half, and with four days of racing on tap, I’d be left with several days to explore. There’s more to Belgium than bike racing, believe it or not, and I wanted to dive in. Showing up in the off-season has its advantages: fewer tourists, lower prices, easier travel, and a little more breathing room.
On the start grid
I flew into Brussels on a Saturday and took an hour-long train ride straight from the airport to Ghent, the base for my stay. My Airbnb was centrally located and cost me roughly half the high-season price, and was only a 20-minute walk to the Dampoort railway station, which I’d get to know well in the coming week. My attic studio was modest but served up gorgeous sunrise views of Ghent’s skyline and its famous three spires.
I didn’t bother with renting a car, so I got around by public transit. (Uber exists in Belgium, and I used it just a couple of times in a pinch.) The main train app, SNCB, and the tram/bus app, De Lijn, proved hugely helpful for planning my travel and purchasing tickets. Public transit in Belgium is good, but the trains are prone to delays, usually short but sometimes long. One day there were “animals on the track” and on another there was a problem with a bridge we had to cross. I found ticket prices to be affordable, with most of my round-trip day tickets costing around €15.
Even though Belgium is small, train travel takes time, because even a relatively short journey could mean taking two or three trains. If I were to do this trip again with friends, I’d consider renting a car to make the days shorter. Note that the trams to and from races get packed, and you might have to wait for the next tram or the one after that.
Belgian juniors in Middelkerke.
At heart I’m a romantic and I love traveling by train, especially in Europe, because you get to relax and gaze out the window, and mix with the locals. Ahead of my trip I learned some basic Dutch expressions, as it’s the predominant language spoken in Flanders, but still everyone spoke English. Note that most signs and announcements are in Dutch and French, but not English. The conductors graciously explained everything in English the few times I did have questions. Knowing some French helped me in Brussels, where it’s widely spoken.
On this trip I used the Google Translate mobile app for the first time. I didn’t use it much for actual spoken language, but it came in handy for translating signs, plaques, menus, and bits of text in various places. I even used the app to translate a full newspaper article – yes, about cycling – from Dutch to English. And while translation accuracy wasn’t always perfect, it did the job.
CX Euro Champs gallery: An incomplete but intriguing picture of a fledging season
A guide to who’s on form – and what to look forward to – as the cyclocross season begins to simmer.
To get over my jetlag, I pushed myself on Day 1 to move around and stay awake as long as possible. It meant walking around Ghent all afternoon, taking in the historic center with its cobblestone streets, lush canal scenes, and bustling town squares. That weekend was the European Cyclocross Championships, in Middelkerke, out on the coast, and I planned to head there in the morning to see the races on Day 2. But on that Saturday, to my surprise, I couldn’t find a pub showing the Day 1 races on TV. Each place I tried was showing rugby or football. Win some, lose some.
Thibau Nys at the European Championships.Sand, fries and a dance party
Day 2, and after a good night’s sleep and a 45-minute train ride to Ostend, I hopped on a tram to take me along the beach all the way out to Middelkerke, a military base-cum-cyclocross course. As I boarded I saw my first yellow-and-orange X2O duck hats and I knew I was on the right tram. The short walk from the Middelkerke stop to the race entrance got me pumped, as I could begin to hear an announcer in the distance calling the junior men’s race. I was struck by the turnout. There were seemingly thousands of us, walking together, making the pilgrimage to the sacred place. Kids, older folks, families, myriad languages, colorful flags.
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