Holy Week

ArtCrank 2009 poster from Twinsix www.twinsix.com/gear/gear_t609p02.htm

Holy Week began yesterday. Depending upon your view of the cycling universe ie., from an Italian or Belgian perspective the season could have begun back with MSR. Certainly this year's version of Milan san Remo got my blood boiling. Anything and everything related to Mark Cavendish gets me going...that man is the bomb right now. His victory at MSR was insane. Doesn't hurt that he is a small man that wields a big stick among giants....

But for sheer unadulterated worship and reverence nothing beats the week beginning with Flanders or Rhonde and ending with Paris-Roubaix. Fear of a Belgian planet I don't think so. Revering the Belgians resonates with us from New England for so many reasons. Riding in and around Boston and its suburbs is hard. The roads are crap, the drivers are constantly trying to kill you and the weather is brutal. It either hardens you up or spits you out for more humane recreational pursuits like lawn bowling or beer league softball. Trying to emulate the style and panache of Italian riders while living here would be sheer folly. There is a reason we horde embrocation and covet shoe warmers and fetishize cycling caps and wool. I for one refuse to hide indoors on a gerbal wheel when the weather turns ugly. 

I am not a road racer. I am doing a road race in two weeks. For me it is an opportunity to suffer in a form of mass communion with my  breathren. My plan is to work as hard as humanly possible to spring a Noir clad viking or two on their path to glory. It will make me a harder tougher cross racer in a few short months. This I am positive. Road racer? No I don't think so. But a lover of all things to do with the Spring Classics. Oh yes...