Harderwijk is one of our favorite locations to ride, a multitude of singletracks and gorgeous views are only 2 reasons and the best reasons to go if you ask me. Also, it’s hardly ever washed out because of heavy rain, so a safe bet in poor weather too.

We have a base-lap of about 32km of mostly singletrack (for real) and we’re hoping to expand to 90km(!), mostly singletrack and great trails, can you believe that? Harderwijk, we never knew!

We’ve got our work cut out for us this winter to find that perfect lap of 90+km trails. But since our 2015 program is taking shape, we now know we’ll need the training-hours anyway.

Stay tuned for 2015 news, it’s going to be awesome!

After Annemieke’s big vacation touring France and Italy, we met up again in juli and took our roadbikes for longer badass trips. During one of our trips in Brabant we ended up pulling to guys towards the endline and they talked about the Liege-Bastogne-Liege from Le Champion in August, it struck a note… can we? Yes… but of course.

We arranged our staring tickets and a hotel near the start. During the night before it rain cats and dogs, we had our doubts but the weather app was adamant: it would be dry after 8:00 (thankfully it was). The city was flooded with LBL cyclists and before we knew it we where ploughing  our way up to the first climb the Côte d’Embourgh (4.8km 4% on average). Côte de Chambralles (1.6km 9% average) has a very steep start, 17% at some part.

Can you believe it?!

Just before the Col de La Roche à frène we caught up with 3 riders that had a wicked pace and we thought we’d see how far we’d get. We kept up with their average of 40-43km/h, shaking our heads with disbelieve and laughing out loud.  We looked at each other “can you believe this?”.

At the start of the Col de La Roche à frène we had to let them go and we continued at our own pace, and preparing mentally for the La Redoute that was getting closer.

We took another short break at the start of the La Redoute, making fun of stretching and getting ready. Someone next to us asked us “triple or compact” and we replied “compact”, he grinned with a slight smuck and took of…  We looked at each other… “wtf?”

Col La Redoute

La Redoute is no piece of cake, don’t know about a triple – a compact with some more strength training is sufficient I suppose- we made it. We struggled a bit, but we made it. The last 20 kilometer had a few steep climbs and a 5km end stretch with head wind. Finishing the LBL made us hungry for more, we pledged to ride more of this type of classics next years and went home tired but happy.

Le Champion organizes great events, good catering and many road marshals, not one crossing was left unattended. Well done guys!

Saturday featured: RAIN! Much like last year, and we made it home before lightning. Sunday was even worse. Annelies and I ventured out anyway and headed toward the Plény and a few runs near the Super Morzine and had run after run on the muddy slopes, laughing our heads of. Our bikes where covered in mud, so much the wheels froze and we couldn’t pick up our bikes because if the added weight.

In the afternoon Annelies had to fly home and Ernies joined me, after a few runs a guy jumped in front of me on the road in Morzine taking a picture. “What a funny guy I thought” and pedaled on but he started to talk to me and I finaly recognized my former team-mates husband in casual clothes. We chatted and I swapped worn out disc pads, so Ernie and I could ride some more to Les Gets and back home, in time for soccer: NED-MEX 😉

In our prep for the Trans Provence we had to arrange our way to and from Nice and it coincided with Annemieke’s vacation. So we arranged it so that her camper was driven to Bédoin, where we’d arrive saturday after the Trans Provence… you may guess why…

When you are in the vicinity of the infamous Mount Ventoux… you just have to attempt to ride this 21 kilometer climb to reach the peak at 1912m. Our road-bikes where in the camper van, we took sunday off to relax. Sleep in, sit by the pool, sleep so more and catch up with loved ones. In the afternoon we took the car up to the peak, just to see what was waiting for us the next day. Now neither of us likes to get up early voluntarily, unless there’s a just cause for it… getting to the top before the heat was a good enough reason to set the alarm to “too early” once again. We coasted on our way to take the obligatory selfie at “Kilomètre 0” and than we where on our way.

I had never done any cols before this, not even smaller ones, so the Mount Ventoux is a giant to get started with. Annemieke kept warning me not to go to fast an pace myself. We had planned to climb the Ventoux from all 3 main departures that day, so we had to preserve our energy.

We started just before 8 in the morning, in the woods it was already very warm, we did well though and we reached the Chalet Reynard without much pain actually. After a short break we continued up, the exposed part of the climb, but we had a sunny day without much wind and big smiles on our faces while we continued on up.

The famous yellow kilometer-signs where telling us we where almost there and we arrived at the top together with a great sense of accomplishment, what a rush is this. Yes flowy downhill trails in Trans Provence-land are fantastic, this is also epic.

The temperature was also epic, at nearly 40-42 degrees we attempted to ride down to Sault, after a short while we gave up. If going down was this hot… coming back up was going to be nearly impossible… We’d had to settle for the one climb from Bédoin and attempt more another time.

We made it!