Koppenberg

The Koppenberg is a notorious climb in The Tour of Flanders/Ronde van Vlaanderen. It has a maximum grade of 25%. I did the Koppenberg Circuit race this past weekend. It's a local race that is on a 3.5 mile circuit with 50% of that being dirt roads. It gets its name from the a similar but not nearly as notorious climb in the race. I think it's maximum grade is only about 17%, not nearly as long, and is made of dirt, not cobbles. The races are held on the same day. Rumor has it that Tom Boonen is afraid of the one here in Colorado.

Of course, here in Colorado the few weeks/months, there hasn't been such a thing as a completely perfect weather day. If it's nice and sunny outside, you can betcha bottom dollar it's going to be windy, and windy it was. Just in case the climb wasn't tough enough, "they" decided to point the wind in the direction that would provide a head wind while climbing. Perfect. I would say it added about 3% to the climb, or so I would like to think.

The race went ok for me. I didn't feel horrible, but I could tell I was at the end of my 2nd period of intensity training. The legs didn't have quite the snap they've had in previous races or rides.

I learned the biggest lesson of this race last year. Get to the front fast. The race starts well before the whistle when jockeying for start line position. I was able to get to the front of the line, and get a good start. I stayed with the front group for most of the race. It was probably about 30 guys (out of 85+ starters) for the first lap, but throughout the race was whittled down. I started having some trouble on the 2nd lap. After the top of the climb, there is a long flat section of dirt road that has a nasty cross to head wind. I was staying toward the back of the group to find shelter from the wind. I saw a guy attack hard over to the left side of the road and decided I would try to get up to him and see what happens. Well in that process, I managed to find a nice stretch of washboard (it is exactly what it sounds like) that slowed me up a lot and isolated me in the wind. I busted my ass to get back up to the group which I finally did on a downhill paved section.

I was able to recover a little on the dirt road section. I made a move to the front of the group for the big climb, but about 1/3 of the way up I found myself in the rut on the left side. I had to get off my bike and run the rest of the hill. By that time, the front group was way too far gone. I got close to them with the help of some other guys, but spent too much energy doing so. The good thing was that I was still able to attack and try to bridge some gaps with that not so fresh feeling (yes that was intentional, ha ha).

I ended up 17th out of 85 finishers. The top 15 finished pretty much together. Without the falter on the hill, I may have been with them. I was a little disappointed, but it was a fun race nonetheless.

The Superior, CO version on the Koppenberg. It's not over at the top of this picture. It goes up for a few more feet after that.

The real deal. These are shots by Graham Watson, and I picked them up here. These pictures were taken several years ago, but from what I can tell, the thing is still just as difficult. Every year it's in the Tour of Flanders, top level PRO cyclists have to hoof it up the thing. You've gotta love Belgium. I drank some Belgium beer on Sunday just to make sure I got the full effect.