Erik Breukink, pictured here on the far right in the 1987 Giro, was on the upswing of what seemed to be very bright future. From a young age, he appeared to be a natural Grand Tour rider, so the Dutch teams he perpetually rode for did what Dutch teams do best, which is heap loads of pressure on an ill-prepared mind, micro-manage the snot out of him, and use a horse blanket to snuf out any remaining embers of potential. To be fair, though, this model is not solely the domain of the Dutch; the Italians, French, and Belgians are all quite adept at this particular talent development technique.
Erik faired better than most Dutch prodigies have since the 80’s; he managed to podium in two Grand Tours – 2nd to Hampsten in the ’88 Giro and 3rd to LeMond in the ’90 Tour – in addition to winning a handful of stages along the way. But more than anything, what distinguishes Breukink from a promising modern rider like Gesink was his ability to keep from falling off and breaking things at critical times.
Erik hit his peak around 1990 when, were it not for a bad day on the slopes of Luz Ardiden, he might have been fighting for the Tour de France win instead of flustering about to get hold of the podium.
Admittedly, this sounds like a suspect track record to qualify as an Awesome Dutch Guy. For the most part, we Dutch hold ourselves to a higher standard of Awesome than getting a few podium spots. Well, sometimes Awesome is more than just your results. Awesome comes without ribbons, it comes without tags, it comes without packages, boxes, or bags. Awesome, it seems, is a little bit more, like wearing a shit-eatin’ grin that can be spotted from the Moon while everyone else in the bunch is being squeegeed through the vents of the hurt locker at the legs of the balding Pedro Muños who is doing a fantastic job demonstrating the Two-Eyed V-Squint.
That, my fellow Velominati, is what Awesome is all about. Case closed.
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@Buck Rogers, @Oli
I was just looking for pictures of him winning the Lac de Vassivière ITT in 1990 where he had the Twin River running down his face. But this photo turned up in the google search instead and I felt compelled to post it.
Breukink in TT mode - a beautiful sight if you can manage not to see his face. Man, I loved that era of funny bike with the 650c front wheel, cowhorn handlebars, and aerobars. Ultimate cool.
And don't even get me started on that aero Record seat pin and Rolls saddle.
Breukink and Jan Gispers in the totally awesome beer-coozie insulation winter jerseys and badass super-high head bands. Rad.
@frank
Must have been difficult with flippers - chapeau
If you say: ''Breukink'', I think: ''Power''.
@frank
Just had to put this up again
@frank
oh Jesus! Sure, blame me for another dirty Schleck love photo op!
Woah, I have one of those older winter jacket/jerseys, picked up used as they were well before my time, and I never thought of them as "beer coozie insulation" but that's exactly what they are! Awesome.
And yeah, that smirk Erik is wearing in the lead photos is great.
On the floating bike island - there appears to be trucks on the bike path, huh? So multi-use/shared or what?
the trucks are there doing either maintenance or cleaning (as a street sweeper). Bike paths in the Netherlands are definitely _not_ multi use except if you consider mopeds multi. in Amsterdam those little Vespa cars (italian) can use bike paths, but they're no bigger than a bike.
Breukink was also an expert analyst and commentator on Dutch TV for the main cycling races. Better in my opinion than another ex pro, Maarten Ducrot, who raced for Kwantum and TVM.