Awesome Belgian Guys: Edwig Van Hooydonk
It was Frank’s recent post that started all this. Mentioning Breukink always makes me think of my friend’s saying, “I have a Breukink in my Van Hooydonk” as his excuse for coming up short on a long training ride. Maybe that’s only funny during a long training ride. That phrase put me back onto Van Hooydonk, a rider I admired because he was so damn tall. The bike is a great equalizer: though there may be an ideal size rider, people like Van Hooydonk prove the exception, unless you are too fat to climb. Edwig rode a steel Colnago and this fact is what put a Colnago at the top of the other recent post. But Edwig’s Colnago was unusual. He was tall and whippy but didn’t want a tall and whippy ride so he used a smaller frame and put a giant spacer above the head tube to get his stem and handlebars up to the correct height. Now a sloping top tube might be the solution but back in days of hairnets, all frames were still the standard double diamond geometry. But his story is relevant to recent doping news so it’s a good time to tie it all together.
Edwig was born near Antwerp, Belgium. The tall lanky red head won the U-23 Ronde van Vlaanderen, something monumental for a young Flemish racer. We saw this race go by in the Keepers Tour 2012 and it might as well have been the real professionals. These guys were so strong and fast. Three years later he crossed the finish line in tears as he soloed to his first of two professional Ronde victories. The pressure of being the next Eddy must be hung on every young Belgian who wins the Ronde and he was no exception. He earned the name Boss of the Bosberg after winning his second Ronde by lighting it up on the final climb of the race. He was an adept Classics rider at the heights of his powers when EPO, then legal, began changing the landscape of professional racing. Drugs and bike racing have been conjoined twins for who knows how long, but the use of EPO to raise red blood cell concentration to sometimes fatal levels in the early 1990s was a quantum change.
Another reason I admire Van Hooydonk was his decision to retire early rather than jump on the EPO train as it was leaving the station. As an American I can’t produce the fitting analogy for what it must have meant for Van Hooydonk to be a top Belgian cyclists with the fame and possible financial rewards, yet he stops and gets off the bike. One either rationalizes doping to keep up; everyone is doing it. Or one says that’s cheating, that’s not racing, I’m not going to participate.
The spectator’s attitude about doping in cycling covers the spectrum. Some think it doesn’t really matter as it produces exciting, stupendous racing. Some are still convinced everyone is doping in 2012 and if everyone is doping maybe it’s a level playing field. Personally, I see it in nearly black and white terms. I’ve always felt it’s cheating and unacceptable. I believe teams like Garmin are totally clean and Ryder just proved a Grand Tour can be won without drugs. For riders, if it’s cheating and you don’t want to participate anymore you retire, like Vaughters and Van Hoodyonk. But these guys are one part of the doping equation we don’t think about. When you retire you are off the radar screen, a has-been, you have moved on. But a few people like Vaughters and Van Hooydonk retired early, not as they ever intended, more because they were not going to race on those terms. I think these guys deserve some respect, certainly more than the riders who so easily stepped on the train. My apologies for once again bringing up the doping subject on Velominati but it’s always there. It is a hard subject to avoid.
A little video of 1989 Ronde, run in good old fashion Belgian spring weather. Think Spring Classics Keepers Tour 2013, this could be you!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-o9AdhJVug&feature=related[/youtube]
I don’t know a word of Flemish but to watch his face enough. Here is a proud man who is still angry and disappointed.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y40UjVlRAWg[/youtube]
Great article, I had never heard of him so it is great to read about this guys…
Good to show some 3TTT love for Edwig!
Nice Article
I like to think there were a number of top riders who could have gone on for longer but chose not to battle the EPO era.
Van Hooydonk was an inspiration to me. As a gangly 195 cm rider I used his colnago idea to build up my own bike. The colnago didn’t have spacers as such, they actually built an extension onto the seat tube and top tube withColumbustubing. I had something similar built for me in theUKand I raced against a couple of other chaps with similar ideas. I still have the frame (Columbus SL with an SP rear triangle) waiting to be rebuilt one day. The problem is these days I find that I ride better with a 4 cm lower saddle height so I don’t need such a big frame (64cm with 3 cm extensions) but I can’t face selling it as to me it’s a big part of my youth.
These days Gianni is right, we tall folk just buy a bike with a bigger head tube and slam in a long seat post.
I still view the superconfex colnago of 88/89 as the best looking bike – graced with C record what was not to love. Does anyone know how tall he actually was and how big his bike was?
Nice Article
I like to think there were a number of top riders who could have gone on for longer but chose not to battle the EPO era.
Van Hooydonk was an inspiration to me. As a gangly 195 cm rider I used his colnago idea to build up my own bike. The colnago didn’t have spacers as such, they actually built an extension onto the seat tube and top tube withColumbustubing. I had something similar built for me in theUKand I raced against a couple of other chaps with similar ideas. I still have the frame (Columbus SL with an SP rear triangle) waiting to be rebuilt one day. The problem is these days I find that I ride better with a 4 cm lower saddle height so I don’t need such a big frame (64cm with 3 cm extensions) but I can’t face selling it as to me it’s a big part of my youth.
These days Gianni is right, we tall folk just buy a bike with a bigger head tube and slam in a long seat post.
I still view the superconfex colnago of 88/89 as the best looking bike – graced with C record what was not to love. Does anyone know how tall he actually was and how big his bike was?
This fits absolutely nowhere so here is as good a place as any… if you DON’T want to see the Green Edge team jumping on the bandwagon of doing a cover of Call Me Maybe then you had best avoid it.
But there are some parts that are pretty cool – especially where they have guys riding past in the peloton doing little snippets, and on the podium too.
And I have to add Daniel Teklahamaywhatsit is pretty easy on the eye – he must pull a few podium girls.
@ChrisO I enjoyed that. and I would take a massage from that blonde any day.
@ChrisO You came close to getting a yellow card for that stunt. But it was highly amusing so I’ll withhold. I like Julian Dean’s sign in there too.
@Simon Frans Masssen and GIles Delion were mentioned by Edwig as other riders on his team that may have bailed. Early on there were a number of deaths of young cyclists, some of them Dutch that must have been linked to EPO. I think Jan Raas, the team director may have smartly warned some of his riders this crap was dangerous.
“I still view the superconfex colnago of 88/89 as the best looking bike – graced with C record what was not to love.” Yeah, you are onto something there.
Maybe that was a chrome head tube extension I was always seeing on his bike. That makes more sense and Ernesto Colnago wouldn’t let a rider like him ride around with a fist full of spacers.
@ChrisO
And suddenly, the Gangnam Style video looks really really good!
@Duende
I’m happy to see the Chinese are going down the tubes with the rest of us.
As a 197cm skinny young rider growing up in the late eighties and early nineties, it was great to look up to Van Hooydonck (alongside Steven Rooks and Gert-Jan Theunisse, although those gentlemen didn’t have as enlightened a view of doping as Van Hooydonk did). I loved LeMond, but he was just too… short… to visualize riding in the style of.
I never heard that he’d chosen to retire rather than dope. That’s awesome. I wish I’d known it at the time.
But! Did young Edwig earn those rainbow stripes? I can’t find any mention of him bagging a world championship. I can’t imagine that he’d wear them if he hadn’t earned them, nor that is DS would let him, but when did he win a worlds?
@Duende What. The. Fuck.
During the first seconds you can see a young Gianni Bugno in the red, wite and black Chateau d’Ax kit. One of the best rider ever.
@Pedale.Forchetta
You are singing my song Pedale, my name sake, Gianni Bugno. It’s good he was lining up for a fine wet spring classic like this. And went on to beat Museeuw to win it himself eventually. He is the best.
@cognition
It is funny that all us tall riders gravitated toward tall racers to look up to. Do all riders do that? I don’t have an answer for the rainbow stripes.
Ahah! I have just discovered that I have a soft spot for the Team Orica GreenEdge!
@Fausto
you mean you missed this?it hit hard a couple weeks ago
@Gianni
Korean.
@cognition He must have won a junior, track or amateur World Championships; in those days if you’d won any World title you were entitled to wear the rainbow bands on your kit – it was only later in the 90s (or maybe early 2000s) that the regs changed to say a rider could only wear the bands in the discipline he won them in.
@Chris ooops.
@Gianni , @all
Great article, Gianni. FYI, and for the curious among you: Here’s a (rough) transcript of what’s being said in the interview:
EVH: It was also happening in the semi-classic races – where you had a sense of: “Hmmm… what’s going on here?”
Interviewer (IVW) But, intrinsically, that shouldn’t be possible on a ‘natural’ basis, then – at the age of 26?
EVH: No, normally, that shouldn’t be happening. Your best years are supposed to be ahead of you, right? When you’re 26? Riders who are 26 years old and are already ‘past their peak’ or ‘fading’, that’s… that’s abnormal, right?
IVW: you already expressed your doubts in public after the Flêche Wallone of 1994, I think… Had you heard about EPO at that time, in ’94?
EVH: Well, yes, there was talk about it in the peloton… yes…
IVW: But you didn’t want any of it?
EVH: No… no, I considered it cheating. For me, this sport, it had always been a matter of: eat well, sleep well, train properly, and win the race on the basis of natural talent. I cannot understand a rider who, upon winning a race while being filled to the gills with EPO or Testeron (sic) – it wasn’t just EPO at the time… who actually has the nerve to raise his arm(s) while crossing the finish line, and stand there on the podium, and all that… I just don’t get it
IVW: How long did it take you to come to terms with that – or perhaps I should say: to realize that you could not accept it?
EVH: Well – I never really accepted it, I think. I don’t talk about it all that often, you know? But I’m actually still angry about it. What they have taken away from me at the time – races I should and could have won, the money…
In fact, the money is not the biggest issue – but I feel that my wins -(or: what could have been my wins)- have been stolen from me. And I can still get angry about that… End.
@ErikdR
Thanks Erik, that is very helpful and interesting. And funny how much came through with no language. Faces don’t lie. Edwig is a good man. I agree with.
@Gianni
Cheers… What also fascinates me – and freaks me out, to be honest – is that they seem to be referring to the fact that riders who ‘overcooked’ on doping, apparently, were completely buggered and, basically, out of the game, by the time they were 26 years old or thereabout. That is a scary concept, no? (this from someone who is a tiny bit more than twice that age right now… sheesh…)
What year did Super Confex move over to Suntour?
And what was the name that Colnago gave to the large frames with the extended head and seat tube? I’m having a senior moment and can’t remember for the life of me…
@Unica
Late 1980’s and Master off the top of my head…
@Gianni
I’m 6’1″ and back when I was first starting it was all about Thor because I was close to his weight (although mine was not so much muscle), now I like Froome a lot, except his attacking while climbing style of throwing the bike around.
” “I have a Breukink in my Van Hooydonk” as his excuse for coming up short on a long training ride. Maybe that’s only funny during a long training ride. ” Nope – it’s funny when sitting at a desk looking at a screen, too.
Great article, Gianni – and also great translation service, @ErikdR. Thanks, both. Been away snowboarding for ten days – an excellent article to come back to (and much better than contemplating my continuing fall down the VSP leaderboard).
I agree with Gianni, EVH et al – doping is cheating. I admire the men principled enough to retire rather than be part of it (or, in Turleneck’s case, continue to be part of it any longer). THAT is Rule V. (Cue flame from Brett …)
Nicely done Gianni. I always admired VH.
@ChrisO
I could have gone my whole life without seeing that.
@Duende
Holy Merckx’s ball sack on a crutch. WTF did I just watch? Gonna have to make a therapy appointment tomorrow. Dr. Katz on speed dial.
@Unica
Those larger Colnago frames are called Freuler geometry, after Swiss rider Urs Freuler.
Gianni, it’s great to see the racing back in the day and old friends(I mean I wish they had been friends of mine….) Kelly, Phil etc.and now I know the year for the cut off if I want to reminisce sans doping! Thanks as always for the good write up.
@RondeVan
!! Holey shiet. The Freuler Geometry?! I never knew. cheers, Mr RondeVan. Wiscot, cue the Freuler guest article. man the mustache machine.
@G’phant
Welcome back. Happy to hear that is amusing to someone else.
That Superconfex kit is pimp.
@Gianni
That must be an imposter. The bar angle is all wrong, and more significantly, Urs’s inner ring was only to make us mortals feel better about ourselves, not for actual use.
@Gianni
“First I do bike race, then I do porno”. Remember, cycling alone didn’t pay the bills back then.
@scaler911 +1 perfect
@Gianni
Th
@RondeVan
Been admiring this on my nightly swim in the bay ( 64 cm):
Wasn’t this the guy that invented the 3/4 bib? Is that a Rule #82violation or not, never sure? But anti-doper and trend setter not a bad combination!
@scaler911
I’m sending in an article on Herr Freuler. Superstud of the 80s.
Back to EvH – LOVE that black sweater he’s wearing – I have a similer La Vie Claire one. Also nice to see that at the end of the race he gets a proper cycling cap put upon his head.
EVH played a part in the P-R breakaway that saw Planckaet edge Steve Bauer. That still guts me.
While Bauer was much older when he retired in ’97, he too was completely “outclassed” by the EPO generation. It is frustrating when one thinks about the loss of talent and V at the start of the EPO era. Le Man, Big Mig, Bauer, EVH, Hampsten, etc…
grrrr, I have a picture of Alex Stieda from last weekend still looking lean and mean, and of course I can’t figure out how to post it. Off to the help…
@RedRanger Yup. Not sure how I missed it, but I did. Unusual as there’s umpteen people that normally send me this sort of weirdness!
@Gianni Roll’in JFT style…
@scaler911 There’s precedent for the duality of roles. Rider by day and Ride-her by night.
@Duende
I’ll tell you one thing, the Flandria team of the 70s (Maertens, Kelly, Pollentier and DeMeyer) wouldn’t do that shit. Can’t see the Molteni boys doing it either. I believe their response would have been along the lines of HTFU.
@Gianni
I always considered Giles to be a classic EPOer. Maybe I was wrong.
The Boss was just too awesome. Great piece mate!
@Simon
@Gianni
@cognition
HEYELYEAH tall riders love tall riders. Shit, we’re such oddities in the world as it is, there are few pleasure greater than watching one of our head-slamming-into-the-house-rafters ilk dominate the world which in most ways has forgotten we exist when it comes to clothing, buildings, and tunneling.
Tall riders are like a mustache with titties.
Something seriously fucked up is happening on the other side of the world from me with Aussie cycling and this Kim Jung Il video. At least, as an American, I can relate to Jungle Commando. His and Frueli’s ‘tash are the only things keeping me grounded through all this nonsense. I pray for you ChrisO. First the sidewalk and now this.
Great article Gianni. We’ve ridden those roads and will again. And the only juice we’ll be on is the malted variety. I wouldnt trade riding those bergs with my mates for all the EPO laced fame, money, and pussy in the world. (unless I knew id get away with it) It’s nice to think of guys like Ryder being the VH’s of today.
Wait till Jens releases his cover of Beyonce’s Countdown – I can’t say too much but it’s mind-altering.
Anyway, back to the OP, which is great… and there are a couple of timely articles on CN that are worth looking at along similar lines, especially for anyone who thinks even the Armstrong thing is just raking up ancient history.
One on Jorg Jaschke, winner of Paris Nice who was busted and talked too much and was then dumped on by the UCI and totally frozen out by all the pro teams – this was three years ago. And an interesting interview with Johnny Weltz about Hamilton’s allegations around Bjarne Riis.
This is all still going on and I hope Armstrong is just the straw man that brings down the corruption and Omerta culture in the UCI and the pro teams. If not, then there are Van Hooydonks still to come.
@ChrisO
That does it. No Aussie has any credibility left. Done. Spent. Its all over. You guys have to win like 2 and 4/7ths of a Tour de France and at least 8/17ths of a Giro before you’re back to Positive Credibility.
This hurts especially because I always thought of the Land Down Under as the Land of Plenty, but it turns out that was always just Las Vegas.
@Gianni
Yeah! I’d like it noted that the Kiwi on their team had zero tolerance for that shit.
@ChrisO
I spent this morning reading these too. Really liked Jorg’s quote:
“Ask me who isn’t part of the problem. That would be a much shorter list,” he says.
And Carlos Satre in the Arvesen article:
Asked if Riis had ever introduced him to Fuentes, Sastre said, “I did not go over the bridge.”
@frank fuck you Frank. There arent just Australians in that clip. What about Daniel TWhatshisface? I guess we just all look the same to people like you.
What about your US swimmers? They did the same thing and i watched the whole of it in the vain hope of Natalie Coughlin making an appearance. Your swimmers do that. Australian swimmers tweet photos of themselves like this.