Velominati Super Prestige: Gent-Wevelgem

Riders hoof it up the Kemmelberg

Rain. Cobbles. Bergs. Professional cyclists reduced to mortals who clammer up steep, slick cobbled grades on shoes not made for walking. Gent-Wevelgem is the teaser for the month of April, when the hardmen come to play on the stones of Belgium and Northern France. Personally, I liked it better when it was sandwiched between the two greatest one-day races of the year, De Ronde and Roubaix. On the other hand, Gent has been the Classic’s bridesmaid for long enough and deserves its own weekend, even if that still makes it a warm-up race to be won by someone who’s not enough weeks away from peaking.

The Flemish word for “hill” is “berg”, and to ask any cyclist who doesn’t live there, they’ll tell you Flanders is rife with them. The truth is that most of Flanders is quite flat, save for a ridge which calls itself home to some of the most fearsome cobbled climbs in the world. Among these is de Kemmelberg, which features as the primary obstacle for Gent Wevelgem. Steep and cobbled, on a dry day it serves as the decisive climb on the finishing circuit of three laps; on a rainy day it will reap havoc on the field.

With that, we kick off the second edition of the 2011 Velominati Super Prestige for Gent-Wevelgem. Like La Primavera, Gent is enough of a wild-card that this is a tough race to call. It rarely ends in a bunch gallop, but it’s not difficult enough to eliminate sprinters from the finale. The riders targeting Flanders or Roubaix will not quite be peaking yet, but the race isn’t so difficult that a rider two weeks from peaking can’t win. Our advice? Go with the gut, and try to pick people who are actually starting.

The winner of this VSP edition will earn an “Obey the Rules” bumper sticker and all reader’s points qualify towards the final prize of the free personalized Velominati Shop Apron. This year we’ve enhanced the entry mechanism; if you are inclined to enter, simply post your predictions for the top five placings in the designated area above the posts section, bearing in mind that entry/modification of picks closes at 5am Pacific time on the day of the race. Check the Super-Prestige main page for rules and scoring information.

Good luck.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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View Comments

frank says:

Mar 27 2011 at 6:44 pm

@all
Wow, what a weekend, eh? The two big names from last year have fired off the flares. Should be a great two weeks!

Here is the VSP G.C., which I forgot to post before in my haste:

[vsp_gc]

[/vsp_gc]

Congrats, Buck! You look great!

@Rob and @ben
The Vuelta and the Tour had the same color points jerseys, but I'll make the colors different so you can tell the difference a bit easier. Thanks.
frank says:

Mar 27 2011 at 6:51 pm

@minion

Schadenfreude: noun That unique pleasure found in the fact that Mark Cavendish has crashed more than he's won this season. And that Mark's newfound ability to scrub the tarmac coincides with the reunion of Tom Boonen and Gert Steegmans into a well performing sprint train consisting of 2 men. See also: Schadendouche or Cavenfreude.

Has anyone noticed that both he and Thor are looking a bit heavy? I'm actually starting to feel bad for Cav he's crashing so much. There has to be a measurable amount Cavendouche biomass on the tarmac in all the various races he's been crashing in.

@ZachOlson
What a training regimen! 280km that hard...incredible. No wonder his leggs look like that.
Nate says:

Mar 27 2011 at 7:04 pm

@Marcus
A-Merckx. The two with the biggest baddest guns served notice this weekend. Bring on de Ronde!
RedRanger says:

Mar 27 2011 at 7:11 pm

I am more than a little surprised I am doing so well in the VSP considering I didnt start watching cycling till Le Tour last year. cant wait till Sunday(I dont even have to work that day)
minion says:

Mar 27 2011 at 7:45 pm

Yeah, schade is German slang for shame, as in 'oh, that's a shame', and the freude has the same root as friend, so there is some empathy or kind consideration to the word as I understand it in German. The pleasure in someone else's misfortune is still there, but it's a tricky one to translate for sure.
Last year I was getting a little worn out of his bragaddacio, but at teh Commonwealth Games he rode for teammates from the Isle of Man and put a good dig in for at best continental riders, knowing the course would slay him. Props for that, and he is learning a bitof humility (the hard way) this year. Still have dollars on himfor the tour but.
Buck Rogers says:

Mar 27 2011 at 7:53 pm

@frank
Thanks Frank! Yeah, lucky picks today but I feel so good for Boonen having won. It's been a while since he won a cobbled race. A lot of podiums but no pave wins since '09, I think. Also, is this his first Gent-Wevelgem win? If so, that pretty much rounds out all of the pave races for him, doesn't it?

Should be an amazing two weeks coming up! This win should give Tomeke the confidence to mentally be with Cancellara, although Cancellara is going to be hard to beat. Such an AWESOME time of year!!!
Buck Rogers says:

Mar 27 2011 at 8:05 pm

@Buck Rogers
Ahh, I see that he had won it once before. Man, he has now multiple wins in all the pave clasics, no?
Scuba Steve says:

Mar 28 2011 at 5:31 am

Hate to be a pain FRANK,

I show up twice on the leader board (4th and 17th) I scored 5 in round 1 and 8 in round 2. I used the same user name (ScubaSteve) but may have had different log ins or email addresses when entering my yips. Can this be sorted?

Cheers
Ron says:

Mar 28 2011 at 7:04 am

Traveling for the weekend and just watched the finish of both races. Oh boy, this is going to be a fun spring!

As for the dictionary entry of Schadenfreud - eh, not really digging it. That word is kind of like a thorn in my saddle, poking through my bibs. I'd rarely seen the word a year ago and now it is tossed around all over the place. I'm tired of it.

I'm also tired of people hating Cavendish. I don't feel much one way or the other, but I do enjoy watching him sprint. It's just kind of silly for people to form these immovable opinions of some dude they've never met and only heard talk mere seconds after busting his arse to cross the line. Eh, maybe he's a bit of a dick, but so what?

It's hard for me to understand anyone who rides a lot to hate someone who is that talented and works that hard on a bicycle.

Oh well.
Ron says:

Mar 28 2011 at 7:16 am

But, I do understand that is how most things go with PRO athletes; we don't know much about them but we form opinions.

It just seems like hating C-douche is a bandwagon thing. I can understand how he might inspire some anger, but I also think he's great to have in the peloton. Things would be a lot less exciting without him, whether due to his sprinting or crashing abilities...

Anyway, it just seems like hating him is the easy thing to do. Maybe hating/loving Cav has replaced hating/loving Armstrong?