The award ceremony inside will go on for quite a while, because the beer is flowing and the atmosphere is good. There are maybe 150 people in the sports centre. I pack my spirit level, my bag of clothes and my bike. You could stay for a while, under neon lights, on chairs with rusty brown backrests, in the stony ambience of grey concrete, grey stones, bare walls and large window fronts, behind which the lush green sports field can no longer be seen.
One name after the next booms through the speakers, on the podium the winners of the age groups enjoy a special honour: they put on jerseys in black, yellow and red, the tricolour of their home country. And I leave, carrying a spirit level and in a very good mood.
It's the second Sunday in November and the high season for cyclo-cross has begun. It's my first cyclo-cross race in a long time, but above all it's my first guest appearance at a competition in the epicentre of this dynamic discipline. I was lucky with the date: On this race day, the Belgian Cyclo-cross Championships are taking place in Aalter, a small town between Ghent and Bruges in Flanders. In a roundabout way, I had found an athlete on Facebook who later turned out to be the organiser of the event. "Everyone is welcome!" he said.
And so I get in the car and drive from Cologne to the flat green countryside just off the North Sea coast to be the only German to take part in this competition. Of course, I'm not competing in the championships of the Belgian Cycling Federation, but in the title fights of an everyman organisation. However, I have no chance of winning the championship jersey, as I would have to be Belgian to do so.
Cyclocross in Belgium: A different world
Anyone who has ever watched a Belgian professional cross-country race will recognise the unique atmosphere. It's a world of grass, mud, sand, wind and weather, wellies, champagne from plastic flutes and chips. It's a harsh world, and its natives roar as pale boys with mud-spattered cheeks hurtle over bumpy tracks.
It's an experience that everyone longs for: racing along narrow paths, jumping over obstacles and sprinting up stairs. To give your all in this environment. At the races organised by the LRC, this is possible not just once, but twenty or more times per season during the cooler months.
LRC stands for Landelijke Recreative Crossers. Fabien Hanssens, who I spoke to earlier on the phone, is the current LRC president and is a maintenance manager for a textile and weaving machine company. He says: "We try to offer a great sporting experience for very little money. This is family, everyone is here."
It's actually surprising how many people there are in Aalter. In the cold fog of Sunday morning, it looks a bit like the sidelines of a major professional race: Campers, vans and trailers are parked in the car parks, with signal tape fluttering between them, roller trainers at the ready, bikes on stands, high-pressure cleaners and water canisters.
In front of the city's modern sports centre and in the car parks nearby, everything is already full. Anyone who has previously only visited the somewhat antiquated-looking LRC website will be amazed. It's a real sports festival, and local organiser Gorik De Dobbelaere and his 40 employees will be catering for more than 2000 visitors along the route and in the sports centre forum over the course of the day. "We don't have to do much advertising, people will come anyway," says LRC boss Hanssens, "we don't need to lure them."
When I see all this, I feel a sense of awe and nervousness. I could make excuses, my cross bike is new, my form is disastrous after a few recent infections, but I'm not so much afraid of coming last. I'm afraid of being completely overwhelmed here as a stranger in a world where the riders and their companions know every Flemish circuit, every muddy bend and every suitable tyre pressure by heart.
Cyclocross trial round in civilian clothes
I first do a lap of the course, which everyone can do before the junior races from 12.30 pm. In civilian clothes, but with cycling shoes, I roll carefully around the course, past football pitches, through a sandpit, along an embankment by the motorway and finally into the hairpins at the finish line. After the practice lap, sweat is already dripping from my forehead, then I go to the registration desk. A paper form is enough for the day licence, plus ID and 20 euros entry fee - five of which I get back later when I return my race number 100.
Gifts for everyone
I also have a paper voucher in my hand, which says something about a prize in kind. LRC boss Hanssens explains to me that I can redeem the voucher at the finish like all the other children, women and men. "There are gifts for everyone," he says, "it's not so much about finishing, but about taking part." These words are meant to encourage me, but on the other hand Hanssens, a veteran in the field, is himself happy if he finishes somewhere in the middle. "The standard has got better and better," he says. The new European champion in the U23, Emiel Verstrynge, has risen from LRC races to the top of the world. "It's crazy at the front," says the LRC boss, "there are people who live for the races."
That doesn't exactly lower my respect for the sporting test. While the under-eights, then the nine to eleven-year-olds and then the twelve to fourteen-year-olds race around the track, some of them accompanied by their parents running alongside, I head back to the car. I change into racing gear, and on the way back to the sports ground I pass a sociable lap next to a nine-seater. Three generations of a family have taken a seat here, Grandma Chantal tells me that her grandson Bruce has just joined her. The seven-year-old started the LRC races this year, and the family turns the competitions into a party. They eat, they drink champagne, beer and lemonade, they chat on their camping chairs.
A useful gift
A few metres further on, on the opposite side of the road, things are more concentrated. Fifteen-year-old Hannah De Keyser is sitting on the roller with her headphones on, her father Sven in front of the open transport trailer, while her grandmother Ingrid sits next to her, smiling quietly. "I do this every weekend," says Hannah, after her father has pulled back her headphones. Is it also about money?
The father makes a sign with his fingers, which means: I pay for the hobby. But he is obviously happy to do so, he has drawn Hannah into the sport, pointing to her Facebook fan page. "Yes," says the teenager when asked if she wants to become a cross-country pro. An hour and a half later, Hannah is lying exhausted on the grass behind the finish line - total exhaustion for sixth place in the women's under 25 race.
Hannah De Keyser will get a spirit level, just like 73-year-old Johan De Smet from Adegem. He used to take part in every LRC race, now for the first time again after Corona. Later, I will also be holding a spirit level in my hand, a gift that all participants receive. But first I have to get on the course, I'm on shortly before Hannah - and almost miss my turn. You have to know your way around a bit. I do my warm-up laps in what is now the best Indian summer weather.
The first one isn't quite to my taste yet, so like so many others I ride another one. I forget to look at my watch. Then I see a clump of people, tightly packed in the field. It looks like the start. I go ahead and someone shouts that the race is starting. The man tells me to go under a railing, right at the back of the knob of riders with my start colour.
I'm right at the back, but at least I'm still in my category. I don't get into the pedals straight away and easily lose twenty metres at the start, but I make up for it by the first bend. A tough start, followed by one of the few successful overtaking manoeuvres of the day in my race.
In my category D, open to participants born between 1967 and 1976, there are 39 men with white numbers at the start. It quickly becomes clear that something is at stake. I see the front runners rushing away, I try to follow the line of the men in front of me, but it's all about keeping up. A stomach virus at the start of the week has certainly sapped my strength, so I'm only really thinking about getting through - without embarrassing myself in front of the die-hard cross spectators, in the 90-degree bends or when jumping back on my bike after the obstacles.
The race seems long to me. It's scheduled for 35 minutes, but the judges allow six laps, so I'm on the road in 36:39 minutes. For an average speed of 20 kilometres per hour, I feel pretty flat afterwards, especially at the end of the second lap and at the very end, I don't have enough strength at the obstacles. Once I slipped on an obstacle when mounting again and hit my right thigh unpleasantly, but I managed to avoid a fall or any major embarrassment. The lack of technique costs time, which I realise on every challenging passage. I give in.
Satisfied with 33rd place in the cyclocross race
I try to ride through as cleanly as possible, don't rely on power, lap competitors in the other categories and am only lapped when the cowbell at the finish signalled the penultimate passage. The Belgian champion passes me in style and it takes several hundred metres for the next competitors to gain a lap on me. I can live with that.
At the finish line, my lungs are burning, my face is red and I remain standing next to the successful defending champion. I won't read that I finished 33rd out of 39 until the next day and will be very pleased with that. The race was fast and tough, says the well-trained, wiry 52-year-old from Ypres, next to whom I feel like a tonne. "I pulled away and was able to recover on the last lap," says Bart Pattyn, who has also won the LRC European Championships.
Bratwurst and burger stand
After our pat on the back at the finish, the top field starts the race, the sporting level is considerable, as is the enthusiasm in front of the bratwurst and burger stand. The sun sinks behind the tall trees in front of the noise barrier of the motorway, the autumn atmosphere couldn't be more beautiful, and the race day ends right in the sports centre.
I buy a beer for one voucher, worth two euros; two vouchers would be required for a bratwurst and burger. Next to the raffle, the last finishers collect their prizes, a spirit level. The lady at the stand has been on duty since the morning and is about to pack up. The remaining riders, families with children, grandad and grandma are still sitting under the neon lights, drinking blonde beer and lager, while young women and older men slip into their Belgian champion jerseys on the stage. Only two weeks to go until the World Cup.
Rural leisure crossers
The race series of the "Landelijke Recreative Crossers" (LRC) amateur association will run in the 2022/23 season until at least 4 February 2023; another competition is being prepared for the beginning of March. Hobby riders from Germany can start with a day licence (insured and with a race number) for 15 euros plus a 5 euro deposit for the number; a season licence, which allows you to take part in the overall classification, costs 45 euros. There is a minimum number of LRC races that participants must have ridden in order to qualify for the World Championships and European Championships.
