Post by davidp on Nov 25, 2014 13:12:43 GMT
Ken Bradbury and myself are just back from a long wk/end in Ghent where we had a great time with the bonus of mild sunny weather.
We drove down to Dover on Friday 21st and took the DFDS ferry across to Dunkirk, then drove on to Ghent and our B & B base in the city. The location on the south east side of Ghent gave us roughly equal walking time either in to the centre, around 30mins, or to Citadel Park and t'Kuipke, about 40mins, where the 6 day race is held. First evening we found a great place to eat right in the central square where we enjoyed 2 of the best, and biggest, steaks we'd ever had. As the weather was good we were able to walk around a bit and enjoy the city, some great architecture, plenty of cobbled streets, trams, and hundreds of people on bikes. Everyone rides in this place, 95% on utility bikes, and all the roads have designated bike lanes. Cyclists also have priority over all other road users, so at first we nearly got ourselves run down - they all whizz around at a fare old speed, Ken was impressed!
Saturday morning we left straight after breakfast for a long ride down to the Ronde van Vlaanderen centre in Oudenaarde, almost 100% being on fantastic cycle paths, which were mostly full road width, following the Schelde canal from Ghent to our destination - somewhere around 25-30mls to get there. After a coffee and cake in the cafe we spent a long time in the museum and the history of the Flemish classic race, then after another drink we retraced our route back to our B & B to have a shower and get ready for the evening. I'd located a little Italian restaurant a few minutes walk from the track courtesy of a twitter message from Mark Cavendish, so we headed there and we had an excellent couple of pasta dishes before walking on to the stadium. Once inside we arrived in time to see the last chase in the U23 event, which saw a British pairing winning overall - good start eh?
The real event proved to be absolutely riveting with some incredibly fast racing all evening and the final madison was taken by Cav and his partner Iljo Keisse, who is a local and previous winner, as well as being a team mate in Omega Pharma Quick Step with Mark. The result left the pair as overall leaders so Ken & I were full of anticipation for the final afternoon the following day. At 2.00am in the morning we headed back to our digs. So on Sunday morning we did a short bike ride with a nice cafe stop to round things off before heading back for the pm racing. Being the last day it was full on in all the disciplines, Cav taking the 1st derny race and the overall lead switching between them and the favourites, Kenny De Ketele and Jasper De Buyst, but with 3 other teams in very close attendance - the race had 13 teams in total. Early on De Ketele and De Buyst had a significant points advantage but then they lost a lap which kep Cav and Keisse in the lead, however everything became all square for the final chase. The lead swapped between the 2 leading teams and near the end it seemed as though the favourites had lost but a terrific finale saw them pull level on laps and take the Ghent 6 due to a greater points total. After watching the presentations Ken and I left to get our evening meal and decided to try the Italian again and we managed to get a table as the place filled up. Some of the riders from the race then came in inc the winners, so the place obviously has a good reputation, certainly our food was first class. Unfortunately most of the 'puddings' had gone during the week - I suspect it was Cav who had eaten them as he had a table reserved for each day apparently. We did manage to enjoy a huge ice cream sundae each however before walking slowly back across town.
On Monday we travelled home after a leisurely breakfast and apart from sitting in a jam for an hour on the M25 all went well. A small downside was that a sore throat that had been troubling me morphed into a proper cold later that evening, so I will be off the bike whilst that runs its course this week. In summary we can both say that a trip to the Ghent 6 day, or I suppose Paris-Roubaix or the Ronde van Vlaanderen, should be taken by anyone who enjoys great racing, fantastic cycling facilities, and friendly bike mad people - not to memtion some great food and atmosphere.
We drove down to Dover on Friday 21st and took the DFDS ferry across to Dunkirk, then drove on to Ghent and our B & B base in the city. The location on the south east side of Ghent gave us roughly equal walking time either in to the centre, around 30mins, or to Citadel Park and t'Kuipke, about 40mins, where the 6 day race is held. First evening we found a great place to eat right in the central square where we enjoyed 2 of the best, and biggest, steaks we'd ever had. As the weather was good we were able to walk around a bit and enjoy the city, some great architecture, plenty of cobbled streets, trams, and hundreds of people on bikes. Everyone rides in this place, 95% on utility bikes, and all the roads have designated bike lanes. Cyclists also have priority over all other road users, so at first we nearly got ourselves run down - they all whizz around at a fare old speed, Ken was impressed!
Saturday morning we left straight after breakfast for a long ride down to the Ronde van Vlaanderen centre in Oudenaarde, almost 100% being on fantastic cycle paths, which were mostly full road width, following the Schelde canal from Ghent to our destination - somewhere around 25-30mls to get there. After a coffee and cake in the cafe we spent a long time in the museum and the history of the Flemish classic race, then after another drink we retraced our route back to our B & B to have a shower and get ready for the evening. I'd located a little Italian restaurant a few minutes walk from the track courtesy of a twitter message from Mark Cavendish, so we headed there and we had an excellent couple of pasta dishes before walking on to the stadium. Once inside we arrived in time to see the last chase in the U23 event, which saw a British pairing winning overall - good start eh?
The real event proved to be absolutely riveting with some incredibly fast racing all evening and the final madison was taken by Cav and his partner Iljo Keisse, who is a local and previous winner, as well as being a team mate in Omega Pharma Quick Step with Mark. The result left the pair as overall leaders so Ken & I were full of anticipation for the final afternoon the following day. At 2.00am in the morning we headed back to our digs. So on Sunday morning we did a short bike ride with a nice cafe stop to round things off before heading back for the pm racing. Being the last day it was full on in all the disciplines, Cav taking the 1st derny race and the overall lead switching between them and the favourites, Kenny De Ketele and Jasper De Buyst, but with 3 other teams in very close attendance - the race had 13 teams in total. Early on De Ketele and De Buyst had a significant points advantage but then they lost a lap which kep Cav and Keisse in the lead, however everything became all square for the final chase. The lead swapped between the 2 leading teams and near the end it seemed as though the favourites had lost but a terrific finale saw them pull level on laps and take the Ghent 6 due to a greater points total. After watching the presentations Ken and I left to get our evening meal and decided to try the Italian again and we managed to get a table as the place filled up. Some of the riders from the race then came in inc the winners, so the place obviously has a good reputation, certainly our food was first class. Unfortunately most of the 'puddings' had gone during the week - I suspect it was Cav who had eaten them as he had a table reserved for each day apparently. We did manage to enjoy a huge ice cream sundae each however before walking slowly back across town.
On Monday we travelled home after a leisurely breakfast and apart from sitting in a jam for an hour on the M25 all went well. A small downside was that a sore throat that had been troubling me morphed into a proper cold later that evening, so I will be off the bike whilst that runs its course this week. In summary we can both say that a trip to the Ghent 6 day, or I suppose Paris-Roubaix or the Ronde van Vlaanderen, should be taken by anyone who enjoys great racing, fantastic cycling facilities, and friendly bike mad people - not to memtion some great food and atmosphere.