The high mass of cyclo-cross, the World Championship, will be organized in Fayetteville this year. For a week, a remarkable amount of Dutch is spoken in this small town in America. Maarten Vangramberen gives us his impressions of the Cyclo-cross World Championships every day.
7 hour wait in Chicago and broken seat belt
I left home at 5 o’clock so it has been a journey of about 26 hours. Here it is now a little past midnight, but in Belgium it is already 7 o’clock in the morning. And that mainly means that they have organized it here in an unsightly place.
The journey itself went smoothly, but in Chicago we had to wait 7 hours. And that’s long. We found a solution and walked 5 kilometers through the corridors of the airport. For the pedometer.
The second flight from Chicago to Fayetteville was slightly delayed. First there was something wrong with the plane’s engine and then it was the pilot’s seat belt. It had to be replaced first.
(read on below the photo)
Riders on the run, but of course no Van Aert
There were also riders on the same flight from the Tormans team. And there was also some news to pick up because we saw Bart Wellens and he was very active. He still wanted to try to get Quinten Hermans, who had not traveled due to a positive corona test, to the US.
He was very ambitious this morning in Brussels, but I think that hope is now somewhat lost. The plans can go in the trash.
What I also realized along the way: it was the right choice for Van Aert not to do this. The riders who traveled yesterday followed the same route as we did today. Also a 26 hour journey. That gets in your clothes. You lose a lot of fluid, you feel that jet lag. This has a huge impact on your body.
A one-way flight of 9 hours that would be different, but this really is a very long and grueling journey.
(read on below the photo)
“Cyclocross?!”, little seen of cyclocross atmosphere
It was already very late when we arrived, so I didn’t see any atmosphere yet. I don’t think we’ll see much of that, except on the track.
At the airport, a woman was standing behind a small desk and it read “the world is coming to Fayetteville”. And there was also a movie of the World Cup match that was held here. And there it stopped.
In Chicago they also asked what we were doing at the border control. “Cyclocross, what is that?” they asked. I then showed a photo and they concluded that it was like motocross on a bike.
“Cyclocross, what is that?”, they asked at the border control.
Watch the conversation with Maarten Vangramberen here
