Wielervolk

A tribute to the bike racing fans of Flanders.

This piece is Chris Sidwells' contribution to a magazine called The Ride Journal, www.theridejournal.com. It's a beautiful mag, celebrating everything that's good about riding a bike, with contributions from a diverse cross-section from cycling world, from writers to racers, shop owners and mecahnics. And it's all for the charity Re-Cycle.

FLANDERS is a spirit as much as a region. Geographically and politically it is the top third of Belgium. Its north is defined by Holland and its south by a curve that runs from Lille in northern
France to the Dutch border at
Maastricht. A fit cyclist
could bike across Flanders in a day.

Flanders is a language, an attitude, a history, a feeling of being oppressed by richer neighbours. And nowhere can you find its spirit distilled more purely than in the sport of bicycle road racing. Few places have been so uniquely identified by a sport. South Wales by rugby perhaps. The highlands of Kenya by its runners maybe.

In the second half of the 19th century the bicycle fuelled a social revolution in Europe. Two wheeled travel gave mobility to the working classes for the first time. Bikes were relatively cheap, and on a bike anyone could travel where and when they liked, a freedom that had been the preserve of the middle and upper classes. Bikes were big business and the competition to sell them was fierce.

Cycle racing started in 1867, and almost from its outset it was a professional sport with factory teams taking part in long road races to demonstrate the durability of their machines. Into this world stepped a breed that the French called the Flahute, tough manual workers from Flanders who could ride through discomfort and put in a killing sprint at the end of a race. Cyriel Van Hauwaert was their first champion. The son of a farm labourer from Moorslede in West Flanders, he won many of the world’s toughest bike races and fired the imagination of other young Flandrians.

Flanders had for too long been looked down on by the upper class French speakers in Belgium. The Dutch-based Flemish dialect was laughed at, called the language of farm boys, and only French was taught in schools. Illiterate recruits suffered still further in the First World War when army officers refused to give orders in Flemish. Of the thousands of Belgian troops slaughtered on Flanders fields the vast majority were Flemish speakers.

After the war, Flanders was at its lowest ebb. Its towns and villages were destroyed. It’s men folk dead or wounded. The country was free of Germany but still ruled by the French speakers from the Walloon region, which makes up the other two thirds of Belgium.

The only light for Flanders was its gradually growing band of young cyclists. Oppression, hard work on the land, a hatred of being looked down on; something powered generation after generation of Flemish cyclists to reach the top. Jules Van Hevel, the Buysse brothers, Rik Van Steenbergen, Rik Van Looy, Roger De Vlaeminck and the greatest of them all, Eddy Merckx put Flanders on the map and spread the region’s fame all over the world.

The stories of great riders were passed down. Flemish children are still taught in school that in their region’s biggest race, the Tour of Flanders which takes place in early April, the colours of the racer’s outfits is a metaphor for the flowers of spring.

This success, this history, this pride gave us the phenomenon of Wielervolk, the name Flemish cycling gives to its diehard fans. They are noisy, partisan and they love cycling. Something about the sport’s hardness appeals to their strong Flemish work ethic, but most of all it gives them a sense of being Flemish.

Wielervolk are everywhere. The staple of Flemish cycling is the Kermesse. Once a religious festival, a Kermesse is a multi-lap bike race where the lap length is said to be just long enough for a spectator to order a beer, drink it and be ready for another after the riders next pass by. Every town in Flanders has a Kermesse in the summer, and in winter Wielervolk watch cyclo-cross or the six-day race on the indoor track in Ghent, the historic capital of Flanders when it was a nation long ago.

All year they follow as many races as they can, but one date cannot be missed; the first Sunday in April. That is the day of the Tour of Flanders, their race, the embodiment of everything that makes up Flemish bike racing. At its heart is a ridge that runs parallel with the French border and comes just before the finish. On the ridge are a series of back-breaking cobbled hills.

The Kwaermont, Kluisberg and Koppenberg are some of their names. The riders sprint up, batter into the wind along the top then hurtle down the same side to do another. Up and down, zig and zag until they reach the most famous of them all, the Muur (the Wall) in a town called Geraardsbergen. If you really want to understand what Wielervolk means then join them there on the first Sunday in April 2009.