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Snerf's slant: The 2004 Nicole Freedman Diary
Sprinter, 2000 Olympian and a founder of the Basis women's team, Nicole Freedman - known as Snerf to her friends - is one of the US circuit's great characters. Her goal for 2004 is to make the Olympic team for Israel and failing that "to see one of my developmental teammates win their first NRC race and subsequently take all their prize money."
April 9-11, Novilon Damesronde van Drenthe
Another race, another place
You've seen all that gorgeous footage from the Tour de France with the snow-capped peaks of the Alps and the jagged rocks of the Pyrenees, icy mountain streams bubbling down hillsides as flocks of riders pass over ancient stone bridges. Forget it all. The Netherlands - this is what cycling should be about. The highest spot in the Netherlands is a dark corner of the Amsterdam Hip-Hop NightClub. Much of the country is actually below sea level, a fact that is a bit intimidating to someone who only survived triathlons thanks to modern water wings.
Instead of watching racers struggle up endless mountain passes in slow motion, spectators are treated to real high-speed racing. Translation: spectators camp our for upwards of 10 hours to be rewarded by a blur of unidentifiable racers zipping by in less than the time it takes the spectator to return from their poorly timed bathroom break. The racers, on the other hand, zip around fairly effortlessly for quite some time, often in circles, and then sprint. When fans are near, racers tilt their heads to the side to feign pain, although the spectators cannot distinguish such subtleties.
Nine out of ten races in the Netherland end in field sprints; the remainder end in pile-ups.
We drove to the Netherlands for our Basis-Aude team to compete in the Novilon Damesronde van Drenthe stage race. After a five hour drive, we arrive at the Flangelhof (or something) Hotel Conference Center, OUR home for the next four nights; the owner's biggest mistake for the rest of his life.
Throngs of team managers pull in to the hotel driveway, carefully parking on freshly planted grass, gardens and across the sole entrance to the hotel. Like the other teams, we pile out of our Partridge Family team van to overtake our smiling hotel staff at registration.
"Good afternoon and welcome." He says
"Where, where are the phones? We haven't been able to log on for 24 hours, 24 hours!" we scream, forgetting the 20-plus years we survived BI (Before the Internet).
Our team disperses. We dash for remote corners of the hotel in search of The Internet. Doors fly open, furniture is moved, walls are scoured until IT is finally found. A long and satisfying sigh is heard across the hotel.
Team soigneurs (translation: massage therapists possessing the unique and exceptional talent of also being able to wash water bottles in a bathtub) set up massage tables in the most prominent areas of the hotel. Naked cyclists zip through the hotel, with neither modesty nor apology, leaving the hotel guests aghast. The riders land on the massage table. The soigneur, exhausted from a day of driving, bottle washing and packing the car, lathers oil onto the furniture, walls and rugs before eventually finding the rider.
In another corner of the hotel, team managers attend the mandatory team meeting. The race organizer disseminates important information. Attentive managers all nod in agreement as if to say, "Hmmm, wish I knew Danish. Wonder what is for dessert tonight." After the meeting, responsible managers all swarm together to decipher the pencil-tip sized map with directions to the afternoon's race. Later, teams depart from the hotel driveway in upwards of 8,000 directions.
The Novilon Damesronde van Drenthe is a UCI ranked 2.9.1 stage race - the highest ranking stage race type for women. One hundred seventy five riders take to the line. Our team goal is simple: to race as a team and hopefully pull off a top performance in a stage or the overall. The first two stages feature five QOM mountain sprints. How this is possible we cannot imagine. Eighty kilometers into the race, we discover the first mountain. Not quite a jagged, snow-capped peak, this mountain, formerly a garbage dump, has a charm all its own; the man-made peak is less than 100 feet high. The second through fourth mountains look very similar. Careful reading of the race bible shows that we loop back and forth over this prize property five times total. My confidence soars - I am a climber!
At the end of the week, we fall short of our goal for a top performance. Our best finish is an eighth place in the final stage. On the positive side, the team worked well together. We won the race to find the Internet. Additionally, teammates Katy and Marion combined for one of the best sprint finish lead-outs I have ever seen.
Till the next log-in,
Nicole
