Scott Nydam

Shawn Hanka!

looking down on Castleton Valley

picardie.
this was my first real
professional race in europe.
we flew into Brussels,
had a hotel in a town south of there called
Nivelle.
a hotel were BMC has launched themselves for the last
few month of racing.
a hotel where Vince Gee our mechanic said
he has slept
more times in 2008 than his own bed in Sacramento.
ham and sliced cheese baguettes,
tuna salad with olives,
instant coffee, and
french donuts.
second hand smoke in the lobby and
eurosport on 24 hours a day.
we piled in a “transporter” . . euro style
looking hummer thing,
and bombed south to france
to the coast.
stayed in a danky little coastal hotel,
painted yellow, inside and out,
and looking over a stretch of sandy beach
into the english channel.
i spoke with Eddy, our temporary soinguer,
a school teacher by trade, i think,
but someone who has worked the professional race scene
for years.
looking at the list of Picardie past winners,
i asked Eddy if he know Jelle Nydam, two time winner
in the 80s/90s,
and most likely some distant Dutch relative.
he said Jelle (pronounced yell’a) would win
races by hitting it with 2 or 3 km to go,
and people couldn’t reel him in.
that’s resinates; makes sense to me,
as Nydam genes do not seem so fit for winning a race within the
last 150 meters. no fast twitch.
that racing was fast,
the roads were smooth,
the small kom’s seem to hurt more than they should,
but by the last stage on sunday (double day of 100km stages)
i finally started to get used to it, france,
the speed, the strength of everyone in the peleton.
when you start to realize the quantity of good riders
over there, like Garcia said after racing Belgium,
you realize why it’s such a big deal to win a race.