It was Frank’s recent post that started all this. Mentioning Breukink always makes me think of my friend’s saying, “I have a Breukink in my Van Hooydonk” as his excuse for coming up short on a long training ride. Maybe that’s only funny during a long training ride. That phrase put me back onto Van Hooydonk, a rider I admired because he was so damn tall. The bike is a great equalizer: though there may be an ideal size rider, people like Van Hooydonk prove the exception, unless you are too fat to climb. Edwig rode a steel Colnago and this fact is what put a Colnago at the top of the other recent post. But Edwig’s Colnago was unusual. He was tall and whippy but didn’t want a tall and whippy ride so he used a smaller frame and put a giant spacer above the head tube to get his stem and handlebars up to the correct height. Now a sloping top tube might be the solution but back in days of hairnets, all frames were still the standard double diamond geometry. But his story is relevant to recent doping news so it’s a good time to tie it all together.
Edwig was born near Antwerp, Belgium. The tall lanky red head won the U-23 Ronde van Vlaanderen, something monumental for a young Flemish racer. We saw this race go by in the Keepers Tour 2012 and it might as well have been the real professionals. These guys were so strong and fast. Three years later he crossed the finish line in tears as he soloed to his first of two professional Ronde victories. The pressure of being the next Eddy must be hung on every young Belgian who wins the Ronde and he was no exception. He earned the name Boss of the Bosberg after winning his second Ronde by lighting it up on the final climb of the race. He was an adept Classics rider at the heights of his powers when EPO, then legal, began changing the landscape of professional racing. Drugs and bike racing have been conjoined twins for who knows how long, but the use of EPO to raise red blood cell concentration to sometimes fatal levels in the early 1990s was a quantum change.
Another reason I admire Van Hooydonk was his decision to retire early rather than jump on the EPO train as it was leaving the station. As an American I can’t produce the fitting analogy for what it must have meant for Van Hooydonk to be a top Belgian cyclists with the fame and possible financial rewards, yet he stops and gets off the bike. One either rationalizes doping to keep up; everyone is doing it. Or one says that’s cheating, that’s not racing, I’m not going to participate.
The spectator’s attitude about doping in cycling covers the spectrum. Some think it doesn’t really matter as it produces exciting, stupendous racing. Some are still convinced everyone is doping in 2012 and if everyone is doping maybe it’s a level playing field. Personally, I see it in nearly black and white terms. I’ve always felt it’s cheating and unacceptable. I believe teams like Garmin are totally clean and Ryder just proved a Grand Tour can be won without drugs. For riders, if it’s cheating and you don’t want to participate anymore you retire, like Vaughters and Van Hoodyonk. But these guys are one part of the doping equation we don’t think about. When you retire you are off the radar screen, a has-been, you have moved on. But a few people like Vaughters and Van Hooydonk retired early, not as they ever intended, more because they were not going to race on those terms. I think these guys deserve some respect, certainly more than the riders who so easily stepped on the train. My apologies for once again bringing up the doping subject on Velominati but it’s always there. It is a hard subject to avoid.
A little video of 1989 Ronde, run in good old fashion Belgian spring weather. Think Spring Classics Keepers Tour 2013, this could be you!
I don’t know a word of Flemish but to watch his face enough. Here is a proud man who is still angry and disappointed.
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Great article, I had never heard of him so it is great to read about this guys...
Good to show some 3TTT love for Edwig!
Nice Article
I like to think there were a number of top riders who could have gone on for longer but chose not to battle the EPO era.
Van Hooydonk was an inspiration to me. As a gangly 195 cm rider I used his colnago idea to build up my own bike. The colnago didn't have spacers as such, they actually built an extension onto the seat tube and top tube withColumbustubing. I had something similar built for me in theUKand I raced against a couple of other chaps with similar ideas. I still have the frame (Columbus SL with an SP rear triangle) waiting to be rebuilt one day. The problem is these days I find that I ride better with a 4 cm lower saddle height so I don't need such a big frame (64cm with 3 cm extensions) but I can't face selling it as to me it's a big part of my youth.
These days Gianni is right, we tall folk just buy a bike with a bigger head tube and slam in a long seat post.
I still view the superconfex colnago of 88/89 as the best looking bike - graced with C record what was not to love. Does anyone know how tall he actually was and how big his bike was?
Nice Article
I like to think there were a number of top riders who could have gone on for longer but chose not to battle the EPO era.
Van Hooydonk was an inspiration to me. As a gangly 195 cm rider I used his colnago idea to build up my own bike. The colnago didn't have spacers as such, they actually built an extension onto the seat tube and top tube withColumbustubing. I had something similar built for me in theUKand I raced against a couple of other chaps with similar ideas. I still have the frame (Columbus SL with an SP rear triangle) waiting to be rebuilt one day. The problem is these days I find that I ride better with a 4 cm lower saddle height so I don't need such a big frame (64cm with 3 cm extensions) but I can't face selling it as to me it's a big part of my youth.
These days Gianni is right, we tall folk just buy a bike with a bigger head tube and slam in a long seat post.
I still view the superconfex colnago of 88/89 as the best looking bike - graced with C record what was not to love. Does anyone know how tall he actually was and how big his bike was?
This fits absolutely nowhere so here is as good a place as any... if you DON'T want to see the Green Edge team jumping on the bandwagon of doing a cover of Call Me Maybe then you had best avoid it.
But there are some parts that are pretty cool - especially where they have guys riding past in the peloton doing little snippets, and on the podium too.
And I have to add Daniel Teklahamaywhatsit is pretty easy on the eye - he must pull a few podium girls.
@ChrisO I enjoyed that. and I would take a massage from that blonde any day.
@ChrisO You came close to getting a yellow card for that stunt. But it was highly amusing so I'll withhold. I like Julian Dean's sign in there too.
@Simon Frans Masssen and GIles Delion were mentioned by Edwig as other riders on his team that may have bailed. Early on there were a number of deaths of young cyclists, some of them Dutch that must have been linked to EPO. I think Jan Raas, the team director may have smartly warned some of his riders this crap was dangerous.
"I still view the superconfex colnago of 88/89 as the best looking bike - graced with C record what was not to love." Yeah, you are onto something there.
Maybe that was a chrome head tube extension I was always seeing on his bike. That makes more sense and Ernesto Colnago wouldn't let a rider like him ride around with a fist full of spacers.
@ChrisO
And suddenly, the Gangnam Style video looks really really good!
@Duende
I'm happy to see the Chinese are going down the tubes with the rest of us.