English
After the sad passing of Belgian professional cyclist Wouter Weylandt on stage three of this year’s Giro d’Italia, Ben Jeffery, myself and a group of like minded cyclists decided to pay tribute to this sad loss by riding 108km’s this past Sunday.
Although I didn’t know Wouter personally I feel when something as tragic as the events of the 9th May occur in our sport it affects every cyclist to some degree.
As a stage winner in two grand tours both the Vuelta and of course last year’s Giro d’Italia Wouter was clearly a prodigious talent taken far too soon.
We felt compelled as fellow cyclists to mark this sad passing in some way and after a discussion with Ben and an open invite through various social media sites the decision was made for a memorial ride on the Sunday. The decision made I set about planning the 108km route, 108km’s because this was Wouters race number on that tragic day. I planned the route using a variety of my local training roads and uploaded all the information to my Garmin 705.
Ben and another Wiggle mechanic Robin Didymus were at mine bright and early Sunday morning and we rolled round to Petersfield square to see how many riders had answered the call. We were greeted by a large group of around 25-30 local guys that I often train with, a very good turnout and fitting tribute to a true pro.
Rolling out of Petersfield the buzz in the group was very much one of sympathy for Wouters Family, friends and team mates and just how close to the edge these gladiators of the cycling arena push themselves to be among the best in the world. The chatter amongst the group descended into silence as we started the first climb of the day Stona hill on the outskirts of Petersfield, a long steady climb bringing you out of the town centre and into the Hampshire countryside.
The remainder of the route is listed below and totaled 108.2km with 3572ft of climbing.
Our memorial ride took us around 4 hrs but Wouter will now be riding forever.
