Saturday – X2O Trofee Kortrijk – Urban Cross
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It would be a miss if I failed to give “Urban Cross” huge props for being one of the most fun, most memorable races on the calendar. Kortrijk is a small city in West Flanders, quite close to France. The course is, as promised, truly urban. We race within the city on the banks of the Leie river, including crossing it twice via car and pedestrian bridges. The course has a mix of everything: long, fast pavement stretches, sand, twisty bits with greasy mud, and lots of curbs.
Despite my love of Kortrijk, Saturday might have been better had I never left the safety of my bed. Bad luck was my bestie all day.
There are times when the challenges of my life racing here extend well beyond racing a bike.
On Saturday morning, due to a last-minute scheduling challenge, I suddenly found myself piloting my mechanic’s van to Kortrijk to meet the other mechanics on site. Yeah, it’s just driving a car, right? Sure, all except its massive girth, width, 6 speeds, and the tank of water in the back that affects acceleration, braking, and turning!
I made it to sign-in safely, which wasn’t a given with the very large vehicle, small European city streets, and me at the helm!
However, it turns out that getting into Kortrijk wasn’t the hardest part.
At inscription, I passed the “sleutel” (key) to one of my mechanics and became a passenger for the next leg of our challenge. With the pass marked “Elite” on our dashboard, we pulled into elite parking. The entry guard clarified “profs” (meaning “professioneel/professional”) and we consented and pulled into parking, which was approximately half empty.
We knew our luck was about to turn when we saw my “favorite,” parking guard making haste towards us. Despite the obvious vacancies, he declared that there were no more spaces. From what I gathered via my preschool-level Dutch fluency, “vrouwen” (women, aka, elite but not “profs”) were now to proceed to an overflow lot. The directions were simple: “rechts, rechts, rechts” (right, right, right).
We followed the directions and landed at the television parking lot, which was blocked by a pay-for-entry gate. Confusion and negotiations with further parking guards ensued. During this time, two other female,…
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