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So people just don’t have any frame of reference for what it takes to make an Andy Schleck, Alberto Contador, or Christian Vande Velde.

Which is why I’m so amused by all the monday morning quarterbacking — or, maybe, monday afternoon directeur sportifing — after yesterday’s Stage of the Tour de France.

“Learn to shift, Andy!” someone cries! “If you mis-shift during a sprint, no one waits for you!” someone complains. “Pro riders should know how to recover from a dropped chain!” proclaims another.

Let’s start with this.

The idea that Andy Schleck doesn’t know how to shift gears or recover from a dropped chain without stopping is ludicrous. This is a man who has been racing bikes his entire life. His father raced bikes. His older brother races bikes.

Tour de France contenders do not appear out of nowhere. They train, all the time, from a young age. Every day is dedicated to training or to racing. They live at training camps where they probably spend more time in a month just practicing things like shifting and recovering from dropped chains than a lot of people spend training in a month.

When you read in Andy’s bio that he joined the amateur club VC Roubaix six years ago, don’t be confused by the word amateur and think he was some Cat 4 back then. The amateur/pro distinction means something specific here in Europe, and the amateurs of VC Roubaix all fast guys who just don’t have official pro contracts. They’d tear your legs off, have no doubt.

(Brief aside, VC Roubaix, though an amateur club, is not your average NorEast Cycling. These guys host a Cyclocross World Cup and the Espoirs Paris-Roubaix among other races. They’re a serious bike racing organization that develops high level pro cyclists. Don’t be fooled.)

I didn’t talk to Andy, and I don’t know exactly what happened to him yesterday, and I’ll spare you my boring hypothesis, but he did not just mis-shift or not know how to recover from a dropped chain. Let’s all disabuse ourselves of the notion that what happened to him is the same as what happened to that guy in your 35 mile Cat 4 race last weekend, ok? The video shows he was not shifting, and there’s little doubt that he knows how to work his bike better than you or I ever will.

The there’s the raging debate over whether Contador’s attack in the moments following Schleck’s troubles was savvy or desperate, all in the game or disgraceful. What’s my take?

First, let’s be clear. There’s no rule in cycling that says you have to stop dead when your opponent has a technical problem, or has to pull to the side of the road to take one of those beautifully euphamistic “nature breaks”. But attacking is a different story, for two reasons. And attacking is what Contador did yesterday.

So why not attack?

First, there’s the sporting reason. If Contador wins the Tour by less than about 30 seconds, his win will forever have an asterisk on it. “Contador technically won,” people will say, “but Schleck was the stronger rider and Contador took advantage of his 30 seconds of bad luck.”

And the thing of it is, Contador gained most of his time fairly, on the descent. He went over the top just a handful of seconds in front of Schleck. It’s possible he could have not attacked and still gained time on Schleck, who is not as skilled a descender. So the attack means a mostly legitimate 40 second gain will be treated by the fans as totally illegitimate, even though most of that time was earned fairly.

Of course, sportsmanship will only take you so far, and winning the Tour is important too. But some racers get remembered as great champions and others as unsporting, petulant racers who would take advantage of bad luck to win. I’d imagine that most people would prefer the first.

Jan Ullrich, after all, played the villain in the eyes of many Americans for most of Lance Armstrong’s career. But a lot of people were remembering him fondly yesterday, despite the evidence that he doped, and despite the fact that he spent his career trying to unseat the American fan favorite. That’s because he played fair, famously waiting when Armstrong crashed on Luz Ardiden only to be attacked and beaten by Armstrong moments later.

The second reason for not attacking is more pragmatic: it’s simply dangerous to piss off your opponents. Ullrich’s gesture in 2003 was payback for a similar gesture by Armstrong, who waited for his crashed opponent on the descent from the Col de Peyresourde, in 2001.

Similarly, you know that Niels Albert did not make any friends when he rode Sven Nys into the barriers in last year’s Jaarmarktcross. The fans, who had never really warmed to 2009 World Champion Albert, turned on him, and his season started to fall apart right there. And, though his public statements were fairly magnanimous, believe me, Nys did not forget about Albert’s move.

The point is, you never know when you’ll be the victim of a mishap, a mistake, technical problem, and find yourself wishing you had been a little more sporting to the guy who is now taking advantage of it. You don’t know how your ten second gain will be repaid or avenged, or what extra motivation you’ve given to the guy who already has devoted a lifetime to the singular goal of beating you in the Tour de France. You never know when the two of you will have to work together to stave off someone else’s attack. In cycling it pays to make friends.

You can argue the point if you want, but I’m not alone in my position on this. In fact, even Alberto himself seems to have realized the possible consequences of his move yesterday. Is his contrition too late?

Update: Velonews’ Lennard Zinn offers some speculation on what happened to Schleck’s chain that at least half-validates my thinking. (I think Lennard may be wrong that Andy was shifting when the problem occurred, but he knows more about bikes than I ever will, so we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.)

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Back here in Belgium I headed east to the Ardennes, where I went to some meetings and spend my evenings working out on the brutal Col du Haussire, one of the country’s most difficult climbs. By the standards of Colorado or Switzerland, it’s not so tough, but at 3.3 km with long stretches well above 10% grade, it was tough enough. Hopefully it helped my form.

Then there was Denmark and Sweden (photos coming soon), a working week in Bern, and lots and lots of bike riding here. We also caught a couple of days of the Tour de France as it made its way through Brussels. Photos from all of that are coming really soon.

In a couple of weeks Mindi and I head to Italy. First a few days of sightseeing in Rome, then a trip east where we’ll hit the beaches and do some riding the Apenines, including the Blockhaus, which should wreck my legs a little bit. The Blockhaus was famously the end of a stage of the 2009 Giro, and you can click on the link if you want a sense of what it looks like.

Yesterday marked two months until ‘cross starts for me. I’m counting down. Stay tuned…

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For those in search of further reading, here’s the rundown on every race I wrote about over the holidays:

• Scheldecross, Dec 18
• Kalmthout – Juniors/U23, Women, Men, & Update on AmericansDec 20
• Zolder – Juniors/U23, Women, Men, Dec 26
• Diegem, Dec 27
• Loenhout, Dec 29
• Bredene, Dec 30
• Baal – Juniors/U23, Men, Jan 1
• Sint-Niklaas, Jan 2
• Tervuren, Jan 3

As for myself, results were mixed. I felt good about my race in Lichtervelde, but didn’t quite get the result I hoped for, while I felt bad about my race in Balegem and got one of my best results ever. Waregem was just a straight-up mess, but I went, so it’s at least worth mentioning.

Lichtervelde Cyclocross

I was excited to go to Lichtervelde. It followed a big (by Belgian standards) snowstorm a few days earlier and it was held in very cold conditions, so I felt like I would be in a position to do pretty well. I would have to dig deep into my last reserves of New England tenacity, but cold and snow, at least on this side of the Atlantic, seem to have become my forte. Plus, we were kicking off a season of ‘cross, and I was feeling inspired from that as well.

As soon as the race got going, I felt like I was in a position to make some good things happen. A couple of guys who I normally can’t touch were well behind me, and a few guys who I normally beat were completely disappeared. On the start line I had noticed that most guys were underdressed for the weather, with temperatures well below zero Celsius, while I was wearing extra layers and had dropped hand warmers in my gloves and toe warmers in my shoes. It definitely seemed to help.

Descending the one whoop-de-doo on the course.

I mostly rode conservatively, trying not to lose ground or make a mistake on the snow, then surging as hard as I could anywhere that there was traction. Other guys were kind of backing off on the easier parts, which meant that I could gain ground every lap just by pushing the pace in the right places. So I rode, trailing one group of three, I was passed by one guy on the second lap who looked like he was ready to ride away. But then he faltered, and, by the race, came back to me. I went around him on the last lap and he never had the opportunity to pass back. That was that.

We saw a couple of hot air balloons in Lichtervelde.

After the race we stuck around and watched a couple of American U23 riders (beloften, the call them over here) go at it in the Elite/U23 race later in the afternoon. Danny Summerhill, who didn’t really have a great trip to Europe overall, rode a good race in Lichtervelde and took the U23 win. There are a few photos on flickr.

Balegem

After a long (fun, but long) Christmas celebration and then another long day at the World Cup in Zolder the next day, I went into Balegem without a lot of expectations. I was tired, and just wanted to make sure I got an effort in my legs. But in the press room in Zolder, a couple of guys asked about my racing and I told them we were going to Balegem the next day. They said it was a hilly course, so I should watch out. Hills are another thing I’ve done well here, so I started to think maybe it could be a good race for me.

That changed when I saw the course: three short but steep and very muddy drops, two equally short and even steeper climbs, some twists and turns in the muddy fields, and then a descent down an icy, cobbled, gravel road that turned into singletrack before heading back to the pavement at the end of the lap. It was fun—kind of—but not the sort of hills where I excel.

So I rode the thing, taking it pretty easy on the downs and running the impossible-to-ride ups. The mud, still semi-frozen after the snow the week before, stuck to everything, and by the third lap was clogging my drivetrain badly. But I kept pedaling, stopping to clean things out a bit twice, then pedaling some more. I felt like it was going terribly, and figured I was headed for maybe my worst race of the season.

But Mindi kept yelling something about the number ten, and so I figured that meant something and kept going for as long as I could until things were so clogged that pedaling was impossible. Then I ran, finally reaching the end of the lap—at this point I didn’t even know which one it was—just as the leaders were coming up behind me. So, lapped and bummed about my bike, I walked off the course and went to clean up. Cleanup options were basically some barrels of mucky, freezing water and not much else, so I did the best I could on my bike, packed the car, and chatted with Pete Webber, US Masters 40+ National Champion, who had just won the race before mine. (Read all about Pete’s adventures in Belgium on Mud & Cowbells.)

Only when I went to turn in my number did I discover that, while I thought I was in a bad state, everybody else in the race was even worse. I had managed to pull a tenth place finish in the Masters 30+ field, my best ever result in Belgium. About half the field seemed to have abandoned after one look at back board the EMTs had resting at the bottom of the dangerous descents (which really weren’t as scary as they looked), and others had gone out with bike problems worse than mine. So, by virtue of persistence more than skill, I grabbed a top ten.

Waregem

I’ll spare you the details of the Waregem disaster, except to say that we only got to the race about 60 minutes before it started, I didn’t have a valid 2010 license (this was the first race of the year for me), and it snowed the night before. So the course was a mix of semi-frozen, hub-deep mud, ice, and snow, along with a few snow-covered roads for good measure. I had all of 10 minutes to warm up, and, within 2 minutes of the start of the race, my drivetrain seized up so I couldn’t pedal at all.

I tried to DNF, simply walking off the course at the beginning of the third lap, but somehow they were kind enough to place me—dead last, of course—so at least I can claim to have raced in some sense.

But there’s good news. This weekend I managed to finally get my new bike, a Leopard, which should carry me through the last two months of this season. With a new bike (and, finally, a pit bike) I should be in much better shape for the final few races, and especially for Masters Worlds in Mol in a few weeks. I’ve also got a new drivetrain for the old bike, so hopefully I’ve seen the last of the complete jam-ups for a while.

Next weekend, with the Belgian Championships I sit out from racing myself and just write—a welcome opportunity to get in some time on the new bike with little pressure. Then there’s one more Vlaamse Cyclocross Cup race for me, a few days in Davos, and Masters Worlds. Then the real World Championships in Tabor in the Czech Republic after that. Plus I’m working on some other exciting stuff for next season. I can’t say what it is yet, but it’s going to be really awesome if it works out. So stay tuned for a full report on the new bike, lots of racing action, and news on the 2010-11 season as well!

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