COUREUR BRUSSELS
UPDATED
ALTERNATIVE RACE CALENDaR Coureur
To inspire. To ride. To share. Our Alternative Race Calendar is an insight in what we do on bikes throughout the year. From multiple day ultra races to single stage criteriums, on- and offroad. Generally this calendar will consist out of some main goals and several fun stuff in between. Possibly and probably changing throughout the year. A collective of people working and not working at the shop and/or just being supported because of a mind like approach to cycling. This is #ARCC.
current 2023 calendar
17th until 27th of March 2023 : Granguanche Gravel Audax
10th o f April : La Hallonienne
16th of April 2023 : BXL Crit
29th of April 2023 : The Traka
14th of May : Hard'n Marathon
18th until 21th of May 2023 : BeMC (Belgian Mountainbike Challenge)
18th of June 2023 : BXL Tour
26th of August 2023 : Houffa Gravel UCI World Series
9th of September 2023 : L'Esperit del Bikepacking
10th of September : Belgian Championship MTB Marathon
1st of October : UCI World Cup Gravel
October 2023 : Start CX Season
Felix - Gehan
Felix - Tom
Gehan - Nisse
Xavier
Felix - Tom
Felix - Gehan
Gehan - Felix - Nisse - Xavier
Gehan - Felix - Idriss
Xavier
Felix
Felix - Gehan - Idriss
Felix - Gehan - Tom - Nisse - Barbara - Xavier
This year's ultra was once more in Spain, but we left the peninsula and went for the Canary Islands participating the Granguanche Gravel Audax. A fixed one stage route covering five of the the seven main Islands. A big part of this bikepacking event, or let us call it factor, are the ferries needed to get from one to the other Islands and of course the according timetables.
Briefly, we saw only three of the five islands because of our scheduled timing and race pace from now to then. Lanzarote and El Hierro are probably beautiful but the ferries do not wait and a top 10 spot does not come for free. For us this ultra was easier then last year's Iberica Traversa. The ferries result in mandatory breaks and relatively short stages and the route was more accessible compared to Iberica Traversa. Aiming for the Audax pace on the other hand is very challenging and requires a lot of night rinding. We believe the bikepacking pace set by the organization is an achievable goal for people with good physics and thinking about giving ultra/bikepacking events a first try.
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A full blog and documentary with video footage will still follow, but let's say we've got our hands pretty full with the shop since we're back.
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*Photos by Matteo Minelli and ourselves.
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For the upcoming season 23/24, we welcome Barbara and Xavier to our team. For Xavier this will be a first introduction to cross and with Barbara we are extremely pleased to have a first woman on our team. Barbara already has some experience and will strengthen the female field this year. Interested? Feel free to get in touch. Especially our women's team, but also the men's team could definitely be a bit bigger. With three races already behind us and the return of all team members from internships and trips abroad, we can safely say that the season is in full swing. From now on, someone will be racing almost every week. From now on, photos and short updates can be found here.
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Sint-Laureins-Berchem 22/10/2023
Today Nisse and Gehan started their cyclocross season with the first race of the WVZ. A fast course with some fun technical accents, U-turns, balkskes and a difficult slanted section. Gehan got a satisfying 16th place and Nisse had a first tough one with a 32nd place out of 49. Given the faces at the starting line he was not alone digging deep during this first race. Furthermore this was the last shooting day of one our house/cross photographers with Jaani leaving Belgium for a while. We completely depend on Geert from now on.
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Holsbeek 29/10/2023
Gehan is on GC hunt with his second cross of the season, taking advantage of other team members leaving on abroad training camps. If the newborn allows he’ll try to ride as many races as possible this year. For the second week in a row the feeling was very good nonetheless some lack of sleep. Also a second bike would have made a big difference. Two crashes because of chain suck and a big stop to clean the bike by hand made him lose several spots during the race. As usual Gehan had and has no clue where he finished.
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Vlezenbeek 05/11/2023
With the third cyclocross race of the season done and dusted and three of the six team members present, the season is really on! Like always or often, no idea what positions we finished, no trackers and thus results for now. The only references we have are Killian De Groodt winning the race, Stijn from Brussel Cycling Team and Vincent form Hors Catégorie finishing before Gehan from our team and we think Barbara finished as second women out of three or four. So far our detailed race analysis.
Super Sunday 12/11/2023
Up next : Super Sunday on the 12th of November (Nisse his birthday) with a WVZ race before noon in Felix his backyard, Strombeek, and a cyclocross race organized by Sunday Club BXL in the capital in the afternoon.
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Lot 19/11/2023
Huldenberg 03/12/2023
Hofstade 10/12/2023
Korbeek-Dijle 17/12/2023
Wodecq 04/01/2024
Affligem 14/01/2024
Kester 21/01/2024
Hoeilaart 04/02/2024
Herne 18/02/2024