Ster ZLM prologue and 1st stage by Mar

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the reporters of Bananas About Bikes are back! Last week the Ster ZLM tour was won by Philippe Gilbert, but we go back to the first days of earlier mentioned race.

On a the early morning of Wednesday 15th of June, I was already in the train on my way to the other side of the country. The prologue would only start around 4 o'clock, but it was a long way to get there. After three and a half hours of boredom in the train, I arrived in Eindhoven.
This is where the lovely Ilona lives. She and her dad picked me up from the train station and we drove to her house to drop my bags and do some last minute preparations. I met Ilona on tumblr, talked with her on twitter, shared our love for Leopard Trek and Linus Gerdemann and so we decided to go to Ster ZLM together. She offered me a place to sleep between the prologue and the first stage. I won't say no to that!
At two o'clock we got in the car, with her dad, and drove to Alblasserdam. Ilona's dad is a big cycling fan who loves to take pictures of Johnny Hoogerland and Bjorn Leukemans. One hour later, we found a parking spot close to the buses and we were ready!

It was a dusty parking place at the edge of the village where the buses had to stay. Around 70% of the buses had already arrived so we decided to walk around a little. Team Net App were just getting dressed outside their van, Saxobank Sungard were preparing the bikes and there wasn't much going on at the other buses.
Not much later, Rabobank arrived. The team is getting quite popular, so many people followed the bus and waited there for the riders. Did I say 'many people'? Well, not really. The race couldn't attract many people. But most of them went to the Rabobank bus. We had a look, but no one came out of the bus at that point so we decided to wait.
A few minutes after Rabobank, Leopard Trek arrived. From a distance, we could enjoy a great show of how-to-park-a-bus. It was like the driver never parked a bus before. I think it took him 15 minutes to get it in the right spot. First they didn't know where to park it, then they had the door on the wrong side... And everyone was watching it. The good thing was, the boys were not in the bus. It would have made them sick.

We decided to be fangirlish and stay close to the bus. The bikes were placed, the rollers were ready, the barrier tape with Leopard Trek logo was put up; time for the riders to arrive. Three Leopard cars arrived and all of a sudden, a bunch of kids ran to the cars. They all had white t-shirts on with billions of autographs. They needed the Leopards to sign all the shirts. The Leopards that escaped, would be asked later to sign. At the end of the day, there was no place left for anymore autographs and the kids had a bidon from every team. I would like to call that spoiled.

The Leopards escaped inside the bus very quick so we had to wait for the warm-up rounds. First up was Martin Pedersen. Watching him sweating on the rollers was fun for a while, but not all the time so we walked around to see who else was warming up. The guys who were warming up, weren't the most well-known guys. The 'big names' were going for a little spin on the parcours. Every now and then you heard one of the kids screaming "Leopard!" or "Saxobank!" and all the kids would run to the poor rider and ask him (in Dutch) to sign the shirts. Other visitors of the prologue were the parents of the kids. Yes, they were really there, but they were just not doing much. We also saw some amateurs on their amateur bikes being oh-so cool in Cervélo kits...
When the race started, other riders had to do their warm-up too and we were standing at the Leopard bus. When Pedersen left for his TT, I got his bidon! I didn't want to touch the top because he had been using it. I opened the bottle carefully and inside was not water. It smelled like flowers and sugar. A very strong smell, ugh! Disgusting! But I was happy to get a little souvenir.

Now the race was really starting; more riders began their warm-up, riders left for the race, team cars were riding back and forth. Ilona and I were standing at the Leopard bus. They parked near the exit of the parking lot, so we could see all the riders pass, while they were going to the TT parcours. Every now and then, I recognized a rider or I got the start list from my pocket to check the number. I think the Leopards who were warming up, didn't mind us when we turned our back to them.
Even for these fangirls, there's more than just one team. We walked around, visited Saxobank to take pictures of half-naked Jonas Aaen, who was chatting to former team mate Alex Rasmussen. We followed Alex Rasmussen to the HTC bus, saw Mark Renshaw and the winner of the day: Patrick Gretsch.
The most crowded places were at Omega Pharma Lotto, because Gilbert was warming up, and at Rabobank. It was nice to see Michael *bling* Matthews and admire his eyebrow piercing. Jos van Emden was popular too, since he is the Dutch TT champion. At this moment I'm writing, the Dutch TT nationals are held, so it'll be interesting to see whether van Emden will keep his jersey. (note: He didn't!)

Back at our spot at the Leopard bus, we already got recognised as the two fangirls. Giacomo Nizzolo was being very nice to pose for the camera, and so was Robert Wagner, who also threw his cap at Ilona.
At a certain moment, the race doctors came and went in to the bus. It didn't suprise us, because Robert Wagner had sent me a message on twitter the day before about all the injuries the Leopards were having. Well, this was another one to the list. Will Clarke got stung by a wasp and the poor boy is allergic to that. He wasn't feeling well but got medication so he could ride on. He wasn't the happiest rider though, no posing for the camera. He was the last but one rider to start for Leopard Trek and when he finished, he wasn't looking very well. He was coughing and almost throwing up. Well, he must have recovered a little because he did ride the entire Ster ZLM tour.

The last rider from Leopard Trek to start was Tom Stamsnijder, which is Ilona's favourite, so we spent some time watching him doing the warm-up. He was very focused so he didn't mind us, I even think he barely knew we were there. In the mean time, riders like Tyler Farrar, Niki Terpstra and Kenny van Hummel had passed us and done their TT.
When Tom left for his TT, at the end of the race, the parking lot was getting empty. Most of the riders were already chilling in the bus, so most of the visitors went to the finish line or went home. Ilona's dad, who was taking pictures of riders all day, came to us and asked if we wanted to go eat something. We thought it was about time to leave the Leopards alone and fill the tummies. On our way to the fast food restaurant near the finish, we heard Patrick Gretsch had won and we saw people going home from the finish line. So the race was over. If you noticed we didn't see anything from the race, you are right. We made that decision so we could take pictures with the riders and see them longer and closer. We knew we would see the riders again the next day, on the road.

When we were enjoying some fries and other fast food, we missed Tom Stamsnijder cooling down with his jersey unzipped. This is something we realised later, of course. Well, we needed some food and a chair after five hours of standing... Time flies when you're at a race like this. It was around 9 o'clock in the evening when we went home again. After a quick look at the picture, we fell on our beds for a good night of sleep.

The next morning we were packing bags again! There was rain predicted so we took an umbrella with us. The race started at 12 o'clock so somewhere around 11 o'clock we were awake and ready for the race! This stage started at a giant square in Eindhoven. After we found the square and the place to sign-in, we went looking for buses. Vacansoleil had already arrived, but most of the teams were not there yet. Since Leopard Trek is always late, we decided to buy some drinks, which we forgot, first. When we came back, Leopard Trek had actually arrived early! We were standing on a little distance from the bus, so we wouldn't be the stalker-girls again. After a minute or so, the Rabobank bus wanted to claim our spot, so we moved over. No, not to Leopard Trek, to the other side, to watch Rabobank. Again, most people were excited to see Rabobank so we left the bus to take a look at Omega Pharma Lotto again, because Ilona likes Klaas Lodewyck. We saw a few riders, but we didn't recognize them, so they were not Klaas nor Philippe. We had a look at the Vacansoleil bus to see if Johnny Hoogerland was outside, but he wasn't there either. Then the Sky-bus arrived and we all needed to move over. We went to the Leopard bus again, where we found a spot to stay for the rest of the time. Within one minute, it was getting very dark in Eindhoven... We looked at the sky and saw this huge dark cloud approaching. We weren't the only ones who noticed, as the soigneurs and mechanics hurried to get the awning rolled out. When the first raindrops fell from the sky, the bikes were put under the awning and all was safe.

Ten minutes before the start, it was raining cats and dogs. The streets were flooded, there was water everywhere. Some riders from Net App and Vacansoleil were passing us like there was no water. They just went to sign in, ride around, get things from the team car... The Leopards instead, stayed inside the bus for as long as possible. If they needed something, a soigneur ran from the bus to the team cars to get the bags of the boys. They got soaking wet and the boys were dry inside. Spoiled? Well, Dominic Klemme did feel sorry for letting the soigneur run another time because he forgot something. While the boys were still in the bus, we could hide for the rain under the awning. Very nice!

Because it was so dark outside, the blinded windows of the bus weren't completely blinded anymore. They had lamps inside which enabled us to see some of the guys getting ready for the stage. They knew we were watching because at one point Giacomo Nizzolo waved friendly and I waved back. What a highlight of the day.

Five minutes before the start, Anders Lund came outside, checked the weather, saw the roads being all wet and talked with the mechanics for a while. Then he went back inside, put his helmet on, checked himself in the mirror (oh yes) and they were off.

Everyone decided to sign in on the last minute because of that terrible weather. We walked, almost ran, to the sign-in too, jumped over some just created ponds and magically found an umbrella in Ilona's bag.
Now imagine a huge square with a podium on one side. The square was completely empty. All the spectators were standing at one side of the square where you could hide under a little overhang. All the cyclists were either standing on the podium or hiding under an overhang on the other side of the square. In the middle of the square you could see two girls under an umbrella!

Unfortunately, the umbrella was a bit too small for two persons, so we decided to join the riders under the overhang of the city hall. While we were standing there, a smiling lady came to us, our co-blogger Marleen! That was really funny.

While we were standing there, Ilona saw Klaas Lodewyck standing pretty close to us. I needed to encourage her to ask for a picture. The guys were just waiting there, nothing important.. Because she wasn't sure it was really him, she asked him in English and got her picture!

Then, all of a sudden, we heard a loud bang and that turned out to be the starting gun. The riders first looked a little confused but then just followed some others and the race had started. While they were leaving Eindhoven, the sky cleared up again, the rain was over and our clothes could dry.

More photo's on Ilona89.tumblr.com and whatmarlikes.tumblr.com (go back a few pages)