Liege Bastogne Liege 2017

philbar72
philbar72 Posts: 2,229
edited April 2017 in Sportives/audaxes/training rides
Doing this again for the 4th year on the bounce. Properly hard day on the bike, but at the same time great fun. Lovely scenery as well. hoping it won't rain this year.

anyone else going?

Comments

  • kiteloopy
    kiteloopy Posts: 94
    Im doing the medium route.

    Not sure what I got myself into!
  • rc856
    rc856 Posts: 1,144
    Lucky you :)

    Did it in 2015 and loved it....in hindsight :)

    I was set on the medium route but was persuaded to do the full and glad I did. Watching the rave the
    next day made for the perfect weekend.

    Enjoy and good luck!
  • NUFCrichard
    NUFCrichard Posts: 103
    I'm in for the 272km route, but the weather is looking pretty ropey, I won't take a lot of convincing to do the 155km instead! 5200m of climbing seems pretty crazy.

    Anyone want to reassure me/us that it isn't too much and crazy to ride the long route? I am a decent rider and have done la Marmotte and the Maratona before, but this has me more worried just due to the length of it!
  • philbar72
    philbar72 Posts: 2,229
    its fine as long as you pace yourself. the rain should subside on the way back, then you'll only have a massive headwind to deal with.

    I'm intrigued as to the new climbs and can't wait to get re aquainted with La Redoute. its my favourite climb despite the fact I am completely unsuited to it!
  • NUFCrichard
    NUFCrichard Posts: 103
    Thanks Phil. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Just after 140km I got caught in some heavy rain, with a head wind and it was cold, that wasn't the most fun part of the day, but otherwise it could have been worse!

    I have to say, it isn't really a sportive, it is a reliability trial, or a RTF here in Germany. There isn't a start or end mat, so no times are taken. I guess that is because of the traffic and traffic lights in Liege.

    http://www.richardrae.de/2017/04/23/lie ... -sportive/
  • kiteloopy
    kiteloopy Posts: 94
    Got back in the UK last night after completing the medium route on Saturday.

    It was a great day in the saddle and will certainly be open to do it again….but the long route would still be too long for me so id have to do the medium again. I prefer the ride of LBL classic compared to Flanders or P-R but there isn’t the hype around the pro-event compared to the other two I found. Flanders had Greg-VA graffiti, posters and flags literally everywhere but LBL had none of that stuff apart from a few climbs. We were trying to find somewhere that’s the equivalent of the kwaremont (big marquee’s of food and drink, big screens, lots of fans, etc etc) but couldn’t find any. Anyway, we watched the depart and then hit the beers straight after. Later on we found a place called BeerLovers which had a projector and hung out there until the end of the race. Liege is nice but a lot of things were closed.


    The cat climbs are tough! I had to stop 1/2 way on each for a breather, I was going into the red too much. The feedstops are pretty much empty so you can get a good handful of food and go back on the road. The Mavic mechanic’s looked pretty bored, so any bike issues would have been fixed pretty much straight away.

    The weather was poor but certainly 'added' to the day.

    Tip for others, the traffic in Brussels was horrendous. It added an hour and a half to get from one site to another on Friday afternoon (peak rush hour).

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