Originally Posted by
John Wilke
Well, "back in the day" (Oh no, here we go again) Otto used to fly guys over from Europe to race here. He'd have guest housing arranged and suppose only have to pay their tickets (or part?). I barely recall that when he was riding a lot himself, he'd take them out for social rides in the area. I was 17 or 18 at the time and can barely remember who was racing then. I do know that Festina was over here one year and KICKED A**. I was going to school over at UW-Milwaukee, hanging around the area a lot in the Summer and seeing the whole Festina B Team riding up Lake Drive. How cool!! More recently some Euro stud was here and flat out asked if he was 'juicing'. Response: "What? For this?" Meaning Superweek but certainly had the connotations that he wasn't beyond that behavior. Well, just like last year when they had the South African MTN team here. I love that foreign flavor that Superweek has always had. Man, I'll have to wrack my brain to remember who all rode here. Marcel Wust. Lance Armstrong of course back in '96 when he was prepping for the Atlanta Oly's. The Heidens, Lemond when he was 15. All those dude's raced here at one time or another.
I don't doubt any of that. I actually enjoyed watching MTN pack their dudes like sardines in that SUV and steal all the American money (especially since they were so lowly budgeted that they WERE racing for lunch money). But I think that, even to a lower-level Belgian team, a flat, low-wind (probably), warm, cobble-less 70 ride would be a warm-up! Call it 140 miles, and now you're talking!
I'm thinking that Superweek could see a fairly deep talent pool this year. I know that Bahati wanted to come last year... so maybe we'll see part of his team? Possibly a couple more guys from Jelly Belly? Who knows. It should be fun.
PS- I'm almost hoping that TOAD steals all of the Wisconsin Superweek venues... I don't think superweek would have much problem operating as a mostly-Illinois series. No problem at all!