Rider Diary: Desmond Mohr Tackles Belgian Roads
In August 2024, I had the opportunity to go to a European race camp for 15-16 year old riders with USA Cycling. The trip consisted of three weeks living in the Netherlands and six Kermesse races in Belgium.
The word Kermesse means town fair, and for each race they will have a venue set up in town with beer gardens, carnival rides, or other things that people can do. But the bike race is the main attraction.
Kermesse races are a mix between a road race and a criterium. Usually the laps are between 5-8 km with the start/finish located on the main road of the town. The laps start in town and go out to the surrounding farm fields.
Each race lasted about an hour and a half, or 50-60 km. A lot of the time the size of the town determines which race is held there. The larger towns will host the pros and the smaller ones will host junior races.
We had a squad of six riders which gave us some good numbers for team tactics. The other big teams usually had 5-6 guys as well. The fields were usually 50-70 riders in the 15-16 age group and teamwork was very important. Belgium is also one of the few countries that still have junior gear restrictions. You can’t have too big a gear, and this made the racing way more difficult, especially in the sprints, because once you spin out the gears it’s impossible to pass people so positioning was crucial.
Being Americans, we had a target on our back every race. The Euro kids try to push you around and make you do more work, which was a challenge but one we got used to and overcame. Every race we had a different team leader, so we worked to get a different person to go for the win each time. With this strategy, the team brought home three wins, and a podium in every race we entered.
The roads were very narrow around the farm fields and one race even had cobblestones. The technical courses mixed with the junior gears mean the races are not won by just pure strength, but rather a mix of strength and skills. This made it very fun because it was anyone’s race and the smartest team won.
The races were always in the afternoon which made the mornings easy and allowed time to drive to the races that were usually about an hour away. A big part of race day was junior gear roll out. This is when the officials check that your gears meet the regulations. Everyone would crowd the roll out zone so they could be first to line up at the start and have good positioning. With each race we got better at making sure we got to roll out early so we would not get crowded out.
Racing in Europe was an amazing experience. There were lots of challenges to overcome and I learned a ton.
Thank you so much to my family and Boulder Junior Cycling for helping me get to this point and thank you USA Cycling for giving me the opportunity.
The squad at the start of the 3rd race where Rowan attacked solo for over half the race and won!
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Riding up the Keutenberg during one of our training days just outside our home town of Sittard.
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The team at the finish line after Charles won in a field sprint on a pan-flat course. On the left you can see some of the carnival rides the town had set up.
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Lunch in the team house. Most of the meals were carb heavy, usually pasta or burritos.
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The team on a training ride. We would go to the Tom Doumulin bike park to do our openers.
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