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Are there still "Flandrians" in the peloton?

I'd like to launch a historic debate about those we call Flandrians.

The difference between Flandrian and Flemish, in my view, is that Flandrian is a strictly cycling term while Flemish is mainly geographic/geopolitic. My grandad (Walloon from Brussels) thought that Flandrians only came from the 2 provinces (East & West Flanders) as opposed to Flemish who may come from Antwerp, e.g. I think the term Flemish in that sense is a misuse of language because, for me, Flemish only come from the 2 provinces mentioned above (that is from the West of the Schelde).

The roots for the concept Flandrien are very hard to trace back. But we can say that before WWI it referred to track riders (source: De Flandriens, book from Canvas) from East and West Flanders who fought against each other but partnered when they rode abroad.

During the Interbellum, road races were created in Flanders (RvV becomes internationally recognized) and the Flandrians became road riders.

Edwig van Hooydonck describes them as "Flemish peasants who chose cycling to avoid the hardship of farm work. Nowadays, there are none of them anymore. Briek Schotte was the last of them."

I think he has a point. That means that the Flandrians were not strictly cobble specialists and that Schotte's nickname was not nostalgia but historical truth. All the rest is myth building by the great journalist Karel van Wynendaele in his "Rijke van Vlaamsche Wielerleven"(Kingdom of the Flemish Cycling Life): i.e. The Flemish need wind, mudder, rain, etc.

The later champions didn't come from the peasanry. Fred De Bruyne was the son of an electrician. He worked in a factory in Ghent. De Vlaeminck was the son of a hawker. He worked in a printing house and in the textile industry. And the Dutch-speaking Belgian champions were not all Flemish. Van Looy and van Steenbergen came from the Kempen, Ockers from Antwerp, Verbeeck, Impanis and Merckx from Brabant and Vanderaerden from Limburg, while the vast majority of them came from West Flanders during the Interbellum.

After the WWII and mostly in the late sixties when the route of Paris-Roubaix radically changed, Flandrians are meant to referred to cobble specialists because it's where the Belgians got most of their success.

I don't like the idea of Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix being Flandrian classics because it suggests that both races are very similar. Their palmarès are very different. Some of the best riders on the Tour of Flanders were much more consistent on the Ardennes classics than on Roubaix and some of the best riders of Roubaix were more consistent on Milan Sanremo than on Flanders, for example. Only in recent years - when the pseudo-champions become too specialized - do we have the impression that both races are somewhat similar.

What do you think?
 
My family lives all over the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, but are from Blankenberge in West Flanders. They're now in Poperinge, Antwerp, Brussels and Oostende. They call anyone Flemish who speaks Flemish. I don't know if they do this as a simplification for an American who didn't grow up there, or if it's just that simple and straightforward in their minds. Interesting question.
 
Anyone who speaks Flemish, means anyone coming from the West of the Schelde (not really actually, because some spoke French). In the Kempen they speak a variety of "Brabants".


But that's not really the main topic of my thread, with all respect. ;)
 
tgsgirl said:
You don't translate Giro or Vuelta, do you?
If you'd read the OP's story, you'd know that he is aware of its French spelling, but that apparently he likes to use its English translation. Which is perfectly fine, in my book. Otherwise, why not write the entire post in French.

And Giro or Vuelta aren't translated because they'd all be called Tour.
 
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I am so pleased that you started this thread Echoes, so much so that I've even joined the forum. During my brief flirtation with the pro scene in Belgium in 1962 I could never fathom "Flemish". There seemed to be different dialects in different areas, even small communities seemed to have their own particular pronunciation. I notice that a previous poster has claimed that there is no such language as Flemish, That may be the case today but then whatever language that was being spoken certainly wasn't Dutch.
I think to claim that Schotte was the last of the Flandriens {or Flandrians if you prefer} is a bit over the top. They may not have been champions but there were certainly plenty of farm boys trying to escape the land when I was riding. In fact most still worked on the land while still being more than useful pro riders. We used to call them flahutes but whether that was strictly correct I don't know.
There was certainly a great rivalry between east and west Flanders but whether it was really as serious as everybody made out I don't know. I imagine it was a bit like the rivalry between Flandria and Wiels. It kept the fans coming back for more
 
Derrick said:
I am so pleased that you started this thread Echoes, so much so that I've even joined the forum. During my brief flirtation with the pro scene in Belgium in 1962 I could never fathom "Flemish". There seemed to be different dialects in different areas, even small communities seemed to have their own particular pronunciation. I notice that a previous poster has claimed that there is no such language as Flemish, That may be the case today but then whatever language that was being spoken certainly wasn't Dutch.
Flemish is, and always has been, a variety of Dutch. Not a separate language.
 
Derrick said:
I think to claim that Schotte was the last of the Flandriens {or Flandrians if you prefer} is a bit over the top. They may not have been champions but there were certainly plenty of farm boys trying to escape the land when I was riding. In fact most still worked on the land while still being more than useful pro riders. We used to call them flahutes but whether that was strictly correct I don't know.

OK Thanks for this information. I'm sure you're right about that. Schotte was in that sense, probably the last Flandrian "champion". My point was that the concept should be understood that way (from a sociological point of view) and not as cobble specialists or windy race specialist, or whatever. This wouldn't even make sense because every generation has their own.

By the way, welcome to that forum.


Moondance said:
There is no difference in the written form of 'Dutch-Dutch' and 'Flemish-Dutch.' No major grammatical differences whatsoever. Ergo, same language.

I know countrymen of yours who told me that they can't understand Flemish people a bit when they speak in their dialects. Do you?

I'm French-speaking. When I watch the Één, I often see subtitles, even when young people speak, which means Dutch-speaking Belgians don't understand each other.
 
Jul 1, 2009
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www.velominati.com
Seems to me we're getting off-track here. We're not talking about language. We're talking about cycling, no?

We are talking about the hardmen. Flandrians. And, the hardest of the hardmen, the Flahute.

A Flandrian is one who lives for the stones, who pulls back the curtain on the first Sunday in April to check the weather, hoping for rain.

On the subject at Velominati.com:

Flandrian

Flahute: The Hardest of the Hardmen
 
Echoes said:
I know countrymen of yours who told me that they can't understand Flemish people a bit when they speak in their dialects. Do you?

I'm French-speaking. When I watch the Één, I often see subtitles, even when young people speak, which means Dutch-speaking Belgians don't understand each other.

Sure I have trouble understanding different dialects/accents of Dutch, not just limited to when I speak with Belgians. Whenever I go up north to my family in Groningen I have occasional troubles with comprehension of their strong accents. That's how it works everywhere. Try getting someone from America to understand a Brit with a strong Yorkshire accent. Both cases the languages are still the same.

Either way, the others are right, we shouldn't go on about this. Allow me to end the discussion by quoting your constitution, done for your convenience, in two of your national languages (on an interesting note, it's funny to see that the order is slightly different depending on the language, even though both are the 'official' version):

Belgian Constitution said:
Art. 4

La Belgique comprend quatre r&#233] langue néerlandaise[/B], la région bilingue de Bruxelles-Capitale et la région de langue allemande.

Art. 4

België omvat vier taalgebieden : het Nederlandse taalgebied, het Franse taalgebied, het tweetalige gebied Brussel-Hoofdstad en het Duitse taalgebied.
 
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I thought that people in 'de kempen' actually spoke 'Limburgs', but my Belgian geography is a little off. So I am unsure if it's in/near the (Belgian) province of Limburg, which together with the dutch province of Limburg once formed a mighty Duchy of Limburg and home to Limburger cheese (amongst other delicacies) :D

According to Wikipedia:

Flemish is derived from the name of the County of Flanders, from Middle Dutch vlāmisch, vlemesch. The name of the County of Flanders itself was first attested in Ghent, in 1237, and etymologically it derives from ‘Flandr’, which is Old Dutch roughly meaning ‘that which is flooded/flooded area’;[8] compare Common Germanic *flōðuz, "flood"

Given that perhaps only the provinces of Oost and West Vlaanderen could flood (?), due to its close proximity to the coast, it might be true that 'true' Flandriens had to come from those 2 regions only.

So I wikipedia-ed on and I found that:

the land covered by the county of Flanders is spread out over:
Belgium:

two of the five Flemish provinces: West-Flanders and East-Flanders
part of the Flemish province Antwerp: the land of Bornem
part of the Walloon province Hainaut: Tournai and the region around Moeskroen (that belonged to West-Flanders until 1962)

France:
French Flanders (in the Nord departement)
the French westcorner: the region around Dunkirk, Bergues and Bailleul, an area where Dutch used to be the main language
Artois (in the Pas-de-Calais department): removed from Flanders in 1191 and created as independent county in 1237

Netherlands: Zeelandic Flanders, a region between Belgium and the Western Scheldt, in the southern part of the province of Zeeland

see map:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:County_of_Flanders_(topogaphy).png

If we go with the geographic denomination originally considered "Flanders", then everyone from the Dutch, Belgian and French parts of the county should technically be called Flandrien, right?

Flemish, IMO, seems much more of a linguistic denomination, and covers more people/provinces, depending on the language they speak. So Belgians from the province of Antwerpen (born and raised) and who speak Flemish would be considered Flemish, as opposed to those from the Province of Limburg/Brabant, who would be called Limburgers, or Brabanders.

But I could be wrong. ;)
 
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So there we are then. It's the same language but different! You can imagine how difficult it was for a Londoner, and yes we almost have our own language too, to comprehend. Look at the difference of opinion generated in these few posts alone.
Regarding Flandrians, there was a time when many regarded "Flandrians" as far as cycling was concerned as those merely riding for Flandria. The "hardman" reputation was certainly deserved but was by no means exclusive. There were plenty of races with prizes down to 20th or 30th which started with 100+ riders where only a dozen finished so they weren't all "hard". You couldn't find easier races by riding lower category events either, the lesser the category the race the poorer were the roads. I'm sure some races were won by the last man left upright.
 
It's an excellent post Bala. I just wonder whether many Belgians know about all this.

I would add several things:

The Kempen (I think the English term is Campine, like the French one) covers the Antwerp province and Limburg + Northern Brabant in the Netherlands.

In the Antwerps Campine, they speak a Antwerps variety of Brabants dialect and it is still really vivid. If you listen to Boonen's interview, for example. I don't know if the Limburgs dialect is still spoken but in the Antwerps Campine, it's obvious to me.


Those we call Flandrians certainly come from the "historical" Flanders. When van Looy was asked if he was a Flandrian, he answered: "Nah, I'm a Campiner and have always felt that way."
 
Kinda on-topic (don't really want to make a new thread about it), but how many Walloon pro's are there/who are they? Most of the major Belgian riders are Flemish apart from Gilbert, it seems.

And are Lotto & QST traditionally one or the other? Or just Belgian.
 
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The question was: "are there still flandriens" in the peloton.
(not what is the difference between dutch in the netherlands & flanders, what regio should we call flanders,...)

What is a flandrien to me: an old school type of rider, who doesn't care for his style, only for his riding. Who doesn't stop for rain, snow or storm. Who doesn't care to be in a solo getaway for 150 km to win a race. Who'd rather drop death than give up. Who can ride cobbles as if it was a highway. ....

Does this have to be a Fleming? A Belgian? ... I don't really know. I think they mostly have to like the Flemish races.

I could call Voigt a Flandrien, but he doesn't ride that much in this regio.
Boonen, Cancellara, Ballan, certainly Pozzato they're all to much of a pretty boy to be called a flandrien.
Guys like Flecha, Nuyens, Devolder, Leukemans,... i got the feeling they think to much during a race, play it to tactical. That's not very Flandrien-like.
Gilbert, that's a Flandrien in every meaning of the word.
Hoste maybe. He has the face for it...
 

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