Piet Allegaert made a diary on his Tour of Alberta as Stagiair for Trek including a great anecdote about the Great Bauke Mollema (in the Krant van West-Vlaanderen on 9 September)
“Mollema Won and Drank Green Tea, the Rest Ordered a Beer”
Piet Allegaert is third year U23 and stagiair with Trek Segafredo and could start the Tour of Alberta along with, among others, the Great Bauke Mollema.
On Thursday 25 August he flew off to Chicago alone because Stijn Devolder was sick and only made the trip later on. Then it was 2.5 hours driving to the hotel.
On Friday 26 August they rode 2.5 hours on the bike to the Trek seat in Waterloo, Wisconsin. [It’s a coincidence that
Wout Van Aert and riders of the Telenet-Fidea team have also recently been in Waterloo, Wisconsin at the moment visiting the Trek seat, hmm and this being said, Wout is not racing on a Trek bike ???][I didn’t know that there was a town called Waterloo in Wisconsin, I know that a lot of Belgians migrated to Green Bay, Wisconsin in the 1850’s and many town names echo Belgian town names but I’ve never heard of Waterloo]. Then they took the bus to Madison.
On Saturday 27 August Gran Fondo through Wisconsin; 280km over one straight road with hills like in France. They rode the first 170km and then were taken back to Chicago and to spend the night there.
On Sunday 28 No training, 4 hour flight to Calgary followed by a 45’ flight to Lethbridge.
On Monday 29 brought by car to Waterton National Park where they trained for 4 hours in the Canadian Rockies. That was really mountainous.
On Tuesday 30 brought by car to Glacier National Park for another 4 hour training with a 15km climb. It was breathtakingly beautiful.
The training in the National Parks were two of the most beautiful days of my life.
On Wednesday 31 Team presentation of the Tour of Alberta with [The Great Bauke] Mollema, [Harry] Dondo, his roommate Devolder, Hesjedal, Stetina, Rast & Schleck. The VIP guests were there mainly for eating and had less attention for the riders.
On Thursday 1 September it was Stage 1 of the race. [The Great Bauke] Mollema was along in the good breakaway and for Piet it was also a nice day because it was planned that he could go for his own chance. Even more, the others would support him, which happened. Rast led him out the sprint and he won … for the 12th place but it pleased him. After the end of the stage there was a 3 hour move and they only arrived in their hotel at 0.30. No massage. Straight to bed!
On Friday 2 September Heavy wind and rain, conditions comparable to Brussels-Zepperen, earlier this year. Everybody was benumbed. He could not even put on his gloves. With the team they’ve worked to catch a dangerous 10-man breakaway and he bridged a gap himself alone in the finale. For that reason he couldn’t contend for the win.
On Saturday 3 September was windy again but not enough. There was a two-man breakaway but no danger from the ranking of [the Great Bauke] Mollema. Piet was 15th in the stage ranking which he sure shouldn’t complain about.
On Sunday 4 September there was first a three-hour trip to Edmonton where they had to race a TT. It wasn’t a real good day. He is no TT’er himself and besides he felt the results of the efforts he had made the three days before with systematically a hilly stage at a 45% average speed. Yet they celebrated because [the Great Bauke] Mollema won the ITT and came 2nd in the GC, 1” behind Carpenter. The team allowed them to choose by ourselves what we would drink. Everybody chose a beer but [the Great Bauke] Mollema (wink). He drank green tea.
On Monday 5 they did everything to make [the great Bauke] Mollema get back but Robin Carpenter and his team was very strong.
On Tuesday 6 they took a three-hour flight to Montreal and then a 7-hour flight back to Brussels.
On Wednesday 7 he landed in Zaventem Airport at 9am local time. He couldn’t really sleep in the plane, got bored, watched a film and listened to music but he’s glad he could have made this experience. In October he will race the Tour of Abu Dhabi [unfortunately] with Trek too. On Friday 9 he raced the Tour of Moselle for the Quick Step development team but he claimed that the jetlag was still clearly in his legs. [well normally you recover quite fast from jetlags]