This Sunday, the European Pro Cycling Classics kick off with the Milan-San Remo.
I have a minuscule tidbit of lore on the race, as I have a connection to the
winner of the first edition of Milan San Remo in 1908, Cyrille Van Hauwaert.
Unable to afford train fare to the race, Van Hauwaert gathered some clothes
and a small amount of money, and departed Belgium for Milan on his bike.
Riding south through the Ardennes, into France and then Italy, he arrived very fit for the race.
He won the first Milan San Remo, but the details of his victory have been lost to time.
Instantly, he became a legend. The Flemish, who had little joy in their lives
now had claim to a genuine international hero. Van Hauwaert became
the first of the Flandriens, the Flemish riders who dominated
the classics for the bulk of the Twentieth Century. The most famous Flandriens
are Rik Van Loey, Rik Van Steenbergen and Roger De Vlaeminck "Mr. Paris Roubaix".
One could say that Johan Musseuw is the latest Flandriens, but I would argue
Freddy Maertens was the last.
After his homecoming, Van Hawaert maximized his fame and started building
bicycles bearing his name. The Van Hauwaert brand was built
in his workshop in Brussels, later he opened a second factory in the Congo.
In the late 1940s, he began to rack up debts, as his love
for drink and the horses ate in to his profits. By the mid 1950s he
closed the plant in the Congo and looked into selling off his brand in
order to pay off his bookies. He sold his business to a Mr. De Visscher
who continued production of Van Hauwaert bicycles in Brussels until
the early 1970's when he moved the production to Ronse, in Southern East Flanders.
In 1993, I took a job with De Visscher as a mechanic/frame painter/lackey
and had his son build me a custom bike with Fillet Brazed Columbus EL tubing,
which I raced for two seasons.
De Visscher's son remembered meeting
Cyrille Van Hauwaert and described him as a rotund man with a deep
belly laugh and a large handlebar mustache, with a famous weakness for drinking, gambling and the ladies.
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