Brussels Cycling Events

22/02/2022

# Feedback BHCC 2nd edition

Dear participants and friends of the Brussels Hill Climb Challenge,

Now that the challenge has come to an end. It is time for us organisers to reflect on this edition in order to make future editions ever better.

If you have feedback on the current edition or suggestions for a future one please let us know.

This concerns feedback on :
- The selected hills
- Route suggestions
- Communication and information
- Leaderboards and ranking
- Organisation of the challenge
- The grand final in Beukenberg
- ....

You can leave comments, feedback and suggestion as a comment to this post or by sending an email to [email protected]

📸 Giulia Forsythe

22/02/2022

BHCC collector Jersey

We teamed up with Bioracer to produce a collector jersey for this edition of the BHCC.

The result is amazing, a true collector item to remember this memorable edition.

Pre-orders are open until mid-march.
You can order it on our webshop : https://brusselsbigbrackets.eu/product/bhcc-2022-souvenir-jersey

21/02/2022

The Brussels Hill Climb Challenge: it’s a wrap!
Concluding the BHCC and its 9 separate legs in and around Brussels, it was great to get together for the grand finale of the Brussels Hill Climb Challenge!

More than 100 participants braved the wind and the occasional rain to conquer the brutal Beukenberg and its 11% gradient.

Well done to Goerick Daeninck (Brussels cycling team) for his blistering 20.51s time on the climb!

Niki Buggenhout (Brussels Triathlon Club) won the race in the female category.

And well done to Virgile Loiseau (Brussels Big Brackets) for winning the BHCC overall classification for the second year running!

The final ranking for the event today can be found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-ydPcwkVJRFx-aAO64U4Hxd06kz5oqU2/view

Have a look at some of the photos of the event! A photo gallery with all participants will be published in the next few days – as well as little video of the whole event. More on the Brussels Big Brackets website: https://brusselsbigbrackets.eu/bhcc/

A huge thanks to the Commune de Forest - Gemeente Vorst, the Fédération Cycliste Wallonie - Bruxelles (and their precious support on the day!!!), and our amazing sponsors.

22/12/2021

Dear participants of the Brussels Hill Climb Challenge, I would like to warmly congratulate the participants who challenged themselves up Charly des bois. You have all done tremendous efforts, setting more personal best times than I have cornflakes during breakfast.

Full results are available here:

- Results Charly des bois: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11OpcnLNfoveFkPXgPbiJyAjQuO7kVXn2/view
- General Classification: https://drive.google.com/file/d/14-FINvdOxuvriE8ddPOz1SFlItv_em0k/view

Points for the general classification are awarded with the following rules:

- Participation to a hill automatically awards you 200 points.
- Your ranking on a hill gives you : 201 -

If you participate on a hill, you can thus cumulate a maximum of 400 points per hill for first place and a minimum of 200 for placings 201 and beyond.

These results are provisional. You have until Friday 24 December to point out a mistake in these results. You can do so by commenting on this Strava post. If your result is missing please post a link to your activity as a comment to this post.

Next week we take a week break for Xmas and and new year before we tackle the next one!
See you all on Bekestraat!

15/12/2021

Dear participants of the Brussels Hill Climb Challenge, I would like to warmly congratulate the 50 participants who challenged themselves up the Mazier. It was not an easy week to set a PR with a week and weekend oscillating between, sun, snow and rain. You have all done tremendous efforts, setting more personal best times than I have cornflakes during breakfast.

Full results are available here:

- Results Mazier: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10e3FVQciZw8qLponxMWNUl2yBWU-Zmmm/view

Points for the general classification are awarded with the following rules:

- Participation to a hill automatically awards you 200 points.
- Your ranking on a hill gives you : 201 -

If you participate on a hill, you can thus cumulate a maximum of 400 points per hill for first place and a minimum of 200 for placings 201 and beyond.

These results are provisional. You have until Friday 19 December to point out a mistake in these results. You can do so by commenting on this Strava post. If your result is missing please post a link to your activity as a comment to this post.

As a reminder, this year the deadline to upload an activity is set to Sunday 20h, make sure you upload your activity on time!

01/12/2021

Welcome to the second edition of the Brussels Hill Climb Challenge.

The Challenge will run through the winter months and will allow you to show the effect of your awesome training by setting personal best times up a dozen selected hills. Who knows, you might even be strong enough to make it on the leaderboard for a given hill or your incredible consistency might hoist you up the overall points classification!

Each week a hill is open for competition. The challenge is advertised the week before on Strava and Facebook. Anyone is invited to have a go at setting the fastest time up the selected hill.

Each hill corresponds to a Strava segment. Be sure to check the segment in advance to make sure you know the landmark that indicates the start and finish line. The start and stop lines are taken from Strava. This is a solo effort that you do on any day that suits you that week. Participants must ride alone and cannot benefit from the draft of other riders or vehicles. Starting at speed is permitted. Timing is only accounted for between the start and stop segment. Timing is managed by a GPS recording uploaded to Strava. Participants must post their ride publicly on Strava and be members of the Strava group for results to be registered. Rides of the week must be sent before Sunday 20h00. You are free to ride up the hill as many times as you feel like it.

A leaderboard is established each week. A point based leaderboard is established over all hills with a grand winner announced at the end of the season.

Points for the general classification are awarded with the following rules:
- Participation on a hill automatically awards you 200 points.
- Your ranking on a hill gives you : 201 -

If you participate on a hill, you can thus accumulate a maximum of 400 points per hill for first place and a minimum of 200 for placings 201 and beyond.

This year Brussels Big Brackets will be accompanying the challenge. Each week the route makers of the club will publicly post two routes that include the selected hill. One route will take you for a scenic ~50km ride, the other for a ~90km ride. On Sundays, the club will ride the selected hill in different group rides of varying speed and route distance. BBB fans will be cheering along your hill climb effort!
You can find out more about the BBB rides on the following website: https://brusselsbigbrackets.eu

Ride strong, ride safe, ride uphill

To join the challenge make sure you join this Strava group: https://www.strava.com/clubs/783948

# # Hill Challenge calendar # #
A holiday recess is planned during the week of New Year.

# Mazier -- 6 December - 12 December
Length: 680m
Average gradient: 5.8%
Strava segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/17409509

# Charly des Bois -- 13 December - 19 December
Length: 1.99km
Average gradient: 4.4%
Strava segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/1306402

# Bekestraat -- 20 December - 26 December
Length: 510m
Average gradient: 6.6%
Strava segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/1803556

# Kesterberg -- 3 January - 9 January
Length: 1.63km
Average gradient: 3.2%
Strava segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/4237504

# Smeysberg -- 10 January - 16 January
Length: 630m
Average gradient: 8.1%
Strava segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/20363851

# Hunselenberg -- 17 January - 23 January
Length: 930m
Average gradient: 5.7%
Strava segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/775457

# Bruyére du Wez -- 24 January - 30 January
Length: 400m
Average gradient: 8.6%
Strava segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/3643906

# Golf Bercuit -- 31 January - 6 February
Length: 830m
Average gradient: 6.1%
Strava segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/2022989

# Grotstraat-Berchembos Gooik -- 7 February - 13 February
Length: 2.49km
Average gradient: 2.5%
Strava segment: https://www.strava.com/segments/1014625

# Surprise FINAL -- 14 February - 20 February
Length: ###.XXkm
Average gradient XX%
Stava segment: ###xx

We welcome all cycling enthusiasts willing to join a multicultural Brussels based peloton and to share their passion.

05/11/2021

Winter is fast approaching. The highlight of our cycling season gravitating (or levitating?) around the Brussels Hill Climb Challenge.

You read it right, BHCC 2022 is on!

The challenge will be running from the first week of December until February.

At this point we are still finalizing the race program. I would like to hear you to make BHCC2022 an awesome edition.

- Do you have any favourites, iconic or hidden hills we should include?
- Any favourites from last edition we should definitely keep?
- Any dodgy hills from last edition that should be removed?
- Any improvements we could bring to the rulebook or leaderboard of last year?

Do leave us comments and suggestions while we are still preparing the event.

You can reach out through the following platforms:
- by email: [email protected]
- as a comment to this post on Strava - https://www.strava.com/clubs/783948/posts/18482251
- On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Brussels-Cycling-Events-101862045310184

Also always happy to welcome any volunteers that would like to help in running the challenge.

See you soon up some steep gradient.

10/03/2021

Here are some details on how this challenge will be run.

# Routes

The different routes (S, M, L) will be made available at least two weeks before each event as a GPX file on the RouteYou.com platform as well as on Strava.

A GPX file is a GPS data format that is used to describe a route. It can be loaded on a bike computer or on a smartphone for navigation.
Some smartphone navigation apps include: BikeGPX, RunGo, RidewithGPS, MyRouteYou Mobile.

RouteYou allows you to visualise the route on a map and check its elevation profile.

As an example here is the S route for the Ronde van Vlaanderen: https://www.routeyou.com/en/route/view/5050021/recreatieve-fietsroute/we-ride-flanders-74km

The S (~70km) and M (~150km) will be proposed as loops such that they start and end at the same place. The L format follows the official race more closely and does typically not start and end in the same city.

# Practical organisation

Given the current sanitary situation, we ask you to self-organise in small COVID-safe groups when riding the route.

You will be riding the route on open roads. Make sure to follow traffic laws and ride responsibly.

You will be riding the route self-supported. Make sure to bring some water and food with. Belgium is a densely populated country, you will find shops and villages along the way to refill.

You must arrange your own transportation to the start of the course. Train lines from Brussels to the start of the course will be suggested for each route.

You can find the latest COVID regulations and recommendations for cyclists on:
- https://info-coronavirus.be (Belgian COVID regulations)
- https://cycling.vlaanderen/magazine/nieuws/coronavirus-covid19-update (Cycling Vlaanderen COVID guidelines)
- http://www.belgiancycling.be/news.asp?language=fr&id=3422 (Belgian Cycling COVID guidelines)

# Leaderboards

Three challenges will take place throughout this challenge:
- Sprint point based classification on select segments (1 -- 2 per course)
- Mountain point based classification on select segments (1 -- 2 per course)
- Photo like based classification on community elected best photo on the course

The Sprint and Mountain classifications will be run using Strava for timing. To participate in these challenges you must:
- Join the Brussels Cycling Events club: https://www.strava.com/clubs/brussels-cycling-events
- Record your activity while riding the segment on Strava (this can be done using a bike computer or the Strava app on your smartphone)
- Make your activity public

We will automatically fetch all the activities of athletes part of the Brussels Cycling Events club on the Sunday evening of the week when a route was open to participation. This then allows us to build a leaderboard.

To participate in the photo competition you must post your best picture taken on the course on the Brussels Cycling Events page: https://www.facebook.com/Brussels-Cycling-Events-101862045310184
On the second Wednesday after a route was open to participation we will build a leaderboard based on the pictures with the most likes.

For each challenge points will be allocated as follows: 100 points for first place, 99 for second, 98 for third and so on until 1 point for 100th place and beyond.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the organisation of this challenge feel free to post them as comments or send an email to [email protected]

Cycling related challenges for cyclists based in Brussels and around.

05/03/2021

The organisers of the Brussels Hill Climb challenge are back with a new challenge!
The Brussels Cycling Classics, during this epic classics season we invite you to ride four of the classics courses to conquer and discover these monuments of cycling.

Four routes on the menu:
• 22 -- 28 March : Ronde van Vlaanderen
• 5 -- 11 April : Brabantse Pijl
• 19 -- 25 April : Gent Wevelgem
• 3 -- 9 May : Liège-Bastogne-Liège

Three distances per course:
• S ~70km
• M ~150km
• L full distance

Three leaderboards:
• Sprint -- point based classification on select segments (1 -- 2 per course)
• Mountain -- point based classification on select segments (1 -- 2 per course)
• Photo -- like based classification on community elected best photo on the course

Make sure to join to the Brussels Cycling Events Strava club to get all the info on the challenge
https://www.strava.com/clubs/783948