INTERVIEW: KEISSE ! LAMPAERT

Iljo Keisse and Yves Lampaert are two Flemish fixtures of Belgian squad Quick-Step Floors. Both are from Flanders and both specialise in the cobbled Classics that define the region, as they explain to Procycling

We sit down with the beating Flemish heart of the Quick-Step team: Iljo Keisse and Yves Lampaert, for a revealing double interview

You’re both from Flanders. How did you get into cycling?

Iljo Keisse: I’m from Ghent, a little more of a city boy than Yves. I grew up and started on the track, my father runs an open cycle track in Ghent and that’s how it all started. My uncle was a cyclist, my father was a cycle trainer, if it’s in the family it goes easy – you’re always into cycling.

Yves Lampaert: I started a bit different. I did 11 years of judo and at one moment I had a cousin who was riding quite well on the bike, who also became a pro, Stijn Neirynck, and then I said one day when we were together, I’m going to start cycling also. I was almost 17. I rode to school but the bike was nothing that I dreamed of – I was thinking of judo at the Olympics, so I didn’t think at all about cycling. I started a bit with duathlon, then I did a small race not so far from my house and that’s how it started.

Yves, you grew up on a farm...

YL: My parents are farmers and I live there still, so when I have some free time and don’t have to race, working on the farm helps me to relax. They have a vegetable farm - I tend to the crops or am riding on the tractor!

And Iljo, your father runs a bar in Ghent that’s notorious for hosting the Ghent Six-Day after party.

IK: He’s had the bar for 10, 12 years now, and before that he ran the open track. I’ve always been around cycling. Most memories are about the Classics and going to watch Tour stages, especially when it came to Belgium. When I was really young, watching the Tour of Flanders, Adri van der Poel threw away his arm warmers - I was using them after for three years as leg warmers. He was riding for Tulip, and they were a really nice green... then I would wear blue and yellow. I was like a rainbow. I also had a big map of all the teams. After the race I’d go to the hotel, like kids come now to ask for bottles and pictures. I had the map with the names... YL: Really? IK: Yeah, I went to the starts all over. YL: I also have a memory: my uncle moved to the region of Bessèges, where you have the race Étoile de Bessèges, and there we met Nico Mattan from Cofidis who is also from Izegem. I went in the picture with him.

Iljo, do you still have the memorabilia?

IK: I still have it all, I think. It’s all in my mum’s house, I think I had, like, 500 bottles [from riders]. Now when I see the kids on the side of the road I try to give them something, because I know what it was to be a kid standing there at the sixdays, asking all the lesser-known riders.

Many of your peers move to warmer climates to train. What made you both stay living in Belgium?

YL: I still live where I grew up in Izegem, it’s very close to all the finishes of the Belgian cobblestone Classics races, so it’s special to race near here. For me I really love the [area] where I train, all the small roads. In not one single other country do you have so many different kinds of training parcours, so for me it’s the best reason to stay.

IK: If I had made more money when I was younger, I still would have stayed in Belgium where I live now, but probably bought something in Spain or Italy or close to a region where you can do something else than we do in Flanders. I think now I am 35 it’s a little too late!

Why is cycling so special in Belgium?

IK: There’s always been a lot of respect for cyclists, I have a feeling that is changing a little bit right now. You can feel that on the roads. Before they made space for you, or people passed you and they waited, they respected what you do and now everybody’s busy, has stress in the car. Things are changing a little bit. But still you can feel a lot of respect towards professional or good bike riders, wherever you go. People recognise you, they take photos with you.

YL: It’s because the Classics are in Belgium. The media makes it so big and the people really love it – all the fanatics really love it – you already can feel it before the race.

IK: At the end of the year they show like a review [on television].

YL: Then you always feel it. I get some text messages from friends then, they’re already excited for the new season.