Following in his father’s footsteps, Christian Vande Velde always knew he wanted to be a professional cyclist.
Vande Velde just finished his ninth trip to the Tour de France and took 17th place out of 198 competitors.
The tour started off rocky for him when he crashed three times and went through a lot of trauma.
“I had to roll with the punches,” Vande Velde said. “We had a great tour as a team.”
To get in shape for the tour, Vande Velde rides at least four hours a day. He’ll leave his house in Lemont and heads south toward the Route 66 raceway in Joliet.
He logs about 20,000 miles a year.
“My favorite ride is going far south and riding down the Kankakee River and back,” Vande Velde said. “However, the mountain biking trail riding here is becoming very nice and I spend most of my off-season riding those trails in Palos and taking the bike path back that parallels the canal.”
He grew up in Lemont, and after being away most of the year, he likes to come home.
“No one ever gets used to it,” Vande Velde said about the tour. “It’s never the same route.”
He said this year seemed to be even more stressful than previous races.
“The bikes themselves, the technology has gone through the roof,” he added. “The technology makes it just faster and things have increased.”
Not only have the competitors and the equipment enhanced, but the tour also is more intense.
In France, Vande Velde said there are a lot of obstacles in the road such as round-abouts, signage and the amount of traffic that makes the route more dangerous.
“It’s more cutthroat these days,” Vande Velde said. “I would say people are more athletic and the level of the field has changed.”
Vande Velde has one more year left on his contract and will be going to the tour again.
“I don’t know what I am going to do after my career,” Vande Velde said. “I am really trying not to think about it too much. Right now I am more worried about my career.”
RESIDENCE Lemont
AGE 35
YEARS CYCLING PROFESSIONALLY 19
FAMILY Wife, Leah; daughters, Uma and Madline
NOTABLE Has been a professional cyclist since 1998, placed fourth in the Tour de France in 2008
