Some jobs you don't forget. This was the first one.
Omloop Het Nieuwsblad — the race that kicks the Belgian season into gear — was my first-ever World Tour road race as a content creator, and my first job for Shimano. Almost every big name was on the start list. I was, to put it mildly, nervous.
I'd come with a notebook full of ideas — small things I wanted to catch, like riders signing my lens. The days before the race were team visits and bike checks: walking through the trucks, getting close to the machines, learning how each squad works. And then it rained. Instead of killing the mood, the weather made it — bikes beaded with water under grey Flemish light. We shot the bikes in the wet, rolled our Postcard series, and it all just clicked.
Race morning was something else. The start was staged inside a cavernous hall — the kind of place they'd normally fill with livestock — cleared out and handed over to cycling. Team buses lined up left and right, everything tight and loud, fans pressed into every gap. That closeness was the whole point: the atmosphere was electric. The riders rolled out, I got my shots, and I grabbed a moment with the German guys — Nils Politt and Kim Heiduk — to wish them luck. Seeing Nils again meant a lot; we'd first worked together back in 2022.
You don't let a classic beat you.
Then the race left town, and my day turned into a chase. Ghent was sealed off completely. My first stop was a set of cobbles I'd scouted — and I never reached it. I sat at a traffic light for half an hour while the race rolled past in front of me. By the time I parked and sprinted to the spot, the riders were already gone. That one stung.
So I got back in the car and pushed on to the next point — the one place that happened to sit on my route. And there they came: the front group, Mathieu van der Poel at the sharp end. I got the frame. He'd go on to win the race.
For a season opener — and a first assignment for Shimano — I couldn't have asked for more. A brutal, beautiful Belgian classic, a winner riding Shimano, and the quiet confirmation that this is exactly the work I want to be doing.
