Over the summer, cycling coach and theology teacher Mr. Armstrong traveled to Belgium to run his own cycling camp. In Belgium, he is the co-owner of a program called Flanders Development, where they host teen cyclists to compete in popular races.
Interview:
I had the pleasure to interview Mr. Armstrong and learn more about what he does at the camp and how it works.
Picture from https://flandersdevelopmentcycling.com/
What exactly did you do in Belgium for your cycling program?
It’s not affiliated with Jesuit, and it’s kind of a side hustle/business that I do with one of our assistant cycling coaches. We do a camp and it’s similar to a lot of other athletic camps as we really just provide racing opportunities for bicycle racers between the age of 15 and 22 from all over the world. They sign up to be in our program and we host them in Belgium for 32 days and take them to bike races; we teach them a little bit about cycling culture in Belgium, but the primary role is that we take them to the elite junior bicycle races throughout Belgium. They race depending on who they are and based on their age, and they race two to three times a week. Their families pay a flat fee and buy their own airfare, and we pick them up at the airport in Brussels and handle all the in-country transportation. We rent a house where they stay, and [it] ends up becoming like a cycling dorm. We stock the pantry in the fridge and cook them dinner every night, but they’re on their own to make lunch and breakfast. They could go out on their own or go out and eat in town. Then [we] provide transportation to their races and support them; then [we] drop them off at the airport 32 days later.
Why did you choose Belgium as the place?
Bike racing is huge in Belgium. It’s where most of the newcomers in the sport go to cut their teeth. It’s where they go to test out how good they are. We sometimes compare it to high school football in Texas, or maybe lacrosse in Maryland, or ice hockey up in New England [and] Minnesota. It’s just really big there and the competition is better, and what ends[s] up happening in Belgium every summer (and also throughout the year) is they have lots of bike races. They’re at a very high level and the top racers in those age groups of 15 to 22 from all over the world go there. So while we’re there, we often see elite junior development teams from France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. All these teams bring their racers over there, as well as a lot of those national teams. So once that starts to happen in one area, Belgium, that just becomes the area that everyone else goes to. It’s an easy thing to go there and test yourself against everybody else in the world. It would be like [what] baseball is in America. Not everybody in the US played baseball growing up, but a lot of people play t-ball or baseball at some point. It’s kind of called our national pastime, and even if you don’t play you kind of probably know some people who play baseball and kind of know the rules. So, it’s kind of like that in Belgium.
Picture from https://flandersdevelopmentcycling.com/
Is this the first year or has it been going on for a while?
It’s been going on for a while. So, I have gone to Belgium to be a part of this camp since 2015. We took two years off during the pandemic, so nothing in 2020 and in 2021. The house that we rent is always the same house. The guy is from Central Texas and he wanted to come back to Texas for the summer. So, we house-sat for him over the summer and over the years [we] have been developing this relationship with him. We’ve been doing it since 2015, [with] my business partner John Hodges and I, [and] it became our camp in 2019. So, at first, we started just working as staffers for someone else, but that guy stepped down; he became too old [and] wanted to retire, so he just gave us the program. So, from 2019 onwards it’s been ours.
So, have any Jesuit students ever wanted to do it or have done it before?
So, this past summer we had current junior, Jack Webb, who is there racing in the 15-16 age group, and we had an alum, someone who just graduated in the spring, Lucas Ferguson. They were both there this summer, and previous to that we’ve had two or three other students go as well, back in 2015 and 2016.
How did you get into cycling and what does it mean to you to run this program?
So, I got into organized cycling and racing my freshman year of college. They had a big activity fair, and I was a high school athlete in football and other sports, but I wasn’t going to do those sports in college. I still wanted to pursue athletic kind of activities and they had a big club/activity fair in college like [in] early September. So, there were like 230 clubs, and they were all kind of just advertising/promoting, and I saw the cycling team. It was a club sport, and I was like, “oh I’ve always liked riding my bike, I’ve always like pushing myself hard” [so] for whatever reason that appealed to me. I remember a lot in the neighborhood growing up I did mock races against my buddies, just in the neighborhood. We [would] travel every weekend, this is up in Boston, and we travel every weekend in the spring. We [would] go to Philadelphia, we [would] go to New York, we [would] go kind of all over for races. I was like “that sounds awesome, racing and traveling,” so I joined the team and started doing it. [I] just really fell in love with it and just kind of found my passion.
Picture from https://flandersdevelopmentcycling.com/
Then kind of what it means to be able to have a program in Belgium, it’s really cool, we enjoy giving that opportunity to developing cyclists. [For] some racers, it’s a stepping stone to the next level, some racers that have gone to the program have been national champions in their home countries, and they’re working their way up the ranks in the sport, and it’s just one small step in their developmental process giving them the experience that they’ll then take and grow to the next level.
Then for a lot of the other racers, it’s a pinnacle experience, this is the biggest racing the player will do; this is the most serious racing the player will do [and] the peak of their racing career. Whether they know it at the time or not it’s the peak, they will have that experience to look back on for the rest of their lives and to help them grow. What it means to be high achieving and then what it takes in elite level of anything and so it just means a lot to be able to provide that opportunity to people.
Also, the cultural experience is important as well; a lot of them have never been outside the house where their parents take care of everything, and then they’re in a house having to cook their own breakfast and do their own chores. So, there’s also that life development that we get to give them prior to moving off to college. So, it just means a lot to do that, and then it’s fun because it’s Belgium, and it’s a nice opportunity to get to go to Europe every summer. Then, professionally for me in the sport as a coach, it’s nice to have the coaching experience of not just here in Texas or in the US. Also, [cycling’s] kind of a European-centered sport; to get to have some experience coaching and on that side in Europe is also really cool.
So, the assistant coach Sean Hodges and I were the ones that were on the program. Its name is Flanders development. Then, Ms. Desormeaux works here also as a cycling coach here. She helps out as well, she goes over and helps at the camp; she’s an unofficial staffer because she enjoys getting to just come and help when she wants. She’s also there and helping out a lot and provides a great resource to the program.
