out with a whimper rather than a bang

Following on from last weekend’s long treks to races, this weekend had a couple of local outings in store.  Saturday was in Geel…or so I’m told.  Unfortunately me and my team mate made the 40 minute ride to the town only to spend nearly an hour looking for anything from no parking signs to roadside barriers in an attempt to locate where the race could be.  Eventually as the clock struck 3 and the race was about to start we had to concede that we were not going to be in it… and I thought dropping geography at GCSE was a good idea.  Sunday was equally disastrous for me.  I raced about as close to my front door as it’s possible to get with a kermis in Ramsel.  I started aggressively…perhaps too aggressively as after the first corner I was in a group of 3 and pulling away from the bunch.  With me doing the lion’s share of the work we pulled away for a brief spell of around 6-7km.  The peloton soon got cracking however and reeled us in at a particularly tough part of the course.  I got tucked back in but something was definitely wrong with me.  I was almost incapable of upping my speed and the pressure took its toll on me as I was unceremoniously dropped after no more than 15 kilometres of racing…not the way I wanted to leave Belgium but the course was never suited to me anyway.   

The reason my Belgium journey ends here is because I have been evicted from my rented accommodation at the discretion of my team manager.  I was told this last Saturday after one of my best results of the season.  With this in mind training has taken more of a back seat this last week, I took my final opportunity to play the tourist with things like going go-karting and making the most of café stops.  I still feel as though I have unfinished business in Belgium.  The racing here is probably the hardest outside of Italy and the competition is fierce.  If any young rider wanted to make a go of being a professional cyclist I would say Belgium is the place to go.  I hope to come back to Belgium in 2012 with the aim of continuing to improve.  For now I must return to the United Kingdom and to my job with the motivation of saving enough money for my next assault on Belgian racing.  I will still do a few races in England between now and the end of the season.  You can watch me in action at Otley town centre on 22^nd of June and on the following Sunday at the National Championships.  I will continue to keep an updated blog of my exploits and I hope you will all enjoy reading them.

Tot zeins for now x

A treat that nearly required treatment

Following on from last Mondays finish ‘in the money’ I decided to treat myself to a new saddle.  It always gives me a little psychological boost whenever I get a new piece of kit, and seeing as I spend so much of my time out here sitting on a saddle I was happy to fit it on Monday evening.  This was to be the first mistake.  In my eagerness I whipped the old one off without so much as a measurement being taken and before you know it I had roughly put the new one where I thought it should go.  By Tuesday morning I had reached the next town down with hamstring problems and by the time I had finished my ride of all 5 kilometres I was in real pain.  This was my inexperience showing big time.  When you ride a bike for a living every day of the week your muscles become honed and accustomed to one position, train in a different position and as I found out, you will end up straining muscles you didn’t even know you had.  The following day was a complete write off as I was playing a guessing game in the garage with where to adjust my saddle to its new/old position.  After 2 days I was back on the bike properly, it was a short sharp lesson…for next time I will add a tailor’s tape measure to my tool box!

A double race weekend was in store for me this week.  Saturday dawned and a trip to the Walloon region awaited us.  I pre rode the 9 kilometre circuit with my team mates before the race start, there were a couple of hills of note and a dead corner which led onto a cobbled section of 500 metres up a gentle incline.  The sun had blessed the event… a little too well perhaps as the thermometer read 28 degrees and I was melting like the spectators ice creams on the start line.  The race started hilariously… My team mate Mike attacked just half a lap in taking with him a few riders, he was no more than 50 yards up the road when his group carried on at a left turning leaving them chasing the peloton as opposed to escaping it… if only all breaks were that easy to bring back. In fairness to him the marshall on the corner was clearly at fault, probably hampered by several generations of incest he just stood there drooling… a lesson for next time being that you should never attack on the first lap if you don’t know the course!  My race got rather interesting at the half way mark, I had a brief confrontation with a New Zealand rider and came off worse, being pushed off the road and managing to bring my bike to a halt in a local garden hedge.  I remounted, shouted several profanities and began my half lap chase solo across the cobbles to regain the back of the disintegrating peloton.  I dug really deep towards the end as the lead break dangled just off the front of what was left of the peloton.  The lead group of 16 stayed agonisingly clear but I strung the last couple of corners together perfectly to sprint across the finish line in around 25^th place.  This should have been the end of the saga but nothing is that simple in the Walloon region.  I went to collect my winnings and was told by the lead commissaire that he was unable to see the finish line order due to the fact the sun was shining on the numbers each rider has to wear… frankly the worst excuse I’ve ever heard as every rider had a frame number as well.  After a brief but successful argument I was placed 30^th…in the money again with an envelope for a whopping 12 euros. 

Sunday was a complete change, the wind had picked up, the temperature was cooler and the circuit was a pan flat 4 kilometre course.  We picked up a young Kiwi lad by the name of Jason Christie on the way to the race.  It was a nice change from just talking to the same English riders all the time.  I set off knowing the race would be shredded after just a few laps by the 50 kmp/h cross winds.  About 7 laps into the 28 lap race I joined a pretty select group at the front with the race splitting badly on one section in the fierce cross winds.  I was joined there by my team mate Mike and our fellow car passenger Jason.  The pace in this group was amazingly high, In the crosswinds we were riding at 55km per hour with me pulling a variety of faces on the back of the group trying to stick with the pace.  At one stage the gap grew to 1 minute 20 seconds but the break was just slightly too big and with too many riders sat on it was eventually brought back at the half way mark.  At this point I had more than shot my bolt and as the counter attack rolled up the road driven by Jason I could only watch.  I finished alone in a futile chase to be given 44^th place.  Up ahead the race had been killed off by an attack by our new kiwi friend Jason who soloed to victory 20 kilometres out to win by 2 clear minutes.  All that was left was to dine in style to celebrate Jason’s win at the Century Restaurant in Aarschott.  This was to be an interesting experience, not least because we were joined by respected cycling author and Journalist William Fotheringham.  I have always enjoyed writing so hopefully meeting people like this will give me more opportunities in the world of cycle journalism.  Some of you may know that I have had to censor this latest blog owing to my difficult situation with my team manager and the fact that I live with him, if you use the term loosely.  Anyway I promise to break this relative silence in my next blog which I will publish from my own home without fear of being evicted earlier then what has already been agreed.  Sorry to end on such a confusing note but I will produce a full story of the last few weeks in next week’s blog.         

Now where did I leave my motivation?

Following on from my last race the previous Sunday, I had the joys of a trip home to look forward to the next day.  This was to be a hectic 3 days of haircuts, horticulture and home cooking.  But first my trip to the dentist, I will spare the details but I can now happily report that after nearly 3 years of teeth only a hill-billy would be proud of, my teeth are now fixed, courtesy of Mr Chan.  A quick trip to Hair at Higgins sorted me out with a tennis ball haircut in preparation for the upcoming summer.  I’m glad I didn’t attempt to ride whilst I was at home, the weather was decidedly dodgy which allowed me a welcome 4 days off the bike.  No sooner had I got home and it was time to leave again, I met up with my room mate back at Liverpool airport with Mike acting as a translator between me and the local patois.  A big thanks to Ben for putting himself out and collecting us from Brussels.  It took a couple of days of 3 hour rides to break myself back into the habit of riding again with the aim of racing on the third day back. 

Monday started badly, dark clouds and showers seemed set in for the day, but with no other races until the following weekend it really was all or nothing.  I reluctantly began packing my kit bag with a deepening sense of inevitability that I was going to come home either soaked or with my tail between my legs.  I searched all over for my motivation to race but to no avail.  Never the less I had committed so by 3:15pm and under a heavy shower  I was greeted by Ben on his doorstep, all three of us asking ‘what the hell are we doing’.   The three of us briefly became part of a school project as we were collectively filmed by a local girl who insisted we repeat things like putting on our shoes and helmets three and four times…who knows, maybe a you tube career awaits me! Anyway the girl would have no problems filming the race, 15 laps beckoned with the only incline of mention being a curb…yes a genuine curb stone that was to be jumped by the near 100 rider field every lap… have Health and safety discovered Belgium yet?  A couple of cobbled sections per lap threatened a crash each time around but the only incident of note was caused by my team mate who tested out a couple of Belgians bike handling skills… in doing so reducing the peloton by a handful of riders.  The race was an under 23 race, my first ever experience of this category.  As I looked around on the start line I was already judging the competition.  I call the back markers the ‘Jedwards’, these are normally the guys with the best bikes, the best kit and frankly the worst legs in the bunch…call them the ‘all the gear, no idea’ if you will.  These are the guys who will probably be shelled as the bunch begins to thin out.  The claxon sounded and the bunch tore off up the road under dry skies.  I chanced my hand with an attack twice in the opening skirmishes, but never did I have more than 50 yards over the bunch.  My team mate Mike had told me about the ‘one arm chicken dance’ before the race.  This is just something we invented to describe what happens when a rider is put under too much pressure in a race.  When the pace becomes too much they flick their elbow out as a sign to the guy behind that they have had enough, shot their bolt.  I made a big attack just 3 laps in, dragging a pretty average bunch of riders with me, I turned round asking for someone to share the pace, only to see the ‘one armed chicken’ back in fashion amongst my fellow break away companions.  The break slipped away on the flowing back roads but never gained more than 40 seconds, I gave a couple of long pulls on the front just to keep the spirits up in the bunch.  With just 5 laps to go, I began to feel as though I could give a last throw of the dice.  Unfortunately I was becoming a marked man so I had to be contented with dragging a stream of riders in my wake.  On the penultimate lap a Belgian rider ‘Tosh Van der Sande’ winner of the under 23 Liege-Bastogne-Liege made a last gasp bid for victory.  A rider like Tosh could easily have won had the race been hillier but ‘horses for courses’ and the flat run in was a great equaliser.  I stayed up the front and took 27^th across the cobbled finish line, around 10^th in the bunch sprint.  My fourth envelope of the year awaited me, 10 euros for my efforts…promptly paid to our chauffeur for the night Ben, its nice to break even for once!  Not much else to cover this week apart from to offer my congratulations to Scott Thwaites for his victory in last weeks Lincoln Grand Prix.  Finally I must also give my personal sentiments about Wouter Weylandt who died tragically this week following a fatal crash in the Giro d’ Italia.  It’s never nice to read about a cyclist killed, the news has been greeted with great sadness here in Belgium, Rest in Peace. 

There’s no time for an ice cream

Having raced twice already in the last week, my motivation was slightly lower than it should have been for Sundays 116.5 kilometre kermise just south of the city of Leuven.  I have come across the line ‘put a number on my back and I become a different person’ a number of times in my cycling magazines.  I’d love to say I was the same but getting up on a 27 degree day and beginning the routine of getting ready for a race when really I wanted a barbeque and an ice cream was perhaps a sign that I was in for a mediocre day.  My pre-race routine is almost a carbon copy every time, breakfast of cereal and toast, followed by a leisurely packing of my kit and then ‘3 hour pasta’, basically plain spaghetti 3 hours before I am due to take the start.  We arrived in plenty of time, kermises out in Belgium all have a similar feel to them.  The finishing straight is lined with barriers, there is always a loud speaker stuck to a lamp post beating out a collection of horrendous Eurovision tracks.  As you roll down to the sign on to ‘Katrina and the waves’ in the background there is always a strong whiff of embrocation from the riders changing rooms mixed with the rather more enticing smell of hotdogs and burgers from the obligatory grill.  Summer seems to be a better time for kermises than the misery of February races.  As I ride back to the car, race number already pinned on I have a brief chance to glimpse at the good looking women who line the side of the road.  To be honest I probably should be paying attention to the competition but living in a small village does have its draw backs in this department! With about 15 minutes to go every rider is busy doing smaller and smaller runs up and down the finishing straight, just waiting for the first rider to line up for the start before the rest of the field copy him, if you’re lucky you can be fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time and grab a space close to the front.  If you’re not….well let’s just say I have been 30 rows back before in a 280 rider field and it’s not pretty seeing the lead rider rounding the first corner 500 metres up the road before you’ve even clicked your feet in!  

On to the racing then.  The course was not too bad, a couple of drags to break up the field on an otherwise pretty routine 7.2 kilometre circuit.  The heat was the main problem for me, 27 degrees and a head in need of a trip to my local barbers meant I was going to struggle to stay cool and hydrated, but it’s the same for everyone.  I kept myself up to the front early on to go with any attacks.  I bridged a gap after maybe 40 kilometres, more as a test of my legs than a serious attempt at a break away, the results were not good, I was going to have to race defensively as my legs were abit sore from the week’s exertions.  The break went at the half way mark, 28 riders split off, I would have to accept I was not going to be up for the win.  I treated the rest of the race more as training, attacking a couple of times and doing a few long turns on the front of the peloton.  The break stayed away, knowing that I was already out of the money I decided not to sprint and ultimately rolled across the line in around 60^th.  For the next week I will be having 3 days off the bike, a trip back home and the joys of the dentist await me, but come Friday and I will be back out to Belgium.       

The nail that sticks out gets hammered

Positioning is everything in both racing and life.  I am starting to realise that a peloton is all about where you position yourself.  A bit like a dinner party, you start and then you are faced with many social rules and unwritten laws about whether to sit man, woman, or whether to start from the outside fork and work your way in.  The peloton is very similar in many ways.  The golden rule is always to be near the front, the top 30 is where all the action is, from this position you have to sprint out of corners less and you avoid the more dangerous crashes.  The problem is that in most races, 200 guys want to be up there at the front, if I go back to my dinner party, it’s a bit like everyone fighting to sit next to the prettiest girl at the table.  The most skilled riders move up effortlessly slipping through gaps in the peloton and conserving as much energy as possible.  The other option is a long winded and tiring burst down the outside of the peloton before slotting back into place further up.  This could be likened to pulling up outside and insisting the valet stay sat down before pointlessly driving to the car park yourself, wasting energy and arriving at the party sweaty and tired, where as the guy who moves seamlessly through the peloton gets the valet to do the hard work for him and arrives at the party fresh.  The freshest guy tends to win.

Wednesday was to be a kermise of 120 kilometres in the Antwerpen town of Beveren.  There was a chill to the air and the wind was noticeable.  Around 150 riders started, the early pace was decent enough but the pan flat course ensured the race was likely to be a wearing down process on the turning and narrow back lanes.  I was reasonably fresh but after around 105km I had a bad patch, this was made even worse by the fact the race was starting to be torn apart by the teams of Van Gothem and Ovyta who were stringing the race into an echelon.  I was unceremoniously dropped with just 2 laps to go, I resigned myself to the last 10 kilometres in the Grupetto.  The Grupetto is an Italian word for the last sizeable group in the race, as a general rule everyone contributes to the pace setting but every rider who is in this group is pretty shattered so they work together to finish with some pride.  I rolled over about 80^th, a couple of minutes down.  This was the point where I came across the title- ‘the nail that sticks out gets hammered’.  It originates in Japan and to me as a bike racer it means that a rider who takes up a poor position at the back of the bunch will be dropped. 

Thursday was another kermise of 119.6 kilometres in Kortenaken near Tienen.  The wind was if anything a welcome breeze as the mercury touched 18 degrees, perfect for a race.  I had learnt from the previous days beating that I had to stay up front, 230 riders lined up ready for the race.  The course took in a gentle rise to the finish of around 800 metres but apart from that the roads were good.  I took up a place in the top 40 and used everything from elbows, hands and some choice language to fend off the bunch when I began to get swamped by other riders.  I sensed a bunch sprint after the first hour so I kept my cards close to my chest and dug deep with a couple of laps to go.  As the finish approached a lone rider chipped off and soloed towards the finish, At this point nobody wants to burn themselves out chasing a lone rider so late on as it would mean not having a decent sprint in the end.  Inevitably the lone man stayed just metres in front of the closing peloton to the line, my own sprint was scuppered by locking handlebars with a slightly nervous Belgian rider who must have needed a change of underwear after the race he reacted that badly! I came over 25^th, a pleasing if not slightly frustrating result as I felt comfortable for the majority of the race.  The important thing was I received my 3^rd envelope of the year… 10 euros for my efforts.    

Back to the Middle Ages

The last week has been a true throw back to the days of pre-war cycling.  Having survived a tough race on the bank holiday Monday, my upbeat mood was short lived as on Tuesday our borrowed internet disappeared, there was never a formal arrangement but it had kept me and my team mates sane!  Earlier this year our television digital box broke, to be honest this wasn’t a major problem at the time as the channels were mainly Dutch but the internet is another thing entirely.  There does seem to be a light at the end of our tunnel, a different company will be installing both a new digital box and the internet on 11^th May if everything goes to plan. I have read many stories of the greats like Tom Simpson crossing to France with just a handful of francs in his pocket and learning the language, the style of racing and the lifestyle, all for the love of the sport.  But to be honest I don’t know how these men did it.  Having no connection to the outside world is the most isolating and depressing thing I have ever known.  This has led to me and my roommate Mike to start a new hobby… wifi hunting.  The rules are simple, we set off walking around our village with our various electrical gadgets in search of some naïve persons unsecured internet connection, if you win you get to find out the latest cycling results and maybe even send an email home.  It really is amazing what our brains will do to keep us occupied.  I have been a bit more adventurous with my cooking of late, a couple of decent lasagne and an attempt at Bombay potatoes has been the limit of this week’s cooking but  if anything it’s good for the morale to try something new.  The fact that I am able to publish this blog is due to the courtesy of Gyles Wingate, not only our GPS but now our new wifi king.

This weekend saw the provincial championships being held right across Belgium, unfortunately that excluded us from racing as ‘foreigners’, but some time ago we had agreed to ride in something called the ‘Super Klassica’ with our next door neighbour.  The idea of this is that it is basically a sportive taking in the majority of the Tour of Flanders route, in particular the climbs or ‘bergs’ as they are called out here.  The day started badly… we had understood the time of departure to be 8:30 so we were surprised when we were awoken at 7:15 by our Neighbour on the door step already in his lycra and stretching.  This was the worst lost in translation moment I’ve had since reaching Belgium but having demolished a bowl of shreddies in record quick time and stuffing my pockets with brioche we left for the town of Oudenaarde in west Flanders.  I have never done a sportive before, to be honest I have always been abit snobbish and thought of them as the territory of non-competitive Sunday riders, or weekend warriors as I’ve heard them called.  I rolled down to the sign on and it was immediately clear I was in amongst a different level of bike rider.  There were hundreds of men and women, donning an array of replica team kits, sporting chain oil marks or ‘4^th category tattoos’ and on hundreds of different carbon fibre bikes that they would struggle to justify buying to their wives.  I paid my eight euros and was given number 10868… and I’ve been complaining about 250 guys in my races!  Our group of 4 set off on our 136 kilometre route, the route was marshalled incredibly well and signposted  at every lamp post… Stevie Wonder could have negotiated the course it was that good.  After just about getting out of the car park we were presented with our first berg, I was hoping for a nice gentle incline to break me in, maybe a token town cobble at the top for good measure, how wrong I was.  The ‘Koppenberg’ was staring us in the face so without so much as a warm up I threw myself at its mercy.  The slopes were cobbled and at one point 22% towards the top.  I absolutely crawled up at the steepest section but I crested the top, cheered on by a couple of the local nutters.  The bergs came thick and fast from then on, just a handful of kilometres later and I was thrashing it up the oude Kwaremnont  closely followed by the Patterberg, this was to be the steepest of the day at 25%.  The knack to climbing them is to keep as much weight over the drive wheel as possible which means sitting down and just concentrating on being smooth…easier said than done, at some points the gradient nearly had my front wheel in the air.  I was pleasantly surprised when we got to a feed station, I had never experienced this but having paid to enter the true Yorkshire man inside me emerged and I filled my pockets with free waffles and bananas, it’s all about getting your monies worth!  Having puzzled at the rather rubbish statue in the village green  for a couple of minutes, my confusion was ended when our 4^th man went up and relieved himself against the statue… or as I had just found out, the temporary public urinal.  We pressed on and crested 3 more bergs before reaching the Bosberg, I had seen this climbed many times by my heroes on the Television so I attacked it with vigour.  It was a lot steeper than it appears on Eurosport is about all I can say as I was running out of steam towards the top.  We passed a steady stream of middle aged man, some who appeared to have been shoe horned into their shorts and jerseys but it was actually a refreshing sight to see that everyone was having a go no matter what shape they were.  We dragged ourselves round to the final couple of bergs, the ‘Molenberg’ and ‘Wolfsberg’.  Our fourth guy ‘Brekt’ was at this point already suffering and discovering that his triple chainset had decided to become a double for the remainder of the ride must have been a hammer blow but we all finished the 136km in one piece…chapeau lads!  If you have ever watched the tour of Flanders before and thought that it looks easy watching Boonen rocket up looking like he’s riding on a carpet, I would suggest watching the back guys go up, the pain is always etched across their faces and they even get off and walk on the tougher climbs, this is more what mere mortals can achieve but a great experience none the less.  Back to racing this coming week!