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.