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