Racing Roundup

Sunday and yesterday I had two races. Sunday was a race in Waver and Tuesday was a race in some town that starts with a "B" Beseele I think.

WAVER - 1.2 TopCompetition - BEL
Waver is a fun 180km jaunt around the countryside of Brussels. The first 75km were divided into two laps with 2 descent climbs each time. One even had a cobbled descent! Oh joy!! Followed by a 25km trek to the finish where we did 5x15km local laps with a 1200m cobble section. Now this race is a TopCompetition which means that ALL the big teams in Belgium short of the ProTour teams can show up and most of them did. In the neutral I was brought down in a crash. Nothing serious just a few scrapes. Caught back on just in time for the flag to be thrown down and it was on! Mach 5 to base we have engaged! 55km in another crash on a descent. There was nice bump in the road that if you just ran over it you would flat. So everybody was trying to be all macho and jump it. By sheer luck, the dude next to me bunny hoped right onto the bump and he went superman in front of me. I run over some part of his body or his bike. And I lock it up as others are crashing around me. A dude hits me from behind and I can feel his spokes and carbon rims melt and cut into my skin!! We are tangled but still moving I kick him off and I hear a thud behind me. Hah! Take that! Meanwhile, a 20 man break rolled away just after this little incident and they sat at the 30-60sec mark until the local laps. The first lap was balls out. I was holding on for dear life. I got in a good position for the cobbles but riders still opened up gaps and my knee is really starting to hurt. I ignore it b/c I am a macho bike racer. I bridge and take some of my teammates across to the front end of the field. But I am completly shattered at this point. 2nd time around I get caught dead last into the cobble section. I would like to take the time to point out the cobble section was one of the cobble sections where there is a small dirt path on each side of the road and we actually never rode on the cobbles but the battle for that small line was insane and was harder then just riding on the cobbles. I chase and chase for a lap but nobody is willing to help me and we were 20 secs back (if that). The rest of the group drops out with 2 laps to go and I am the only one who keeps going. I talk to myself: "Its only 30km, you can do it"
"Haha it is only 25km to go"
"I feel so alone"
"Everybody is staring at me"
"My knee hurts really bad"
"I hate cobbles"
"Please pull me"
It is weird how your mental side always gives up. I went from 30kms of fun to please pull me out ASAP! Which they did. Out of the 220 who started only 101 finished. 70 of those in the front two groups. My knee pain was from saddle slippage of 1cm. We averaged just under 28mph...

Beleese - 1.12InterClub - BEL
Yesterday's race. The race was characterized by a 12.5km circuit with tons of traffic furniture and about 15-20 turns all on small roads and 500m of cobbles. Interclub means almost any pro team can show up with no age restrictions. For you cyclo-crossers out there, Fidea team showed up minus Bert Wellens but everybody else was there. Those guys were stunt man they would jump over medians and ride in the grass and pass everybody, crazy. The first few laps were mad. Guys cutting each other everywhere. I just sat in the 30/40th position watching and conserving. The cobble section there was a crash where Chris Butler went down (he is fine and fell into the grass) as the road bottlenecked into the cobble section and sent riders scrambling for position as there was 10inch cement slab on each side of the cobbles. I being in my Paris-Roubaix form would just ride down the center and in most of the cases was faster. A group of 20 got up the road and they were brought back with 4 laps to go. We each took turns covering moves. I cam back from one as we hit a series of turns and Matt Brandt got away. I brake checked through the turns and Euros yelled at me to chase and I did just very slow. They got a big gap quickly. Matt finished 7th or 8th. Howes in the Top 20. Jason a little bit behind Howes and me in the back of the field watching the sprinters go at it. After the race the staff drove us 20 mins down the road and dropped us off. 40km back totaling 190km in 5hrs and 7mins. 3hrs 35mins were racing out of 150km. It was a really good race though and was definitely the most technical course I have done by far. A course that would be built for AJ Meyer. Reminded me of the Chatt crit with all the bad roads and turns except that it was 3.5hrs long. I wish I could compare those races I did Sunday and yesterday but I really cant. Even though both were flat and had cobbles they were totally different and, not trying to sound weird, but both were hard in their own special way :P Looking at a kid's power files from both races: yesterday's race had a higher wattage average and bigger 5-60sec power numbers but Sunday's race had a very high 5,10,20 min power. Weird how that works...Well Im off to go ride to the coffee shop. Talk to you later!

David