Schaal Schoeters – UCI 1.12 4/6/06
The day started out unusually sunny and was actually looking as if it were going to get quite warm. In fact it did get warm, it hit 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The course layout was a large loop of about 80km with 8 tight and twisty local laps for a total of about 160km of Belgian racing fun. No real cobbles, but definitely some “city” cobbles and plenty of roads with a giant wheel eating crevasse in the center.
The race started out with a short neutral roll out that was surprisingly calm. That means it wasn’t a 50 kph neutral roll out. For the first hour the field moved along at a pretty good pace, dodging in and out of all the local town squares and avoiding the almost excessive amount of European road furniture. At this point a group of 14 or so rolled off with none of the five Cycling Center riders in it, not good, but not the end of the world; we still had quite a way to the finish line. Oh, and there was a chase group off that which had about 20 or so in it…hmmm. Not a great situation, but I was able to keep constant tabs on the status of the groups via Bernard Moerman (Cycling Center Director) in the team car.
Once the peloton got within 30km of the local laps the pace and the intensity increased. Shortly after this started to happen I went two or three times with small groups of 4-5 riders, but nobody really wanted to play nice together. So, all of those came back. The same was happening with the rest of my teammates, go and come back. Finally, I went with a group that was willing to work a bit. We drove pretty hard and caught the chase group as we were coming into the first of the local laps and proceeded to drive right though them. At this point we became the chase group of 9 with 11 still up the road. We chased somewhat consistently until 3 laps to go, at that point we were losing steam and the willingness to cooperate was dwindling as well. Within those first couple local laps we lost two riders and then gained two others. With two laps left the group was clearly getting tired and any real chasing was done. I was getting on the empty side of things as well but, definitely had a bit left; some of the snap was gone, but not all gone. Looking at it in retrospect I probably didn’t drink enough early on in the race. I know that I drank well in excess of 10 bottles of water and electrolyte mix. Oh, and one coke, which is awesome when you have about 10km left. Again, thanks must go to the support crew of Bernard and Heert (mechanic) in the Team car and Ann (Bernard’s wife and mother to all of us at the Cycling Center) and Noel (Soigneur) in the feed zones. Really though, I’m not sure how much more I could have drank.
And that last lap… which I am sure you’re wondering about. Well, I ended up with a 20th place, so um… the sprint really didn’t go well at all. There was a left turn with about 250m to go and a right with about 100m to go. Seeing as I had ridden the finishing stretch eight times already I should have opened it up sometime shortly after the final left turn instead of allowing my self to get pinched into the curb/fence on the last turn. All in all, I’ll take it. Sure I made a few mistakes (obviously enough to keep me out of the lead group), but it wasn’t too many, and my fitness is on the up and up.
I feel I must leave one comment in regards to racing in Belgium. There never really are any calm moments. Something is always going on, attacks or whatever it may be. There is just intense racing and moments that are more intense.
