Lost race report

Here's a race report that I had thought I posted ealier, but I guess I didn't so here it is. Enjoy.


7-11-06

GP Stad Geel – Top Competition – UCI 1.12


The race: 170km of flat fun with one cobbled section at about 100km and 4 local laps.

The day started off fast with an early break of about 18 that would get whittled down a bit by the time we hit the local laps. The break never got more than 3 min up the road with pace always remaining high. The average for the day was 48kph so we weren’t exactly crawling along. The team maintained decent position the entire race (well, at least after the break went…Aaron was the only one in decent position when the early break went) while letting some of the “bigger” teams do most of the work to keep the pace high and break in check. The 2km cobbled section that was 40km from the local laps, broke things up a bit but most of the peleton came back together within a few km after the cobbles. A handful of guys went down in the scramble just before the cobbles, but thankfully I was to the right of that. For the most part things went really smooth most of the race Scott had an early mechanical, got it taken care of and got back in the race. I happen to get a flat as we were entering the fairly technical local laps. They really weren’t bad at all, if you were in a group of 20 or so, but since the peleton was together for the most part, it was a bit hairy at times. It was probably the worst time to get a flat all day. The peloton was rolling at 50+kph reeling the break in. Maybe, a flat on the cobbles would have been worse, maybe.

The wheel change went pretty smooth. I got a wheel from the Mavic neutral support and Bernard came up to give a feed and to lend a hand with getting back on. Sounds simple right? Well, as I was about to take a bottle some “other” rider who was working his way up through the cars decided to come around our car and put his ass in my handle bars in the process. This was one of those “oh shit” moments. I thought I was going to end up under the car. In fact I very nearly did. For a split second, there was more of me clinging and hanging on to the side of the car than was actually on my bike. Heert was also helping to cling to me and keep me on the side of the car rather than under. Once I was actually back on my bike, many explicatives were shouted at my new friend who was passing by.

Entering the local laps is always the time to go crazy hard, and in this case start bringing the break back. That left me back in the cars, trying to make up ground, and going crazy hard. After about a full lap of working my way through the caravan I finally made it back into the group, with 3 local laps to go.

Earlier we had decided that we were going to try and give Sean a lead out if it came down to bunch sprint. The gap to the break was coming down and it was looking like things were going to get reeled in. With one to go we were working hard to gain and hold some good position, but it was proving more and more difficult as we got closer and closer to the final km. I even ended up taking a few risks that I probably shouldn’t have. One particular risk involved an encounter with what I am told were “nettles.” Not a crash, just a sort of riding through them as I was cutting a corner around some road furniture. Let’s just say that I don’t really think the old wives tale or whatever you want to call it really works for curing the itching. It just makes you smell like vinegar in addition to the already annoying itching. Oh, and that lead out thing…yeah I have to say we got an A for effort, but we need a bit more practice. It was great to see that all of us were there with a good deal of confidence and I look forward to putting together some serious lead outs in the future.