fun in the wind
Gerona, ESP
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
The first day of Franco Belge was a long lesson in cross winds. A break of 29 guys went up the road and I figured the peloton would sit up and the break would get some 20 minutes. But no, that was quite foolish… 5 minutes later I was sitting ten guys from the back and Chocolade Jocques blew the race apart with me being perhaps one of the first 15 to get dropped from the back of the gutter line. From there it was a nice, solo, flat out time trial of 80km to the finish… where I fortunately managed to make the time cut.
After that I conversed with Johnny the director and some team mates about the importance of position in the classic Belgian cross wind race. The conclusion was that if you weren’t in the top 25 guys during the race then you weren’t racing. So over the next three days I spent the entire race furiously fighting for the top twenty, & wow, I could not believe the intensity of the battle. Belgian races are to date of the most nervous races I’ve ever done, but with the cross winds they’ve got a reason.
The last day was very unfortunate. It was 162 km finishing with 5 laps on an 18km circuit. It was great until the last lap when it started to rain and the roads got wet. On the first kind of sketchy turn a credit agricole guy fell right beside me and hit my back wheel with his head evidently causing a bit of a pile up behind me. Then we go over the hill on the circuit and at the bottom of the descent someone locked it up and 5 guys went down in front of me. I was just about stopped when someone slammed into me from behind and another 15 guys went down including me… face first. Anyway, I got up and finished. We crashed 5km from the finish on the last race of the season. That sucks. It wasn’t bad though, I was practically stopped, so except for a few bruises and patches of face, I’m fine. That’s two crashes in the first race of the season and one in the last race of the season. Obvious improvement… maybe not.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
The first day of Franco Belge was a long lesson in cross winds. A break of 29 guys went up the road and I figured the peloton would sit up and the break would get some 20 minutes. But no, that was quite foolish… 5 minutes later I was sitting ten guys from the back and Chocolade Jocques blew the race apart with me being perhaps one of the first 15 to get dropped from the back of the gutter line. From there it was a nice, solo, flat out time trial of 80km to the finish… where I fortunately managed to make the time cut.
After that I conversed with Johnny the director and some team mates about the importance of position in the classic Belgian cross wind race. The conclusion was that if you weren’t in the top 25 guys during the race then you weren’t racing. So over the next three days I spent the entire race furiously fighting for the top twenty, & wow, I could not believe the intensity of the battle. Belgian races are to date of the most nervous races I’ve ever done, but with the cross winds they’ve got a reason.
The last day was very unfortunate. It was 162 km finishing with 5 laps on an 18km circuit. It was great until the last lap when it started to rain and the roads got wet. On the first kind of sketchy turn a credit agricole guy fell right beside me and hit my back wheel with his head evidently causing a bit of a pile up behind me. Then we go over the hill on the circuit and at the bottom of the descent someone locked it up and 5 guys went down in front of me. I was just about stopped when someone slammed into me from behind and another 15 guys went down including me… face first. Anyway, I got up and finished. We crashed 5km from the finish on the last race of the season. That sucks. It wasn’t bad though, I was practically stopped, so except for a few bruises and patches of face, I’m fine. That’s two crashes in the first race of the season and one in the last race of the season. Obvious improvement… maybe not.
posted by Tom Peterson @ 9:54 AM
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