Myron Simpson: Race report

On Sunday me and the boys raced the Tielt-Winge Kermesse. It was one of the wettest races I have ever done. We left with plenty of time to spare after learning from our mistake at Hoeleden of almost missing the start of the race because we got lost, even with a Garmin and iPhone! Still without a car we are riding to and sometimes back from most of our races, which is good.We found sign on in the typical Kermesse setup of a pub, got our race numbers, no

trouble there. As we walked out of the pub, 30minutes until the race started it started spitting. Another rainy race day, what a surprise...

Sitting on the start line in the rain wasn't a very good warm up, but once the race got under way I slowly warmed up. A little group attacked straight away, only to take a wrong turn about 1km in, most of the guys in the bunch thought it was pretty funny and had a good old laugh. 15laps of a 7.8km course made it roughly 117km. Cam and I sat on or near the front for the first 40km or so, to try and get in the right break, but it didn't look like it was going to happen.

Me on the front up the hill, Cam on my wheel.

The rain didn't stop the whole race, which made the corners on the course pretty dodgy... Chuck in a few man holes, some cobbles or pave, and welcome to Belgium!

Late in the race a group of 9 slipped off the front without me even noticing, and then another group of 7 with 3 riders from Beveren2000 (the top Amateur team in Belgium) jumped away. All 4 of us were in the bunch, so I decided to sit on the front and try and pull the break back. Typical Belgy's just didn't hold my wheel then let me roll off the front, I sat in between the bunch and about 10seconds behind the break but I couldn't quite get to them... With 2 laps to go I was brought back to the bunch, then helped Jason ride off the front of the bunch and he stayed away for a lap and a half to finish in front of the bunch, but behind the two breaks, for 16th place. Cam got amongst the bunch sprint and got 22nd.

In between the racing, my training has been going good. My programme now is a big step up in km's and number of specific efforts I have to do, but it seems to be paying off... My data from my SRM (power cranks) seems to be good, and better than I have ever done before. So lets hope it keeps getting better!

Next week we have two training days on the track in Ghent, then another one the following Monday. Following the track block, we head down to France for a 4-day tour, and a strong team so we will be looking for a good result there. Once the 4 day tour in Provence is over, we drive to Bordeaux to start the track preparation for the Commonwealth Games, with the whole squad!

Some photo's below of the racing in Europe over the last few weeks, rain, rain, rain.....