The organisers of the race were hopeless, race was delayed 15mins and no one knew which way we were even going... Haha. Novie and I rolled up to the line as it looked like everyone was there, we had 2mins to go and were on the front of the grid, perfect timing, by fluke... I followed a few riders, jumped in the first move of the race, got about 10 seconds but it got pulled back pretty quickly. Legs felt terrrrrrrrrible, so bad I was almost getting dropped on the uphill section of the course!
Slowly rode myself into the race, felt OK after about 80km and that was as good as the legs got... Was a pretty hard circuit, ended up doing over 600m of climbing in 116km, which in Belgium for a Kermesse is quite a lot! There was a group of around 14 riders that was away, but got pulled back with just over a lap to go. Then it seemed 4 riders attacked as soon as the other group went back into the peloton. With 1 lap to go Novie was about 30 wheels in front of me, so I put myself into the position to help him, and rode hard up the side of the bunch and went straight past him and to the front. I sat 3rd wheel for about 4km of the last lap, slowly getting closer to the front group of 4.
We raced up a hill, there was a right hander with about 3km to go and up the hill Novie was on my wheel, but still around 20-30 seconds down on the front group! A few riders came around me, I jumped and hit the corner about 4th wheel and rolled out of it and passed the riders in front of me. I knew it was roughly 2km until the finish, and I didn't want to go to early, but no one else committed to pulling the group back, nor did they commit to take the lead of the race for their sprinter. Novie was sitting on me, telling me what to do. Ease, pick it up a bit, move right, full gas up the next rise, etc etc. I rode the front for the last 2km, trying not to go too hard then I went about 90% up a rise, 1km from the finish. After this I ramped it up a bit more then opened the throttle and went full gas with about 600m to go.
I took Novie until about 150m to go, where there was an S-bend before rolling over the finish line. Unfortunately we were about 5 seconds off the front 4, but Novie finished it off, winning the bunch sprint coming in 5th place. I was happy to help Novie and do what seemed to be a good strong lead out, delivering him nicely to the line, not bad for 2 riders amongst 240 others!
Had a good day on the bike today, 202km, officially my longest training ride I've ever done! Jumped in a bunch for roughly 90km, 60 odd km before the bunch and 50 after, pretty happy with it! Tomorrow we're off to Leuven to meet Cycling Photographer legend Graham Watson to take some snaps of the team. Looking forward to that!
Loving summer, hope NZ isn't getting too cold....
Sancho
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