The mechanic did a great job repairing my bike (in between all his usual duties with all the other bikes on the race!!) and had my sore back allowed, I would have been able to ride the next day.  But unfortunately it was yet a few more days without training. 

Missing the Ronde van Vlaams Brabant was quite a let down.  Not just for the race itself but it’s a good 5 days of tough racing, which I knew would be nearly impossible to make up in training. 

My first day back in the saddle ended up being a racing.  It was a criterium in Holland, which I normally try to avoid like the plague but with some good start money on offer I soon changed my opinion!  Needless to say it didn’t go well, I was still a little stiff and could feel the lack of training all over my body!  I think I did about 30 minutes in the bunch and then rode around in a small group waiting to get pulled out! 

The next race was 2 days later, a kermes in Sint Truiden.  I nearly fluked a win here!!  The race was destined to be a bunch sprint as it was all wide roads with only 3 corners per lap.  It was pretty easy to sit in and so it was perfect to help me get back to fitness.  Anyway, I sat in all day, got some good fast km’s in the legs and had planned just to try to get away, alone, with a couple of km’s to go.  So when the peleton eased up with about 2km to go I just hit it as hard as I could down the left hand side of the road and luckily no one followed!  I didn’t get much of a gap though and flew through the last corner, with just a 300 meter straight, slightly uphill to the finish I knew the bunch were not far off, and with less than 100 meters to go they started coming past!  That is a horrible feeling I tell you!

The next two races didn’t go so well.  They were a lot tougher, showing any weakness in riders and in my shape I didn’t fare too well.  I packed in the first one and finished in a back group in the second race. 

I was a bit worried now as my next race was the Ronde van Antwerp – a notoriously flat, fast and dangerous race, over 4days.  The only thing I was looking forward to was wearing my National Champions kit in the prologue and the Team Time Trial!  The prologue went badly, I had a good start but couldn’t hold it, then the road race in the afternoon saw me in a group of 40odd, off the back chasing all day!  We did get back to the bunch however for me only to be brought down in a crash!  No real damage was done but by the time I got going the peleton was now well gone and I rolled in 10 minutes down!  Most of the road stages followed a similar pattern but the Team Time Trial was good fun!  We didn’t have much going for us but we still pulled out a respectable time and finished 10th from about 30 teams, with only Continental teams and 2 club teams (my teams ‘status’) ahead of us.  The team were all happy anyway! 

I got through the race and a few days later started feeling much stronger from it.  A week later I was almost ‘back to normal’, being competitive, picking up primes and getting up there again! 

Then it was back to the UK for the TT Champs.  I’m not going to go into this much but it was a disaster.  I’ve gone over and over things that I should/could have done differently.  Its funny, you seem to learn 10 times more on a bad day than a good one!  I am certainly not going to be making the same mistakes twice – ever! 

I feel I owe some of you an apology for that weekend.  Even not being physically at my best, looking at the results I still should have challenged for the win.  No excuses!  Sorry. 

That was quite hard for me to take and I lacked a bit of motivation after that.  At the first race back in Belgium I had a point to prove to myself.  It was an Interclub over 16 lap’s of a 10km course.  Normally a group gets away in the first 2 laps and stays till the finish.  So I went with literally every move with move of 4 or 5 guys and after 2 laps decided that was enough and eased off a little, when it must have been the first attack on the third lap went away!  Gutted!  I cruised in the bunch for a while, tried to recover a bit and then do something at the end.

The 8 leaders got up to a minute gap and the peleton was not catching them all race.  My team didn’t have anyone in the break so a few of us were at the front, trying to get in a chase group, when of a split put 3 of us in a group of about 20.  Everyone pulled through as hard as they could for a few turns and in the last 5km were only a few second behind the leaders.  Both my teammates said they felt bad and said I should just ride for myself.  I gambled a little that someone else would chase and I would wait till the sprint. 

It wasn’t to be though and the break finished 10seonds ahead of us and I finished 14th in the end. 

Next on the cards was a Pro kermis in Desselgem.  It wasn’t to be my day here either and after an hour got held up behind a crash, just as the hammer went down and I never really got back in the race.  It’s always a good feeling to ride here though with the likes of Robbie McEwen, Nico Eeckhout and a load of other top pros.  The average speed, for those who finished the race was over 51kph (about 32mph I think!), for 155km!!!! 

So that’s everything so far!  Coming up I have a load of amateur kermes races, then on the 29th and 30th September, another Pro kermes and an Interclub, then a few more amateur kermis’ till the 16th October to the end of the Belgian calendar. 
                       
Till next time.                         

Dan

Special thanks this month to…

Russell Carter (again) for keeping my website up to date!
Ken Wingate                        Homespace Design and Construction
Steve Locke                        M.W. Cripwell Electrical Contractors   

Email:  dan.davies@talk21.com