Haven't been on here for a while. So where to begin... Well I had a race today. Pretty happy to be able to finish this one. It was a 108km race, with 13 laps of, ahhh I can't really be bothered doing maths so you can figure out how long one lap was. I felt pretty good today, had a few little attacks off the front and was in a couple breakaway groups but it all came to nothing. I was a bit disappointed though because at the end of the race I found out that there was a big group of riders that broke away on the second lap and another big group got away with a few laps to go. I had no idea that there was a break up the road. So another thing to add to the 'learning list' is that I HAVE TO start and stay up near the front of the bunch at all times so I am able to see riders try and breakaway and so I can decide whether to join them up in the break. My roommate, Taylor finished in 5th and I placed 36th out of 120 starters so not too bad of a day I guess.
Last weekend I caught a train up to Antwerp and met my friend Tom who lives in Alexandra back home but rides for another team here in Belgium. There was a concert at the Lotto Arena that Tom and I wanted to go to. It started at 8.30pm on Saturday and finished at 6am Sunday so we were pulling an all nighter and then we both had to catch a 2.5 hour train ride home in the morning. We had a few drinks in a bar and then moved on to a club that no one was in and had a few more drinks there. We then had to make a 2km stumble from the club to the stadium in the freezing cold and snow. (I forgot to mention that it had been snowing since that morning.) We finally found the stadium and basically had an awesome night. Had a quick power nap on the floor at about 1am where all the food and drink stores and toilets are in the stadium. Had redbull that woke me up a bit then went back in. All in all it was a pretty sweet night. Had a mean sleep when I got home at midday, had dinner at 6 and then back to bed at 9.30.
The Tour of Flanders is on Sunday. (For all you non cyclists, Tour of Flanders is a huge one day Classic pro race here in Belgium.) So on Sunday we will go down and watch the race cause the course is basically just down the road. Most of the teams have arrived so we are going to go have a look around tomorrow which will be awesome. That reminds me...
Those pictures I put up earlier were from the race E3 Harelbeke which is a pro race that finishes in the town of Harelbeke, which is just up the road. Andrew, who is the team director and the owner of the place Taylor and I are staying in, took us out to various points of where the riders will pass during the race. So we would drive out to this one corner and a crowd of maybe 75+ people would be all gathered on the edge of the road to watch the riders go pass. Then as soon as the bunch went past everyone would turn around and bolt it back to their cars and drive to the next point where you could watch the riders go by again. We went to about 7 different points and it was chaos! It was like running with the bulls in Spain! It was a free-for-all to get back to your car first so you could be the first one to drive away. Andrew telling us to hurry up and get in the car! My leg was still hanging out of the car while it was moving because it got stuck on a thorn bush. Sometimes the bunch was only half way past us and Andrew was yelling at us "Let's go let's go!" It was such an awesome day. Being able to see my man Fabian Cancellara riding solo along the cobble sections was insanely cool and for him to win the race was even better.
That's pretty much it. Nothing else too exciting here at the moment. It hasn't snowed or rained for a little while so I guess that's pretty exciting. It is still very cold but the weather forecast for late next week shows some double digits so I can't wait for next weekend.
I have a race on Saturday so I'll let you know how it all goes.
I've been reading the NZ news and poor Jesse Ryder, Go the Breakers and the Black Caps... Seriously.
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