Second Pro Race and a Trip To Ghent

On Friday, Taylor and I decided to meet up with a couple other Kiwi riders in Ghent. We caught the train from the train station up the road in Izegem. It was a pretty cold rainy day so going to Ghent was a lot better than spending our Friday indoors. It's only about a 45min train ride to Ghent. We met up with a Christchurch  rider, Josh Atkins, at the train station in Ghent and we caught a tram into the main centre. It was even colder and raining more in Ghent so we sought shelter in a surfing clothes shop, it was a bit like Amazon, just full of expensive summer surfy clothes. Here's a little fact; this month has been the coldest month in 126 years and the day we went to Ghent, one year ago it was 30 degrees. I picked a great year to come to Belgium. Anyway, Josh new about a café that does really good coffee. They have so many different and good coffees and that is hard to find over here. It's pretty much the only place in Belgium that they do flat whites so I ordered up one of those. I also had a try of a Macchiato which is a double shot of coffee with a small amount of milk, it was pretty good. We were meeting up with Sean Joyce, who rides in the team I'm in and is from Taupo, and Clinton Avery and his girlfriend. Clinton rides for a semi pro team called Champion Systems and he races in a number of top Pro races and his girlfriend works with the NZ track team. We meet them at the café and had a few coffees and then we decided to go see Iron Man 3 at the movies. Didn't really get to do too much sight seeing because it was pretty cold rainy day and we had to make our way home before the last train took off. Got a couple pictures of the place while walking to the café.

 Sorry about the way the pictures are. They weren't moving to where I wanted them to be.

On Tuesday I had my second Pro Kermesse and the current World Champion, Philippe Gilbert, and the current Belgium Champion, Tom Boonen, were racing too. It was pretty awesome to see and ride with Pro riders like that. There were probably over 200 starters and it was pretty technical course with a lot of tight corners. There were so many people watching as well. There was one tight corner that had a wall of people as a barrier so if some stacked it round the corner... The atmosphere was pretty cool. The whole team lined up on a stage and there were heaps of photographers taking photos.

 My goal for the race was to pretty much finish. It was 170k and we were averaging 45kph. I was feeling pretty good until we hit 85km. I got a small knot of cramp in my right hamstring that took a little while to unknot but I managed to ride through it until about 95k when we came round a tight corner and when I pulled up the pedal to get back up to speed, my right hamstring completely knotted and it was so painful that I was pretty much stuck and I had to jump up on to the footpath so I wouldn't hold everyone up. I managed to finally stretch it out but I had to chase back on to the bunch. I managed to last another 10k but when we hit the cross wind section, I was still on the back and that's the worse place to be when there is a crosswind section. My legs kept cramping up and I dropped on the crosswind section. I was so gutted cause I was feeling good enough to finish. I'm starting to stretch a lot more and I'm getting a massage tomorrow which I am looking forward to cause my legs are so tight.
Got another Pro Kermesse on Saturday so I'm hoping for a better result.
That's about it. I'll write up another blog on Monday. I was pretty slack this week.

 Here's a picture of some cleaning product at the supermarket. The Bain's are pretty bad.

First Pro Race

As you can see I had my first Pro Race and if you read my blog last week you would know that I did my first pro race last Wednesday. It was one hell of a race. 175km, 15 laps, 200 starting riders and mayhem. I was pretty excited about the race and my goal was just to finish. Philippe Gilbert was not there though so no selfies with the world champ that day, one day though. It was a real quick race, finished the 175km in 4 hours flat. For all you non math geniuses like me that's an average of 43kmph. Not too shabby for a race with a few tight corners and narrow roads. There was quite a long stretch of road that we were doing well over 50kmph on and the team decided to set up there feed there (A feed is when the team helpers who don't ride stand on the side of the road and hold up a bottle and you ride past and catch it. This is basically what you do http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TfCQ0WRyYs) and because we were going so fast lots of riders were dropping bottles. It was basically like trying to catch a water bottle that was going more than 50kmph. I managed to catch two bottles out of the two I tried for so I didn't drop any. I just managed to avoid one crash. It was quite a nasty crash where one of my teammates went down. I was behind one of my other teammates and trying to avoid the crash his back wheel locked up and started to skid towards my front wheel. I rear skewer that holds his back wheel in place clipped my front wheel and made one hell of a bang and I started skidding towards the muddy ditch on the other side of the road. I managed to stay up right and so did my team mate who was in front of me. That definitely got the adrenaline pumping and we chased back on to the bunch. But there was a massive pile up behind us from the crash so it was lucky that I didn't get stuck behind the crash. I was also pretty stoked that I was able to move up places in the bunch by moving straight through the middle of the bunch instead of wasting energy and riding on the outside of the bunch into the wind. It is quite challenging and can be quite dangerous moving through the bunch because you have to squeeze through very small gaps and cut in front of people, gotta be mongrel as, this isn't a nice man sport. I just finished with the bunch in the race but I was stoked with what I achieved and that I finished which was the goal. Some Pro American guy won the race. Because it was a Pro race there is quite a bit of excitement from spectators and they set up this tent fully equipped with a bar and beer taps, I think these races are just an excuse to get pissed during the week. When we were signing in there was this one guy who approached me holding a portfolio and a pen and he asked me what team I was in, I tell him Terra Footwear and opens up his portfolio and I see all these neatly written teams and names with signatures in it. He finds the team Terra and asks what my name is and all in alphabetical order, there's my name and he hands me the pen and asks for my signature. I'm getting pretty famous over here. Next time I'm going to charge people if they won't my signature. I do admire there passion for the sport over here. They love it and it is quite cool going to races and there are heaps of people cheering for you.
Got another Pro Kermesse next Tuesday so hopefully I can get a good result. Been raining and pretty cold for most of the week which is really unusual for Belgium... But the forecast is saying sun and high teen temperatures starting on Wednesday so definitely looking forward to some sun in my bones again. Starting Friday on Discovery Channel is An Idiot Abroad season 4 which we are stoked about. Because 7Days is taking a break we have something else to look forward to on Fridays. Taylor and I used to sit and watch 7Days on the computer in the morning but they are taking a break for a few weeks and we would look forward to Fridays so much but now they are having a break we have been pretty depressed about our Fridays so An Idiot Abroad has made our Fridays again. If you don't know what An Idiot Abroad is, you can watch this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpePyoqbtJ0, sums it up pretty much. Nothing really else happening. It's another random Public Holiday today so nothing is open which is boring cause we are just stuck in the house. I was pretty bored yesterday so I cleaned the bathroom for the third time since I've been here. Trying to make it a weekly habit now. Hopefully my new wheels will arrive this week because I'm sick of riding on my heavy training wheels.
Yea, that's about it from me here. Hopefully everything is going good back home. Heard the Black Caps are being useless again. Oh yea, finally got my package from mum and dad the other day, 170 euros and 3 weeks later I've got it and in it is Kristi's iPhone so now I can take pictures a bit easier and I can put them up on my blogs to make it a bit less boring. I'm stoked about that. So yea, that's all.

Nick

Still Can't Really Think Of A Title

This week has been a bit different. Have had a pretty casual week of training with only doing a couple hours of riding a day. A nice rest week. The weather has been pretty average though. It has gone pretty damn cold again, super windy and raining, that's Belgium for ya I guess. On Thursday, 6 of the boys from the team and the team staff drove 4 hours into France for Tour De Loiret. I was named first reserve for the team but I was not needed. So on Thursday I was left to fend for myself as Taylor and Andrew had both gone. Andrew suggested that I ride out to the team house in Zottegem and stay a couple nights with two of the guys that are staying there. Normally there are six riders staying at that house but 4 of them had gone to the Tour in France. I just chucked some clothes into a back pack and rode out to Zottegem. It was heaps better to stay with some other guys at a different house rather than staying and riding by myself. I took my Ipad with me hoping there would be wifi at the house. And thank the lord! There was wifi! Haven't updated my Ipad since I've been here. I've been using an old school internet cable in my laptop. I felt like I was back in normal futuristic time using wifi again rather than using a cable. On the Saturday, the two of us went down to a Kermesse that was just a couple K's from the house. The Australian track team were doing the race to for preparation for track worlds. It was kind of cool to see some of the guys I raced last year. One of the Aussie riders had a big crash right next to me when some rider wiped out his front wheel while he was having a drink. I was feeling really good at the start of the race but I had learnt my lesson and wasn't trying anything to early on in the race. I was keeping right up near the front because it was quite a windy and wet day. After about 7 laps I got into a move with about 6 other guys. There was this one stupidly, annoying strong rider in the group with us that when he got on to the front he would surge off and absolutely hammer it and drop the rest of us. He would then turn around and get all grumpy at us and started yelling at us in Flemish. He was screwing us all up in one of the climbs where he would pretty much just ride us off his wheel and then in last desperate attempts to catch back up to him, riders would surge off to try and catch him and that kind of just screwed me up, always trying to catch back up to him. That break would have stayed away if that guy wasn't such a munter and used his strength to the breaks advantage. I got dropped from that break up one of the climbs and tried to sit on one of the chase groups for a while. For bit of entertainment there was bit of a punch during the race where two guys were arguing and one of the guys punched the other guy in the helmet. Not a very smart place to punch someone but it was pretty funny. Not too many riders finished the race because of the rain and crosswind. I didn't do too well in the end. It was a real tough race but I was quite happy how great I felt at the beginning, even with using my heavy training wheels and coming off a rest week. I rode back to the Kortrijk Kastle (the name of our house) in the wind in rain from Zottegem the next day. It was a block headwind the whole ride home. It took me 2.5 hours to ride 65k with a 27kmph average speed. Tough ride home.
Ryan Wills, who is a kiwi, ended up in second place in that French Tour which is an awesome result for the team. The team rode really well at the tour and I think Andrew was happy because he apparently sang for an hour non-stop on the drive home, according to Taylor. Wouldn't be surprised, sounds like something Andrew would do. He's a very funny guy.
Got that pro race on Wednesday which I'm looking forward to. Should be a good race and I'm hoping just to finish it in the main bunch. Should be tough, should be good. Game on.

Can't Really Think Of A Title

So I'll start this blog off with the Kermesse I did Sunday, 28th April. I was pretty keen to get a good result in this race and my legs were feeling pretty good. I had put my carbon wheels on so I get bit of an advantage over just using my training wheels. The course was only 10k north up the road from where we live. I had just put brand spanking new tyres on my wheels that cost me a bit of money so I was hoping for a victory to help pay them off. We got to the Café where the sign on was and as we were slowing down I could hear what sound like the rim slightly rubbing on the back brake. I jumped off the bike and gave the wheel a little spin and I saw that the deep carbon rim had like a little wobble in it; like in one spot the carbon was kind of stinking out. I was just like aye? What's going on here. I had a close look at the room and saw a 1cm crack in it from the top of the rim where the braking surface is. Ahhh bugger! Not a good way to start a race but I won't let this stop me. I gave Andrew a ring and he brought me up a spare wheel. He wasn't too happy as he had to leave his  'woman friend' at the house by herself. The race was 112k with 28 LAPS!!! I was so sick of that course after we had finished. Managed to pick up a couple prime laps so I got some money in the bank. There was this one corner in the race that I just couldn't get right. I went on to the grass twice and I was dropping wheels going around it cause I couldn't find the right gear to use to come out of the corner with; it was either too small of a gear or too big. That corner just didn't like me and I didn't like it. Even after doing it 28 times I still couldn't quite get it. After working quite hard at the beginning of the race picking up those primes and trying to get with an early break I decide to save my energy by staying in the bunch and maybe have a crack a little later. As the race went on I kinda just felt average. I think it was because I was always trying to chase back on to the back of the bunch after that one corner. But I tried having another crack with a couple laps to go but it all came to nothing and I was starting to feel a bit tired so I decided to work on my sprinting in the bunch sprint. Needless to say I need to work on my sprinting. Ended up 27th overall  and a bit of money to go towards a new wheel...
The weather here this week is definitely improving. It was quite a warm week. I'm riding without leggings or a jacket most of the time now. Went and did another Kermesse yesterday which was only 7km south from where we are. It was 106km with 15 laps so it wasn't as boring as last week but it was the most frustrating race I have ever done! I was trying to go with a couple riders early on and then we would be chased down pretty quick and then another group would go and I would go with them but then we would be chased down again, then I would have a go and a couple riders would come up but then we would be chased down again. Nothing was working early on so I thought of maybe having a crack later when everyone is tired. I was sitting mid pack and then a big bunch of riders got away. No one was really chasing so I thought this is dangerous and tried bridging across. The rest of the bunch would then just chase me down and then sit up. I would have a crack again to bridge across, and once again, I would be chased down and then sat on. It was super frustrating! A couple times I would have a crack by going solo cause I was stupid and annoyed at everyone and maybe one or two people would eventually chase up to me and when I lap off they would roll through and crack or just sit on me and not roll through at all. FRUSTRATION!!! In the last couple laps I was pretty knackered after failing so many times to bridge across to that group. All in all, that group stayed away and I was not a happy chappy. At the beginning of the race when were waiting at the start line, we all took our helmets off and had a minutes silence because during the week at some other Kermesse there was a big crash and a rider died which was really sad to hear. A couple riders at the race that I was at were wearing black arm bands.
It has been another nice as day today. During our ride, Taylor and I stopped at a kebab store in central Kortrijk and got a kebab to munch on in the sun. It was so nice to chill in the sun and I'm wearing shorts and shirt now. I've got my first pro race on the 15th which I'm super excited about. Philippe Gilbert won it last year and he's racing it again this year which will be awesome as I get to ride with the World Champ. I'm gonna try and get a selfie with him if I can. Had a good clean up for of the house the other day too. Cleaned up the toilet so there's no more stains on there anymore and had a good clean of the shower too. It's a pretty clean and healthy home once again. Things got pretty exciting at the house the other day. Taylor came up with "a brilliant idea". When we have dinner we would usually sit on the couch and watch TV but Taylor thought it would be a great idea if we push the dining table against the back of the couch so we have room to put the dining chairs on the other side of the table so we can eat at the table while watching TV. That idea kinda made our week so now we are being pretty posh by sitting at the table for dinner. It also stops us from dropping food on the floor and ourselves.
Yea, that's about it from me. Pretty damn keen to get a win under my belt to help boost the confidence level leading up the big team races and tours. I'm gonna make a vow to myself to update my blog every Monday so stay tuned.