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