Been a pretty average week this week I reckon. Had some good days and had some bad days. Riding has been good but just other small stuff has been pretty average. Matt Zenovich, who's a mate from Invercargill who is riding for the team this year, was arriving on Monday afternoon. What everyone had to do this year that was flying to Belgium was catch a train from the airport to the town they were living at and Zeno hasn't been to Europe before and wasn't too keen on catching a train to a town he's never been to in a country that he's never been to so he asked me if I could meet him at the airport and we catch the train back together. So I got down to the train station in Kortrijk a little late so I didn't have too much time to catch my train so I was rushing a bit. I got my ticket and tried finding what track I had to be at to get my train. I guess I got a little bit cocky thinking I knew exactly how the trains worked and I found the train that was going to Antwerp because to get to Brussels airport you have to get off at Antwerp and switch trains so I was like sweet, to Antwerp I go. But I was wrong... I was meant to find the train that says going to Brussels and then that will take me up to Antwerp and then I'll get off at Antwerp. Well I think that's how it works anyway. When I was looking at the board that has all the trains and the platforms I couldn't actually find a train saying to Brussels Airport... I'm kind of confused just writing this now. All in all I got on the wrong train. Well it wasn't the wrong train, it was just a train that took ages to get up to Antwerp. But lucky for me the train went through Brussels Central. So I got off there and waited for a train to Brussels Airport. Zeno had been waiting for about an hour but I still got there in the end. Was a bit confused getting a train on the way back too but in the end I had no problems getting back. On the plus side I saw some nice Belgian country side on a nice day and it killed a bit of time. It's good to have another kiwi in the house. Hadn't seen Zeno in a few years either so it was good to catch up.
Decided to go do a race on Wednesday but the only down side of doing that race was that it started at 6pm so I was still pinging late at night after the race. Finally fell asleep after midnight that night. But it wasn't too bad of a race. I guess I was pretty happy with the race. Felt really good for the whole race but I just did typical me and did a bit too much attacking. It was a fairly windy, wet and cold night so I thought it might be a good opportunity to get in a break away that will stay away but nope. It just doesn't work like that. It's same old Belgium style of racing of attack, chased down, attack, chased down. Frustrating! I got in a break of about 6 riders and we stayed out for a lap but it's frustrating because people just stop lapping through in the break and it just screws everything up so we got caught. All the effort for nothing. It's still good training though. It was a bunch sprint in the end but I had pretty poor positioning coming into the last lap and ended up 22nd and 11 euros up. I wasn't too disappointed because I felt good and did some solid efforts.
Went for a pretty cruisey ride on Saturday (just killed a fly. Still got my fly killing ninja skills) with one of the Poms, Adam, and Zeno. Decided to stop and grab a coffee in Kortrijk and as we pull up to the Kortrijk center, we see big side netting and sand and a grandstand in the center courtyard of Kortrijk. We get a little closer and they are having a beach rugby tournament. So we sat at a cafe next to the rugby pitch and watch a bit of footy. It was a bit weird not seeing any massive Tongans bowling over the little white boys but there were a couple big fellas there. And some real chunky girls to. They had men's and women teams. It wasn't quite the same as NZ rugby but it was pretty funny to watch. They were pretty useless.
Gonna have bit of a rant now. I decided on Saturday night I would make fish cakes like what Mum made at home once. So went down to the ol' Delhaize and picked up all the ingredients like tinned salmon and kumara. Open up the tinned salmon and she wasn't even pink like salmon. So I was like ok then, should be right, chuck her in. Chucked it in and I saw all this black looking stuff. There was still bloody fish skin all in it! Opened up the other tin of salmon to see if it was the same. Chopped through it a bit with a fork and there was skin and stuff in it as well!. Dug through it a bit more and the fish still had its spine in there! Tried to pick out the vertebrae in it and I just found more bones it. Looked through the salmon that I had already put into the mashed kumara and there was vertebrae and other bone parts in that too! Pissed me off! The tins were 3.50euro each and I bought three, two for dinner and I thought I would use the other one for a lunch or something. I was pretty excited cause I love me some salmon but bloody hell that was shit! Read the tin and everything and it said salmon from Canada. Bloody Canadians! Just had to settle for tuna. Didn't turn out too bad but I just made the patties a bit too big so they crumbled apart a bit.
Had another race today and before the race I promised myself, no work or getting into breaks in the first 1.5 hours. No matter what, I was going to do nothing because I knew a break wouldn't get away on a day like this (there wasn't a lot of wind) and a course like that (It was dead flat and only had 3 corners). And as always, lots of attacks at the beginning of the race that just turned to nothing. I was really trying to race smart today, learning from all of my mistakes of doing work too early and blowing at the end of the race. So I stuck to my word and did nothing even with attacks that looked like they could stay away. Every attack got shut down pretty quick, except for one... At an hour twenty into the race, a big break went up the road. I watched it go and thought 'no'. '10 more minutes, then I can start doing some work, it will get caught.' The break got further and further away until you could hardly see them. I started to panic a bit because I thought that was it. What are the chances that a break away would stay away at a race like this... It's very rare and of course it was the race that I decided to not do any work until 1.5 hours in. But some how, with 2 laps to go, we caught them. I did not expect that. They were ages ahead and the bunch wasn't doing anything. I was stoked though. Tried doing what I do best and do the 'million dollar dash' where you go solo off the front of the bunch with a couple K's to go. It's worked a couple times at home but the racing is so much harder over here so I got shut down after a couple K's. So I had to just settle for a bunch sprint which I'm not too good at but I thought I would give it a crack. Was a bit too far behind in the bunch but I was passing quite a few people on the outside. I was coming up the outside and another guy was riding just ahead of me on my left. Another guy was coming back at a rate of knots because he must of lead someone out for the sprint. The guy who was next to me was heading straight for the guy going backwards so he swung right into me and his thigh hit my bars and I had to swing really hard to the right so I wouldn't crash. Only problem was that there were trees every couple of meters on the side of the road and then the footpath was next to that. So I had to swing out on to the footpath and that was pretty much it for me. Didn't crash but it put me out of contention for the sprint. Little bit gutted but ah well, didn't die. I was happy that I stuck to my word as well and the break came back.
So yea. Got my first Interclub race in France on Thursday so we are leaving Wednesday and staying the night over there. Should be a good race and the course suits me so definitely keen to give it a crack. Few cobble sections in the race so I'm excited for that. So what I learnt from this week is don't trust Canadians with their fish and that to win one of these kermesse's, I just need to be patient. Wait for the second half of the race before attacking everyone.
Yeap that's pretty much.
Thanks for reading
Nick
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