Had my first Interclub race on Thursday in France. Grand Prix des Hauts de France Douchy was a 178km race where we did about 2 laps of a big circuit including a 1.7km cobble section but we were told it was only 700 meters of cobbles, yea right, another 2 laps of a slightly smaller circuit that just cuts out the cobble section and then about 8 - 10 laps of a small circuit. It was something like that anyway; we went round in circles. We arrived the day before and we rolled up to the motel we were staying at and the sign out front said Ibis and I thought 'Oh yea it's an Ibis, shouldn't be too bad' but then I looked a little closer and it was an 'Ibis budget'. 'Budget' was written in small for a good reason. Drove down the drive and the place looked like a nuke town or something you see in a zombie movie. I wasn't really surprised we were staying in a place like this to be honest. The outside was made of that real crappy plaster stuff that would rot even if you just sneezed on it. Took us about 5 mins to punch in the code to unlock the door. The buttons were useless and you had to push down the number '1' real hard for it to work properly and I was the only one that could do it because my roommate, Josh, just didn't have the magic touch like I do and he could never open the door without me. But the inside of the motel was actually pretty nice. It was pretty clean and looked pretty new so we were pretty happy. Went down to the hotel restaurant that was hosting some of the teams for dinner and they gave us a nice heap full of plain pasta and chicken yummmmmm. Classic Frenchys. Had to share a tiny bowl of sauce between 6 guys so we just chucked our pasta into bread rolls to get some extra carbs in us. They gave us some apple pies for dessert but who ever cut them clearly couldn't judge size because some people got a massive slab of pie and others, like me, got a slither so I took a gamble and quickly gave my tiny piece to someone that didn't have any yet and waited for the last couple of plates to be given out. Yea I'm definitely not going to the casino this week because that gamble back fired. Got an even smaller piece than what I had before. Ah well getting lean. Before we started that race we had a quick team briefing and all that Hans really wanted us to do is be seen. There were quite a few big top teams racing and he wanted us to be up next to them in the spotlight so he wanted us to be up in the breaks or going off the front. I had a few big cracks off the front and tried to get a break going fairly early. I was doing quite a bit of work just to be seen and apparently they were talking about me and the team quite a lot on race radio so Hans was quite happy. 30km in was the "700m" cobble section, they missed out the 1, and she was a tough one. 1700m of ouch. I had bad positioning leading up to it and I was sitting mid pack heading into it the first time. There was a crash in front me and I had to swerve to the left and got caught in some mud so I had to unclip and it's bloody hard to start riding again on cobbles. I just waited for the bunch behind and we eventually caught back up to the main 50 odd riders that split off the front. Not long after we caught back on a big group rode off the front and Liam, one of my teammates, was up in that split and the big team Lotto-Belisol U23 were on the front chasing so I just chilled in the bunch and tried saving myself for later. We came on to the small circuit and we still hadn't quite caught the front group but we were fairly close but with about 45 mins of riding to go I started to crack a bit and started cramping. My legs were feeling pretty good just cruising in the bunch but trying to stand up and sprint out of the corners was hard cause I would just to cramp. I had to really dig deep mentally and physically to just finish. Manage to cross the line 61st out of about 180 riders and there was only 75ish finishes so that shows how tough the race was. Pretty gutted with the cramp. Think I should've drank a bit more. But yea I think Hans was happy with us and I'm pretty happy to finish the race.
The house is now full. 6 guys living here now so she's a tight squeeze. Irish guy here now. We all get along so it's not too bad. Found the rugby ball in the garage that we bought last year so now we can have the ANZAC's vs The British Lions test match in the backyard. Zeno and I have been chucking it round the last couple of days. Took Zeno out to Ypres for a coffee yesterday and saw the Menin Gate. Still humbling to see that big arch with all the names written on it. It was a pretty crappy ride though cause I got two punctures and Zeno got a puncture too. I'll probably take Zeno out to the Kortrijk markets tomorrow morning and grab a coffee. Hopefully the coffee truck that me and Taylor went to last year still comes to the market. (Zeno is the other Kiwi guy by the way) I was talking to Taylor on Facebook the other day and he asked me if I've been smashing back Frits but I haven't touched one yet. I ride past the Frituur nearly everyday and still haven't had any. He said he respects my self control. I'm weighing 69kg which is the lightest of weighed in a long time. I don't know if the scale is really generous or if I'm actually weighing 69kg but I want to try and keep the same weight.
Anyway that's pretty much it. Pretty tired today so yea.
Thanks for reading
Nick
Glad you've got some great room mates and you have settled in so far.
ReplyDelete