Bout Bloody Time

Last week was alright aye. Not too much happened. I think I've fully recovered from my illness. I was doing a bit of panic training last week so I can be in shape for Ireland. I was doing over 100k rides pretty much every day and feeling really good and strong. It was bloody windy for the first few days of the week and on my 5 hour Tuesday ride it bucketed down with rain but we got blow dried shortly after. Riding in the exposed areas in the direct headwind I was struggling to do more than 25kph on a downhill. I was still feeling really motivated and really keen to keep riding though. On Wednesday I was invited to go to Zottegem and do a bunch ride with some of the Terra boys (the team I rode for last year). There's only one guy from last year riding for the team this year and also Ricky, my new roommate, is riding for them. It was windy as hell and there was constantly big black clouds rolling by so for the whole ride we were just riding to avoid the rain. At the very end of the ride, with 2k to go, it bucketed down again! Took us about 3 mins to get home from when it started raining and we were drenched. But ah well, it was nice to ride somewhere different and with some different people. Then yea, Thursday and Friday were just more big rides but this time under the fairly warm sun which was nice then Saturday Ricky and I grabbed a good old flat white in Roselare.
Then Sunday. Race day. My second kermesse of the season. I was really looking forward to it after getting 2nd at the last kermesse I did which was a few weeks ago. I had my tactics sussed and I trusted myself that my tactics would work. The break went pretty damn early, it doesn't often go this early. A group of guys rode off the front after about 12k and then a couple more guys attacked to try bridge across and then a couple more went but there was no reaction from the bunch. Normally someone would attack and then someone would jump on his wheel and then eventually the whole bunch would be on his wheel but no, not this time, they were just letting riders go. So I thought ok, I should probably bridge across cause there's some strong riders up there and no one's reacting back here so I bridged across. There was about 20 of us or so and we were all rolling through really well and riding pretty fast and that's basically how the entire race went. There were prems every lap that guys were sprinting for but I was like nope, I'm not gonna touch them cause I want to save my energy. Then yea, with about 8k to go, a rider that I hard marked to be pretty strong just casually rode off the front. I was kinda rolling through in the bunch and was at the front at the time and I turned around to see that I had a small gap on the bunch and everyone in there were just looking at each like you chase him, no you chase him, no YOU chase him. So I to kinda just casually rode off the front, caught up to the guy ahead and rode past him. He hopped on my wheel and then we turned a sharp corner and I turn around and he's not there anymore. Righto, I'll just do it myself then. Apparently after the race, Sean Joyce (who's a Kiwi and rode for Terra last year and was at the race and who's now the teammate of that guy) said that 'old mate' turned around when he was on my wheel and saw that the peloton was pretty close to catching us so he just gave up. Bet he's kicking himself now. So I just spent a lap and a half up the road by myself, picked up a prem with one lap to go and won the whole race pretty comfortably, had time to celebrate just before the finish. I was pretty stoked to finally win here, I knew it would happen soon enough. Happy that all the hard work and sacrifice is finally paying off and I reckon I could win a few more of these. So now I can tick one thing off my list and focus on my next goal.
So yea, really good week. Really looking forward to Ireland now as I think my form is looking alright. We'll see what happens there and I'll write my next blog when I get back on the 26th.

Bloody good
I'll leave a few pics below

Thanks for reading

Nick