Not Ideal

Well, that sucked. Couldn't of asked for a crappier week. Only one day at the tour that it didn't rain which can only mean one thing... Carnage.
Before the tour started I had already decided I would have a crack at the General Classification (overall lead) so that would mean I would have to be very smart and well positioned through out the race. Last couple of tours I've always been going for stage wins or Sprints or KOMs. First day was pretty full gas with a lot of wind and a bit of rain. I had good position up the front for the first half of the race but I slacked off a bit and crept back to the middle of the bunch. We headed into a wooded area and the road was soaking wet from a passing shower and just as we were coming out of the woods there was a big crash that spread across the whole road so I had to throw down the anchors and come to pretty much a complete stand still. Was bloody lucky to stop in time because I was hauling ass on the inside because I had decided that I needed to start moving up just before the crash happened. Because of that crash, a big split got away from us and stayed away until the finish. There were heaps of small bunches through out the course at I finished about 2 minutes down with some small bunch. I was sitting 40th or so on GC so I just thought stuff it, I'm just going to go for stage wins again because there's only one way to move up on GC and that's by being in a successful break away group so I'll take my chances.
Stage 2 was a quiet day for me as Zeno was up in the break for most of the day so all I did was ride in the bunch and conserve for the next few days. Zeno and the break got caught about 30km from the end or so and it was just a bunch sprint. Lotto Belisol U23, which is a really good team, was in the lead so they just controlled the race for the whole day.
Now day 3 is where stuff got interesting. As we sit in the carpark getting changed for the race a big black cloud rolls over top of us and it starts pouring with rain and there were big cracks of lightning every couple of minutes. We were all thinking stuff this! The rain eased up just before the start but it was still freezing. The rain gave me really good motivation to be either in a break or right up the front of the race cause I knew it would be complete chaos behind us. I went up the road fairly early and got into a small break but we got caught not too long after but I made sure I stayed right up near the front. About 15 guys just rolled off the front and no one in the bunch was chasing them so I decided to attack by myself and I bridged up to them. A few more guys, including quite a few Lotto Belisol riders, bridged up to us and the Lotto riders went straight to the front and started hammering it. I quickly turned around and I couldn't see anyone behind us so I just thought sweet, I'm moving up on GC today cause we have the leader of the race and all his teammates in the bunch with us and they were drilling the crap out of it. But not long after, the lead car stops in front of us and tells us to stop. Apparently there was heaps of carnage behind us and over half the peleton had crashed. It was a bloody stupid course because they had diagonal railway crossings and everyone was binning it on them because it was wet so we had to stop and wait for them. Everyone in the group was pissed as. The neutralized the race until we had gotten through all the railway crossings and then we started again. It was another bloody windy day so I made sure I was right up near the front. Lotto was again on the front just drilling the crap out of it and they were splitting up the whole bunch. I managed to keep in contact in them until we hit 45km in. We were all single file in the left gutter and we were riding on nice smooth tar seal so between the gutter and the road there was like a small lip where the tar seal is higher than the gutter. I was riding right on the edge of that and leaning towards the right a bit because the wind was blowing from left to  right. I think an extra strong gust of wind just pushed me of the road so my front wheel was in the gutter but I was still leaning to the right so my front wheel wanted to go back up on the road but because the road was still a bit wet it didn't grip on to the road so it just slid and I was still leaning right so I just fully decked it at 45kph and tore up my right side. I got up pretty quick and put my bottles back in and hoped back on my bike but some how my pedals and cleats were covered in mud and sand so I couldn't get my left cleat clipped in, it just kept pulling out so I had to pull over again and spray my cleats and pedals with water to get rid of the mud. Mean while I'm doing this, a heap of small bunches coming riding past me so I was loosing valuable time to catch back up to the main group. I got motor paced by the team car up to a small group and we eventually caught up to some slightly bigger group but no one was working and they pulled us out of the race with 45km to go. Was not ideal but still got to start the next day. Bit of road rash on the old right thigh, leg and elbow but all ok.
4th day was pretty chilled again as Zeno got up in the break again so I got to chill out all day. I did try to go solo with 2km to go but got caught with 800m to go. That tactic rarely works but hey, it's worth a shot, nothing to lose.
Day 5 was another cold wet windy day. Managed to get in a small break but only for 5km when one team, for no reason, decided to mow us down. Was bloody pissed because there was no one dangerous to GC in that group so we got chased down for no reason. A group of 3 riders went up the road but I missed that break. They were about a minute 30 up the road and the peleton was riding really slow and I was really bored so I decided to smack it up the road with some other guy in the block head wind. We were working well together and again, the same team decided to drill us back for no reason. They were about 20 meters behind us and the guy I was with sat up and went back to the bunch but I was bloody pissed off so I just attacked again and went solo. They let me go and I slowly caught up to the break. They were about 1.5 minutes up the road and I got to about 15 seconds behind them when I could start feeling my back tire going soft. Got myself a bloody puncture. There were a few team cars and race officials behind me so I pointed at my rear wheel and a team car came up next to me and I told them I had a puncture so I pulled over and got a wheel change. It was some random team car and the team mechanic was an absolute douche. He lazily got out of the and started to walk towards me but luckily the driver rushed out and told the mechanic to come on and took the wheel from him and put it in my bike. So before that I was 15 seconds behind them and after the wheel change I was at least 45 seconds behind the break. Not ideal. So I had to start all over again. After spending about 30km by myself I finally managed to catch them. I was feeling really good so I wasn't absolutely smashed when I caught them and I was able to help them out. But after being with them for about 15km we go caught by the bunch. And from then on I just sat at the back all day. With 2km to go I was pretty smashed and I dropped but I didn't care. Was pretty happy with my effort, it was a complete waste of time but it was a good sign that the legs are good.
So yea that's about it. I'm quite sore at the moment. I bought some bandage pads and savlon and stuck that on my thigh and it's been aching and stinging ever since. I'm sure it'll be fine though. But yea that's pretty much it for me. Had a pretty busy day today so that's why the blog is a little late.
So yea all is good.

Btw, sorry for any spelling mistakes. I can't be assed checking for the spelling and grammar cause I'm tired. Off to bed

Thanks for reading and don't hassle me too much Nans with my spelling errors, cheers.

Nick

No More Snot

Well this week has been a lot better. Started feeling better by Wednesday and now only have a slight runny nose. So this week I've been back on the bike gearing up for my next tour which starts on Wednesday. There was another tour on this week that the two poms and Irish in the house did so Zeno and I had the house to ourselves for most of the week. Made the house seem a lot bigger. Pretty happy to not be selected for that tour because it sounded like hell. One of the Poms and Irish came back with a couple broken bones. Liam the Pom fractured his hip so he had surgery and stayed in hospital for a few nights and Connor the Irish had a cracked rib and that was due to a big pile up on the first stage. So they came back home Saturday night and we've had to move Liam's bed smack bang in the middle of the living room cause he can't climb the stairs so it's really cramped now. He's going home next week so we'll be down to 4 people in the house.
Did a couple kermesses this week with one on Friday and one on Saturday. Had a nice and rainy race on Friday but the course was perfect for the conditions with only 3 corners and only one being tight. It started bucketing down as we sat at the cafe pinning our numbers on. We were fairly close to just handing back our numbers and going home because it was just cold, wet and getting dark. We just manned up and lined up at the start in the rain. From the get go, Zeno and I just drilled it and rode away from the bunch while taking a couple other riders. There were maybe 6 riders away with us at the start and we eventually just whittled it away down to 3; the last rider being a Korean. It was a short circuit of just over 3km with a 10euro prem every lap so we shared the prems every lap with each other. Every time we crossed the line the commentator would yell through the loud speaker "Nick Bain the New Zealander" or "Matt Zenovich the New Zealander" or "(some stereotypical Asian name) the Korean wins the prem!" And the crowd would go crazy just yelling our names and telling us to keep going. But with about 20km to go my legs just fell to pieces. I don't think I could hold the pace we were doing for that long and my legs blew up. My average heart rate for 2 hours was over 180bpm so we were working pretty bloody hard. A small group of riders came past me and I couldn't even come close to staying with them. Then the bunch came past and I went straight out the back of them. So that was my race over. Unfortunately Zeno and the Korean got caught by two riders with a lap to go so Zeno finished 4th. But after the race, Zeno was basically crowned Mayor of the town and I was Vice Mayor. Everyone came up congratulating us and would stare at us and you would always hear someone say New Zealand or something. Some would say thanks for making the race and even the Sports Director from a pretty good team came up to us afterwards and offered us to ride for his team next year so there's one team option for next year. Made a bit of money as well for winning some of the prems in the race so all is good. Bit gutted that I couldn't hang on for the whole race because we would have stayed away if I was able to make it to the finish. I guess I'm still just getting back to full fitness after being sick.
Decided to race again on the Saturday cause it was nice day and I didn't really feel like going out for a training ride. Was a pretty big race with lots of riders and spectators. Again, a lot of people staring at us. We made a new friend. This fairly old lady named Dianne who pretty much offered to look after us at all the kermesses we do. She said if we need water during the race then just chuck her our bottles and she'll fill it up and she also gave me a coke after the race and she would cheer us on every lap. But yea at the race the legs were feeling good. After the first lap I managed to get into a break away of about 12 riders. Just after 60km some guy smashed it in the cross wind and we were down to about  7 of us. There were prems every lap and two really strong riders sprinted off to get the prem and decided to keep going. I was on the front in the hard crosswind section and just as I lap off after a hard turn on the front some guy attacks to try and bridge up to the two riders up the road and I couldn't quite make it back on to the group. So I waited for the bunch and there weren't too many left in the bunch, maybe 30 left. I just chilled with that bunch for pretty much the rest of the race. The bunch caught the break but two different riders from the break had already broken away from the break away group and they stayed away for the rest of the race. I ended up 18th out of 96 starters so fairly happy with that result especially after having a hard race yesterday.
So yea that's basically my week. Made a bit of cash to help pay for food so yea all is good. Let's hope everything goes to plan at the tour this coming week.

Thanks for reading

Nick

Antibiotics Me Up

Well it's been a pretty quiet week for me. Sickness took over me and I was forced to just chill out for a bit. Zeno and I decided to go to Brussels on Monday just cause. Didn't really know what to expect with Brussels, haven't really heard much about it and we weren't sure if it was touristy sort of place or if it was more just business, we knew it was big though after driving past it a number of times. When we got off the train it was all just high rise buildings and people in suits so first impressions were it's just a business place but we wandered on in to the center and it got a bit more touristy looking. The place reminded me of London a bit with the tall buildings and they had sight seeing double deckers driving around. Lots of small streets and alley ways packed with people so we just went with the flow and ended up in some big cool square with old buildings covered in gold statues and random gold stuff. The square was packed with tourists which was quite surprising cause I didn't think tourists came to Belgium. When I've been to Ghent and Brugge I never really saw that many tourists. The center of Brussels was like being back home in Howick... Full of Asians. So many Asians lying on the ground trying to get the perfect angle to take a picture.
We carried on walking and came out on some massive walkway where everyone in Brussels seemed to be walking. Was chocker full of people. Black, white, yellow, brown, so many different people, it's a very ethnic city. A lot of bums though. A lot of beggars on the street asking for money and a lot of them were Muslim woman with kids. The walkway was all just phone and clothes stores so we U bolted and walked back towards the square cause there were quite a few restaurants and we were getting hungis as. We had walked down this one small lane that was packed with pizza restaurants so we headed back towards that direction to get some good kai. Sat down at the busy restaurant and you could hear so many different languages, Frenchys, Spanish, American, Pom. Took ages to get served cause the fat as waiter kept flirting with a bunch of French birds but he eventually gave us some menus and we just flicked straight over to the pizza page, no salad for us. It's all in a different language so we didn't really have any idea what was in it but we both decided on a pizza with our rough translation skills. Fat man waiter came back and started talking to us in French and we were like 'ahhh English' and he just goes 'no no no French'. Ok cool douche bag, I'll just have this pizza as I point at the menu. Surely you would know English in a touristy city like this one. Grumpy French fat man. But yea we got our pizzas and they were massive but pretty damn average. It was just basically cheese on a base with a bit of blue cheese blobbed in some places. Was pretty disappointed cause when we walked in we saw some girl with heaps of bacon on her pizza and I wanted that one.
After lunch we walked around a bit more but go bored so we went home. It's a big place so there might have been more to do further away but I thought Brussels was average as. Place was crowded as, heaps of bums, smelt like piss and someone/something dropped a massive turd in the middle of the street and didn't bother to pick it up. I give, what we saw of Brussels, a 3.5/10. That square was pretty cool but on one of the buildings they were doing renovations on the outside and just hung a massive picture of the building over the scaffolding. It was sort of weird cause inside that building was a starbucks and a few cafes so the building mustn't of been too important in history if they put a bloody starbucks in it. Ah well, it was better than sitting inside the house all day bored out of our brains. Can tick Brussels off the list now, only Antwerp to go. I did go to Antwerp early last year but it was covered in snow and places always look different in the snow so I want to go back.
First half of the week was pretty average as I would still always wake up with a killer sore throat, headache, blocked nose and ears but then near the afternoon my throat would become a bit more better. Throat is all good now though but now the snotty nose has kicked in with bright green snot which normally means infection and I still get a headache every now and then. Still destroying the lemon and honey tea.
Was starting to feel a bit better over the last couple days so I decided I would race on Sunday. Wasn't quite feeling it in the race, just had no real oomph in my legs. Managed to pick up 10th which isn't too bad but I think I should have maybe waited and fully recovered from my cold cause I am feeling really average today. Woke up a bit drowsy today and I just felt meh. Have had small headaches throughout the day and am blowing my nose constantly. I was planing on racing again today cause there's no more racing until Friday but I just felt average so I've just had a real easy day today. Really need to shake off this cold asap so I've been whacking back vitamin C like no tomorrow, apples, lemons, vitamin C tablets, everything.
So yea goal of this week is to get rid of this cold, I'm getting real sick of it.
Was looking at news back home and I saw that Auckland had a bit of snow like hail which was pretty choice. Everything was blanketed in white. Heard it was a pretty typical Auckland day with it starting off as a clear blue sky today and then it just turned. Good old Auckland.
Gonna make some ciabatta bread pizzas for dinner tonight so I'm quite looking forward to that. Only 49 cents for a foot long of raw ciabatta bread (you just chuck it in the oven and you're away). Zeno came up with the idea last week and I told him I was gonna one up him and make my pizza even more awesome so I've bought some ham and pineapple to make one Hawaiian pizza and I've bought bacon bits, chorizo sausages and BBQ sauce to make a meat lovers one. I just remembered I forgot mushrooms... Damn. Ah well it's still gonna be heaps better than Zenos.

Yea I'll leave you some pictures of Brussels

Chur

Thanks for reading

Nick

These are all pictures of the buildings in the square

Not My Week

As the title says; it wasn't my week this week. Started Ronde van Vlaams-Brabant tour on a bloody hot Wednesday afternoon. Temperatures scorched up past 30 degrees so it made for some hot hard racing. Tried getting into the early moves but it all came to nothing. For someone reason my legs went to jelly after about 20k. Trying to get into the early break must have really taken it out of me but I still mowed on in the bunch. Legs started to get better at 70k and I managed to get in a small split going up one of the climbs. There was already a break up the road so we were working together to try and catch them but we couldn't. I manged to ride away from the group with 3k to go but was still 2mins behind the winner.
Stage 2 was just shit. Just shit. Punctured in the first 5kms and I just couldn't get the legs fired up for the whole race. If I feel like that at the beginning of races, normally by halfway my legs feel good again but for the whole day I felt like poo. Even on  pretty easy flat sections I was struggling. There was a 1k cobble climb that we did 8 times and the weird thing was I felt pretty awesome up that. I would be at the back of the bunch heading into that climb and then by the top I would be at the front but then on the flats I would be at the back again. Still managed to finish in the bunch.
Stage 3 was bit of a rest day. We only had a 10km Time Trial in the afternoon. I didn't have a TT bike so I knew I wasn't going to get a top result. Still gave it my all and managed to finish 44th or something and about 45 seconds down. Felt like I could've at least finished top 10 if I had a TT rig.
Stage 4 was even worse than stage 2 really. Woke up with a really really sore throat but I didn't let the get to me. Legs were feeling pretty good during warm up and I was still hoping for a good result. Started near the back of the group and once the flag dropped I started making my way up the bunch on the inside. We were hauling ass in the first 2k because it was slight downhill. Making my up to the front and then I hear a loud bang and then a heap of riders started hitting the deck. I couldn't stop in time and plowed into the riders on the ground. I flip over the handle bars and land on my back and head. I got up after a bit and my helmet was hardly on my head anymore. The helmet back strap had detached from the shell some how so must have had bit of an impact. I managed to clip it back on to my helmet and then I picked up my bike and rode a little bit further down the hill where the rest of the bunch was waiting because the race officials stopped the race. When I got down there I wasn't feeling too bad like my head wasn't sore or anything. I was talking to my mate and we were having a laugh because I had big hole in my jersey and I lost half of my racing and food and bent a few pins on my number. But once we started racing again I went all dizzy and disorientated. Just felt really weird and not 100%. I felt really nervous riding in the bunch again as well, everything looked really weird like I was sort of seeing double. I kept riding and went to the back to see if I would get better over time but na. Got to some steep as climb and then at the top was a big crosswind section and I just couldn't do it. My legs turned to crap and I still felt really weird. Tried riding in the car convoy to try and catch up but I just couldn't. It was a really technical course as well which made it harder. But yea, I just couldn't do it. Had to pull the pin after 30k. Was really gutted. Was really desperate to at least win a stage at that tour but it just wasn't my week.
The next day was horrible as well. Woke up stiff as and even more sick. My neck is the worst, all sides of it too; left side, right side, front, back. Ribs, back and abs are all bruised and sore as well. Still not feeling great today. Woke up with a sore throat again and a runny nose and headache so I've just been smashing back lemon and honey tea all day. Just feeling really blah at the moment. Just gonna have a few days off and fully recover before getting back into some serious training.
Anyway, onwards and upwards. Still looking for a first place in a race so I'm not coming home until I get one. That's whats keeping me motivated at the moment.
So yea.

Thanks for reading

Nick

Can't Remember

I'm struggling to remember what we got up to this week. It can't of been anything too exciting otherwise I would remember what I did. Hadn't raced since the tour last week cause I'm building up for Vlaams Brabant which is a 5 stage tour here in Belgium and it starts on Wednesday so looking forward to that. So yea, all I've done this week is ride and recovered really.
We did have a bbq on Thursday night because it was a stunner day. It's been bloody hot this week so we decided we needed to have a good old traditional NZ barby, too bad Andrew doesn't have a proper bbq. He did have this contraption that he said he made when he was 13 (so it's ancient) and it was basically a fire pit with legs and a grill. I think he stole the grilling plates from the sewer drains that you see on the side of the road cause this thing was pretty DIY but it did the trick. Had to get a fire going and then chucked some coal in then waited for the fire to die down and the coal to do its thing. Sipped back a few cold ones and cooked some sausys and paddies and kebabs. Was some good kai. Then we just chilled outside and played cards.
The weather this week has been stunner but maybe a little too stunner. It's been so hot and pretty impossible to sleep, especially where I'm sleeping which is upstairs. It got up to 33 degrees last week and we all couldn't stop sweating. Like last year, if you open the door and windows then you just get infested with flies. They're all splattered on the window at the moment. Mosquitoes have been a pain as well. They always fly through the big window in the room next to mine and come into my room cause I have no door. So I'm covered in mozzy bites at the moment. I can hear them as well and at night when I hear them I turn my light on on my phone and try to squash them when they land but they always land on the wall to my left or the roof and I can't whack the left wall or roof because it's hollow and I'll just end up waking everyone in the house and probably put a whole in it so I can't win. So whenever I hear them I just grab my pillow and start waving that in the air and that normally scares them off for a bit. Bloody mozzies.
There's been a couple thunderstorms at night too. The best one was on Saturday night. Every second you would see a flash of lightning somewhere. It was flashing every direction you looked. Some got bloody close cause after a second there would be a loud rumble and bang of thunder. Best thunderstorm I've ever seen by far. Lasted a good 2 and a bit hours I reckon. We just turned all the lights off in the house and watched it all happen. There's a crane just across the road so we were waiting and praying that the lightning would strike that. Who needs TV and computers when you have nature.
So yea that's pretty much it. Next weeks blog will be a bit more entertaining and longer and that will be on Monday. Hopefully go good at Brabant this week and come away with something primo.

Sweet, that's all.

Thanks for reading

Nick

Tour Time

Sorry for the late blog. We got back from France at 1.30am on Tuesday and we were out and about all day yesterday and then I had to cook up some kai so I didn't really have too much time to write a blog but now I'm pretty fresh and got time on my hands. But yea the start of the week was crappy as, pouring with rain all day and night, bit like home. Went for a 4.5 hour ride on Monday and it rained for 4.5 hours, then rained Tuesday, then rained Wednesday. After our ride on Wednesday, 4 of us went up to Roselare which is a fairly big town about 10km away and found a cafe that makes flat whites!!! It's a really cool cafe that's sort of hidden away and the guy who owns it makes some really awesome different coffees. First ordered a flat white and had a look at the menu again and there was a coffee called 'Cookie' so I thought I'd give that one a crack. Couldn't understand what was in it cause it was all written in Flemish in the menu but I was pretty certain that it would involve a cookie or something. It was like a coffee chocolate syrup at the bottom with milk, cream and cookie crumbles on top with caramel sauce. Sooooo good! So we were back there today and got another good old flat white and a berry crumble pie. Ka Pie. 

Ah yea the tour. The tour didn't go too badly I guess. Stayed up right which is a bonus considering the conditions on the second day. First stage was 163km of rolling short climbs which suited me alright. There was a sprint challenge at 19km (which is basically like a sprint prem like in the kermesses but they have a few of them through out the course and you win prizes) and then at 24km there was a KOM sprint (which stands for King Of the Mountain and if you cross the line first you win 6 points, then 4 points for 2nd, then 1 or 2 points for 3rd then whoever has the most points after the stage wins the Polka Dot jersey) so after the sprint challenge I decided to counter attack and went off the front solo for 5km and won the KOM sprint so I had 6 points in the bank. Not long after that a big break of about 25 riders got away, including Zeno, so I just had to sit in the bunch for most of the day because we had a man up the road. There were two more KOM's throughout the course and one rider in the break won both of them so he had 12 points and I only had 6 so I was sitting in second for that. The break stayed away and Zeno picked up 10th which is a good result for him. We were sitting about 30 seconds behind the winner and I rolled in about 58th place I think. 

Next day started off with a 12.8km Time Trial in the morning and then a 90km road race in the afternoon. Pissed with rain from morning till night. I borrowed one of the boys time trial bikes for the TT. I had a quick ride on it in the car park the night before and it seemed alright but once I started my warm up I knew it was way too small. The seat wasn't quite high enough and the seat was too far forward and the stem was too small so I was smashing my knees on my elbows. I had to sit right on the back of the seat  which wasn't too comfortable but didn't do too badly. I managed to catch my minute man after 8km and ended up around 20th place. I was 30 secs off the winner so I reckon I would've been up there if I had my own TT rig and I was also being extra careful round the corners cause it wasn't my bike and it was pissing with rain. Afternoon stage, still raining. My goal for that race was to not die. I just sat right up the front out of trouble for the whole race. Felt really good too and I was following a couple moves in the first few km of the race. There was one of those sprint challenges at around 6km so I attacked about a km before that and won that. I turned around and saw I had bit of a gap so I put my head down and kept drilling it because there was a KOM in 5km. Managed to stay away and won that but the KOM leader got 2nd so I had 12 points and he now had 16 points. That was the only KOM for the day so couldn't do too much more but stay out of trouble and that's just what I did. After the race I had to go up on the stage to collect my prize for winning the sprint challenge. Won an iPad mini and a tee. The t-shirt was too big so we used it as an oil rag but the iPad could come in handy. I'm just going to sell it cause I've already got an iPad. 

Last stage was a nice day and it was Bastille day so all the Frenchys were out in support. It was 153km of rolling and flat sections with lots of cross winds. I really wanted to get into a break that day so I could win all the KOM points on the course, there were 3 KOMs. Got into a small move fairly early and we had a small gap with about 7 riders but everyone stopped working so I attacked them and rode solo for a bit to see if anyone would come with me. There was a sprint challenge about 3km out from where I attacked so I put my head down to try and win another one of them. Crossed the line first again so picked up another prize. After I crossed the line I turned around and saw the bunch wasn't too far behind so I sat up and waited for them but it was actually a group of about 12 riders who got away. We rode hard in the crosswind section but then everyone just stopped working again which was frustrating. A couple people were still riding hard so I jumped on to them and we rolled through a bit but then for some reason the team that had the yellow jersey just sat on the front and mowed us down for no reason. Normally in tours, the team that has the yellow jersey will let a break go and then slowly bring it back near the end of the race. They do this because it's a lot easier to slowly bring back one break than to chase down every single attack in the race. Not long after being in the bunch another big attack went and I sat there watching them go thinking they will surely pull that back straight away. I would have tried to go with that break but I thought it would be a waste of energy because I was already pretty tired after my big effort before and I thought that it would be pulled back pretty quickly like what happened to the break I was in just before but nope, they stayed away for the whole race. Bugger. Just sat in the bunch for most of the race after that and let all the big teams try chase down the break but they couldn't... Break finished 32 secs ahead of us and I rolled in 31st. I was quite angry for most of the ride because I missed the break but to make it worse, Andrew came up to me after the race and said I had won a jersey for 60km of the race. That sprint challenge was actually a points sprint for the green jersey and there was a jersey for the person who had the most combined points in the KOM sprints and the Points sprint. So when I won that sprint it put me in the lead for the Pink Combination Jersey. Bugger. If I had known I was in the lead I would have got the team and I to help bring that break back ASAP because someone in that break won the Pink Jersey. Really gutted. We put tape at the beginning of each stage and write when each sprint competition is but we didn't write what each sprint was like whether it was a KOM or a sprint Challenge and I thought the first sprint was a sprint challenge. 

Still ended up 20th overall and came away with an iPad so not all too bad I guess. Would've done so much better if I had gotten into the break on the last day though. Ah well, at least I know I'm in good form and I'll give it another good crack in the upcoming tours. It was a pretty awesome atmosphere too with heaps of Frenchys coming out in support and we had some pretty good banter within the team.

That's all from me now. I'll chuck up a couple pics below

Team presentation on the 1st stage

Winning my iPad with the podium girls

There was a funny as band that followed the whole tour

Team presentation stage 4

The town we started stage 4 in

Thanks for reading

Nick

Wet n Wild Cobble Mania

Well it's pouring with rain and fairly cold outside so today I've just chilled out, cleaned up the house and I'm currently watching the Tour de France. Had a big race yesterday at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad which is a pretty big UCI amateur race. It was in the same region as the race I did last Wednesday in Zottegem so lots of cobbles and lots of steep punchy climbs. It was a rainy cold day, bit like today, so from the get go it was all pretty sketchy. My legs felt terrible for the first hour or so and I had really bad positioning because I basically couldn't move up cause my legs just wouldn't let me. Got caught up in a small crash and hit the deck but got up straight away fairly unscathed. Just a wittle scwatch on my ankle. After doing a few cobble sections I think all the cob webs got rattled out of my legs, was feeling a lot better. But because of my poor positioning I missed the main split so a bunch of us had to ride pretty hard to catch back up. Finally made it back to the main bunch and at this point there was only about 80 odd riders left out of the 190 starters and we were only halfway through the 170km course. Going up one of the climbs I just didn't have the legs to follow another big split so I rolled around the second group for most of the remaining race. On the last lap of the finishing circuit I rode away with a couple other riders from the remaining group of about 30 riders and ended up 42nd out of the 69 finishers. Was definitely up there as the hardest race I've done, had to really dig deep in the last 10k when I rode away from the bunch with those couple other guys. Quite a short run down of the race but that was pretty much it. Bit of carnage but I managed to miss most of it except for that one crash. Quite a few Kiwi boys were racing it too like Zeno, Tom Vessey, Hamish Schreurs and a few others. They all had a bit of bad luck with getting caught up behind crashes or punctures or broken equipment. Had a good sleep last night though.
Honestly didn't do too much exciting this week. Just been riding a bit and gearing up for the Tour des 2 Sevres in France next Friday. 3 day tour so hopefully I go good in this one, will be nice to get a good result.
But yea just trying to think of something to write but I got nothing.
So I guess that's it.

Thanks for reading

Nick