My first Belgian UCI stage race! So, I found out at the last minute that I was going to be going (7 am before a 1:30 pm start), which meant I came with a little less of a mental edge than I might like. But I was really glad to be there. The race is five days long, four road stages of 140-160 km apiece on rollers and power climbs, split in the middle by an 11-kilometer time trial. There were 200 starters.
The race today was 145 kilometers and designed to be a stage for the sprinters. There were three large loops of 35 km each before we went into town for five local laps of 8.5 km apiece. The large loop featured two GPM’s (King of the Mountains competition points sprints) at 13.5 km and 25 km.
The guys pinning up before a pre-race chat.
I was in a mix of moves for a bit, but nothing really got too far away. I bridged to a promising looking group as it was forming at about 10 km and we stayed away for a couple minutes, getting caught just as we hit the bottom of the first GPM. The hill wasn’t incredibly steep, but it seemed like everyone wanted points. And I was at my limit. I gave up about 50 spots on the climb, knowing full well that each wheel that past me was one I would have to pass back ASAP. I took a few minutes to recover, using the time to try and pick-off spots where I could. I was able to get back to the front and burnt some more matches in moves that didn’t get anywhere. And that is about when we reached the next GPM, which was just as miserable as the first!
The move of the day was gone at that point, so I just decided to shut it down and conserve. It was hot today, 29 degrees Celsius (so, like… 85 F?) and I lost a bottle on a short cobble section at the start of the second lap… To cut straight to the chase, I never saw the front of the race again. I did my best to hydrate and refuel, but didn’t have great luck with feeds. I made it through to the local laps on three bottles and was dying to get a feed on the local circuit. Our guys were not there yet! In the process though I stayed to the right to try to get a feed and ended up all the way at the back. I made it through the first local lap fine, moving back up the whole way, but had to repeat the process on the second lap. I did get the feed, but it left me in horrible position. I got stuck behind a big split and that was it. “Grupetto!” and we just cruised in, getting pulled with 20 km to go. I think I should get to start no problem tomorrow… But we’ll see!
In any event, I just got a wonderful post-race massage from Noel, quite the gentle giant. I could get used to this!
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