Day 3

Today, Monday, is a public holiday in Belgium so there are heaps of non cycling things to do.  First a nice steady recovery ride, trying not to get lost again, the weather is a bit changeable and despite my host Jurgen saying that it will improve as the day goes on, I am a bit dubious.

Having consulted the map I elect to do a triangular course that will allow me to cut across back to the hotel if the weather turns too bad. It is windy again and on one particular stretch of cross wind I could see how easy it would be to go off the road.  We have all seen TV footage of riders climbing out of muddy road side ditches during races, well its much easier to do than you would think; on the side of the surfaced road is a sheer drop off and if you’re wheel goes down, there is no way back, the bottom of the ditch is the only place you are going to stop!  Fortunately I avoided that fate.

I only got lost once, well misplaced really, rolling along the bike path (as you are required to do) the bike path ended giving me two options; north along the freeway or south along the freeway.  I knew that wasn’t right so I back tracked a discovered a cut off that I had missed which took me through some fields to a special bike bridge across the freeway, problem solved.  Doing these rides is a great way to see things that you are never going to notice in the car and some of the villages are incredibly picturesque.

In the afternoon I went into Brussels to watch the big parade, unfortunately the weather turned alright – to a steady drizzle not the sunshine I was promised.  The big parade turned out to be mostly Belgian military so not exactly riveting stuff and with no disrespect to Belgium which is a lovely place but I mean – the Belgian army? So I elected to go for an early dinner.

Day 4

Today promises better and much warmer weather and I am going to race in a village to the north of Ghent called Oostakker.  The village has a big fair going on and as part of the festivities has a huge tent erected with obligatory bar and a stage for the live entertainment.  Sign on today therefore is in the ‘Festent’, literally festival tent, easy isn’t it?  Well actually its not, I’ve never been a great linguist, I’m certainly not strong in Flemish and finding older Belgians who have reasonable English has been a challenge for me, officials at Vets races tend to be older, obvious really, so its been a bit of a struggle to know exactly what’s going on sometimes.  Today was different; a new official at the sign in desk who’s English was good so it was a very easy transaction, pay my 4 euros and I’m good to go.

In the back of my mind I had been wondering if a mid week Vets race held during the day might have a slighter smaller (and easier) field than a weekend race.  I was comprehensively wrong, the field was larger and as far as I was able to establish before the start, had all the serious players’ present.  Well at least it was sunny and warm, if still a bit windy, the course was generally well surfaced, a few cracks in the concrete and one stretch of road with a deep ‘canyon’ between the concrete slabs which was quite ‘exciting’ as the snake of the bunch was swinging backwards and forwards each lap.  Definitely keeps you concentrating!  There was one corner which I hated, it was a 170 degree turn at the end of the very fast finishing straight, so it was eyeballs out, slam on the brakes, lean left and then try and muscle it out of the corner. I had to go down to 53 x 19 to get momentum out of that corner, many of my stronger competitors didn’t seem to bother with gears and just levered huge gears up to speed again, some of them are awesome, but more of that later.       

Starting the race I had two strategies in mind, don’t work too hard and to keep two particular riders in sight; one of these riders was the Belgian champion, resplendent in his champions jersey and another guy who was wearing the Aussie national champions outfit in all white, albeit with some local sponsor logo’s etc.  The Belgian champion was obvious but I had seen both guys being really strong, and off up the road in the previous race.

So I had a plan and the race was underway, beneficial for me was the fact that we got at least 3km into the race before the hammer went down; unfortunately it stayed down for the rest of the race, it was really hard and really fast, I was just hanging on and it was great. Mid way through the second lap my two ‘targets’ jumped away together in a break of about 6 riders, I was off and jumped across the gap and we were away the group settled into a working line really well and I was already thinking great I’ve cracked it. I was soon disillusioned as the bunch came roaring back down the home straight to complete the lap and we were swamped, back to square one!

However I was into the rhythm of the race and really raced for the first 6 laps, mixing it up at the front, I found I was fast, fast enough to cross the gaps that formed at the front very quickly and usually on my own, what I couldn’t do was repeat it as often as some of the guys could and did get sworn at a few times having jumped up to the break and then not being able to go through to the front immediately. An interesting aside is that the boys will swear away in Flemish quite happily but when they really ‘mean it’ they will let rip in good old Anglo-Saxon!

The first lap board I saw was 3 to go (out of 9) at which point my legs had really gone and I was hanging on for grim death thinking I could go for one more lap then pull out, I managed to keep this thought going each lap, even moving up a little with two to go.  My strength had gone but looking at faces around me, I wasn’t alone which was a little heartening.

A small group of 8 got clear coming round to the bell, there wasn’t anything I could do about that but it did mean that the speed was a little bit more consistent (fast) as those that had strength chased.  On the last lap they were still away and going to stay there, so the attacks from the bunch started which was very uncomfortable, I tried to move back up each time an attack was neutralized which at least meant that I was able to stay in there.  Our sprint started really early, more like very late attacks and I was just hanging wheels, as we got into the last 200m of barrier protected straight I realized that the wheels in front of me were now coming back and I was making up places.  You couldn’t call what I was doing sprinting more like fast riding, well as fast as I could anyway, but it took me well into the top ten of the sprint I was in (never mind the 8 already finished) but I was completely spent at the finish.  I am now wondering whether I am physically able to race at this level every other day, it might be too much for me, I don’t think I can recover properly in 48 hours.

As I rode a warm down and caught the Belgian in the Aussie champion outfit, I initiated a conversation based on his kit, he speaks really good English which is great and his outfit is in honour of Danny Clark’s ability on a bike, he took pains to say to me having met Danny he didn’t like him but remembers him as a fantastic bike rider in the sixes when he was a kid.   He was very friendly indeed and we have a race coming up shortly in his village and I am invited to his house for a shower afterwards, good to have somebody to talk to at the races now.  Lots of people have tried to talk to me; I’m driving a car with Dutch plates so they assume I’m Dutch but when I say ‘English’ they shrug their shoulders and say sorry, bit frustrating really.

However some information I got from my new friend confirmed my earlier theory, I have no idea how the races are graded.  He was horrified that I was in ‘his’ race when he learnt my age, he is 46, his pal, the Belgian champion is also 46 and the other ‘star’ a chap called Wim de Waal, is a former top professional for years, I think he said he is 48 and has won six races already this year.  He said I should be two grades lower than the races that I have been in, but having thought about it and seen the other races I think I will stay where I am, there’s more achievement in just finishing these races than placing in the easier races.

He also said that I pedal too low a gear, he said if I really want to make an impression I have to use bigger gears.  Whilst I’m sure I’ll be a hell of a lot stronger by the time I come home (or my legs will have imploded) I can only survive by using leg speed and my fitness and I think I’ll stick to that for the moment.

To put these races into a bit of context, imagine 50 or 60 Paul Logan’s taking turns trying to rip your legs off and you are starting to get close!

Day 5

Another recovery ride which was very enjoyable and I didn’t get lost, although I did manage to ride the wrong way up a one way street at one point.  Basically Erondegem where I’m staying is about 10kms from the River Schelde which is also part of the extensive European canal system. There is a bike path that runs along side it from just outside Ghent all the way up to Antwerp.

So I found it OK and rode along it for about 30 minutes, countryside on one side of me, the river/canal and all its mega barge traffic on the other side.  At this point the bike path swaps sides of the river and there is a little boat that takes you across they you continue along as far as you want.  On the bike path there quite a few bike riders of all sorts and a few walker/joggers.  The cyclists where a real mixed bunch, racers, general fitness types, mountain bikers, older folk on ‘sit up and beg’ style bikes even some young couples riding along holding hands.  There were even a couple of Lotto pro’s, I think I recognised  Jurgen van Broek, but nobody was going particularly hard, just cruising like me.  After an hour I retraced my route after all it’s the L’alpe d’Huez stage of the tour today  -  Go Cadel.

So that’s my plan for the rest of the day, flat out on my bed watching 6 hours of tour coverage.