Belsele

Yesterday's race was a tough one 120 riders. It had a few cobble sections and a lot of turns. The pace was high the whole first 3/4 of the race. Every time I'd look down we'd be going over 50 kph, going all out, out of every turn. We did 12 laps of 12.5k I made a few attacks but mostly tried to keep a good position to keep the yo yo effect to a minimum and conserve energy. With 3 laps to go I got in a 8 man break and we got a good gap. The only problem we were going so hard every time anyone would pull they'd get dropped or be on the rivet to hang out. Meanwhile behind the peleton split and the front 40 riders bridged up to us. Half a lap later over the cobbles. I got in another attack 2 teams had 3 riders in the break and I saw a few national stripes on the arms of riders jerseys. All I could think was "O shit this is gonna be really hard". A lap later still going super fast. Starting to wonder why are we still going this hard. I saw one of the riders pointed in the distance to a group of 8 riders in front of us. Not having radios sucks, I had no idea there was a group in front of us. We caught up to them as we got the 2 to go. Then everyone started looking at each other to pull. And attacks started flying. I avoided splits most of the time, but I got caught at the wrong end over the cobbles. Spending the next 5ks with 3 other guys chasing full on moch one speed. We caught on as we got the one to go. I rode in the top 5 of the group after that. 1 rider got off in the last few miles. The 14 of us left in the group were left sprinting for 2nd. I went on an attack hoping for a little luck with 2k to go. Crap everyone flew by me, with 1.5k to. I latched on near the back 1k to go I got on the wheel of a guy moving up. 400 meters to go the sprint opens up, still in 8th or 9th. 100 meters to go hit the finish cobbles bunny hop a pot hole. click down 1 more gear fly inbetween 2 guys 20 meters before the finish. 7th or 8th place. Not sure on the exact results, still searching online for them. I was somewhere in the top 10 though!!!!!

We hopped back in the van and got dropped off about 40ks from home. I ended up with 117 miles.
I averaged 261 watts for the whole race.
with normalized at 298. Tough day.