Climbing races/ tour of flanders training ride

2 races in the Ardiennes = 2 dnf's I learned a lot about climbing though. The first race we did wasn't so hard I just wasn't mentally prepared for it. We hit some 5 k climbs and I was out the back and in the van at the feed zone after 70ks.

The 2nd race we did most of the roads were exactly the same as the race we did earlier in the week. I was in a good position after 50ks. I was riding a bout 40th place when we made a left turn into a 5 long climb. One of my teammates 2 riders in front of me got wobbly then crashed, he said some big guy took him out. bummer. Myself and another teammate ended up with the bad end of the deal, I had 3 guys on top of me and he got a broken bike. The first 30 guys put the hammer down, and with it being a 6 foot wide road the people behind the crash couldn't get through, and we didn't get up for a good 2 minutes. The race was over for us.

I did a 6 and a half hour training ride with a few guys on the Tour of Flanders loop. It was a really good ride with lots of attacking, cobble sections, steep climbs, and even a bakery.

I did a 146k circuit race the other day here with 200 starters. It was pretty sweet, it was on a lot of the roads I train on. Our director told us to watch out for one 180 degree corner. When we came to it on the first lap. I thought, O sweet I've bombed around this before. I rode in the front the entire day. I would be sitting top 10 look back and see a 200 rider single file line. Man, That was cool. Fast forward to the end. I got crashed in a corner while sitting top 10 with less then 2 k's to go. 2 guys sandwiched me and we hooked bars and I ended up being dragged to the ground. It was a bummer I was putting out very little effort to put myself in a great spot for the field sprint.

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.

Back to it.

I have had bronchitus, and haven't raced in a while. Yesterday was my first day back and it was a tough one 115 miles. There were a lot of short but steep climbs in the first 30 miles. I stayed near the front all day just sitting in. Once we got to the finishing circuits, 5 laps of 10 miles with a hard 2 mile cobble section. There was a foot wide bike path on the left hand side, so everyone sat single file on that. The only problem was you couldn't see if there was anyone opening gaps in front of you. A few times I got caught out and ended up in a chase group. We always caught back on though. It was a good race though, I felt good in the end and got about 10th in the field sprint. I found the results on cycling news today. Lotta guys were off the front of the peleton. I finished 42nd, still respectable spot with 200 starters.

Robbie's in town.

Went and watched a pro kermess today. The sprinting god himself was there.

Paris Roubaix Training

Paris Roubaix

I dropped out of Issard the first stage it was a major disappointment, but I've moved on and refocused since then.

I am currently training for the u-23 Paris Roubiax the race is on Sunday. Tommarow we are going to train on the last 140ks of the course so we will get to ride all the cobble sections.