cross wind section |
Wouter went and he stayed away with one other rider. I was covering moves and stuck on all except the one successful bridge by a rider from the Dutch national team who just shot out of the peleton so fast we were all looking at each other and no one could do anything about it. The three stayed away and Wouter was third in the 3 up sprint as the Dutchman managed to put 5 bike lengths on them in the sprint, which he supposedly started 400m out.
Two attacks went in the last km or so, so I told Alex to get on my wheel and I rode as hard as I could. I caught one guy just as we rounded the final bend and got within a few bike lengths of the next guy but then Alex came around and managed to take the sprint for 4th. I rolled in, smashed, for 16th place.
Here is a video of the race, notice me pop off on the right hand side with some late attackers @29:15
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAMZvBn9c9o&feature=player_embedded
Sunday was a 3.5km loop with tonnes of cross wind sections, 2 meter wide roads and a ridiculous 8 corners. 33 laps of this would be leg busting. I managed to fight my way to the front line early on and started covering moves. By mid race 115 of the 145 starters where on the roadside watching, having been blown out of the water. Sadly I missed the final split when 12 riders rode away leaving me in a group of 18. I did have 3 teammates in the lead group however. Riding around we kept the leaders at about 30 seconds and after a while my group soon started to fade. I hadn't been doing my fair share with so many mates up the road, although fresh I did miss a move of 3 riders that attacked and got a gap on my group. I wasn't going to let myself miss the next one. I followed a crazy TT specialist guy when he went with .5 km to go and then I came around him in the sprint for 16th, hence the title of this blog post. The lotto guys up the road went 1,3,6 with Frederick Frisson taking the W.
Altogether a good weekend of racing, I was up there I just wasn't in the 1 or 2 % of the race that made the last split. Soon enough I will be there and I can play out my tactics for 1st, not 16th.
This Saturday I am going to be racing in Holland for the 4th time this year, another UCI 1.2 with pro's. It will be a breeze. Sunday I will try to hit up the hills of Wallonie at a kermis, fingers crossed I will win this one!
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