The first few days in Belgium

James and I began our trip to Belgium early Monday morning at SFO. After catching our relatively short flight to Minneapolis, we almost had to run to our next flight. We arrived at the gate just after they started boarding the main cabin and hopped in line. About an hour later we were airborne and headed for Amsterdam where we would meet the rest of the team, which included Lawson Craddock, Alex Battles-Wood, Peter Taylor, Anders Newbury, and our coach Tim Redus. After a few hours in Amsterdam and a delayed flight, we took off for the final leg of our journey. This time our flight time was significantly shorter than our taxi time; we spent about 20 minutes in the air after driving around on the tarmac for close to an hour. We finally got our bags and began our drive to the house in Izegem.

After a quick equipment check we were off on the first ride of the trip. We were lead by the fearless Yogi, son of Erly who helped last year and will be working with us again this year. The ride started out great, some of the guys got their first ever taste of cobbles. However, our ride ended with a bit of a fright; our group began to go around a parked truck as another truck came speeding by us in the other direction. Yogi made it through all right but the 6 of us began to ride into each other as Anders slammed on his brakes. We checked our bikes and headed home to call it a day.

The next morning we were allowed to sleep in as most of us had only a few hours of sleep in the past 30 hours. Our first race was that day so we took it easy in the morning. Everyone hopped on their bikes just to make sure everything was setup correctly. I checked my power meter setup – fortunately, it made the cross Atlantic flight just fine.

Our race was further away from the house than most of our races will be, so the coaches decided we would drive. After inscription (similar to registration, but it always takes place in a smoky bar and is much faster) and explaining the European rules for pinning numbers on to my teammates, we went to the line to wait for our start with the other 45 guys that we would be racing against. The race started out pretty quick compared to most races in America but settled into a reasonable pace for a race in Europe, about 25 mph. Just like last year, the group slowed to 10 km/hr into every corner and then sprinted out of the corner back to race speed. This, the easy gears, and the long races make for very difficult races. Our race was a total of 63 km and consisted of 12 laps each with a prime. We started on the main street in a small town, turned out towards the country onto roads narrower than any roads at home then came back on the main street into town for the finish. Coming into the finish was slightly downhill which made it particularly hard for us Americans because many of us were not used to the small gears of 52-16.

Alex, Anders, Lawson, and I started the race at the front and got a good sense for the racing. Nothing seemed to be getting away in terms of breakaways or solo attacks, so I decided to move back in the pack and save some energy. I was able to take advantage of the slow cornering and stay near the front easily enough. The last few laps started to speed up a bit but nothing particularly challenging. The last corner was about 700 m from the line and I was sitting in the top 15 coming into the last corner. The group began to get a bit squirrelly after the last turn and there were riders on both sides of me. As I began to move to the left of the group to setup for my sprint, the group started shifting to the right side of the road. The two riders in front of me slowed as I continued to move to the left when suddenly my front wheel was hit. With the road slick from the heavy sprinkling and the sketch group, I was unable to stay up. Sliding along the pavement with less than 300m to go I was angry that I didn’t get to finish my race with the pack. I rolled across the line after fixing my brakes for a disappointing end to a great race. The rest of the Americans came into with the finish with the field, including James who place 26^th. The first race back was a great learning opportunity and I look forward to learning more in the coming weeks.

The next day was supposed to be a recovery ride, but when you get 6 new riders together everyone has to prove themselves. So our easy hour and a half ride became a 2 hour ride with a few sprints at the dozens of city signs, of which there are many more in Belgium than at home. The rest of the day we were on our own except for a short team meeting where we discussed the next days activities, which were going to include grabbing musettes, grabbing water bottles, riding behind cars, and moving up through a caravan. We had an amazing dinner to top off the night, complete with homemade pesto sauce and a seemingly bottomless pot of noodles.

I’m looking forward to our next race on Sunday which is part of a Belgian series, so field size is expected to be double that of our first race. The course also includes some of the short steep hills that are a part of the many classics that come through Belgium; sadly no cobbled climbs though. More from Belgium next week…