Stage race in Belgium

After Wednesday’s race, we had three days to get ready for our 2.17 ranked race and this one was really tough for me. It was three days that separated the good from the best. The first stage was 63 kilometers had KOM, sprint, best young rider, and the yellow jerseys which seems really cool to me. Unfortunatly, we didn’t have anybody finish where we wanted them to. Lawson Craddock crashed after the first lap, but Alex Battles-Wood and Anders Newberry were on the front following and making a few of the attacks. Joel sat in the pack and placed second in the team just behind Alex. Good news was that we had three guys in contention for the overall jersey. Peter got dropped about 2/5 of the way through the race, and I got dropped half way through the race and after the race, Peter and I figured out that if you are in like the top 15 guys in the group you won’t get dropped and we tried that on the second day. Our average speed was 32mph!!
The next day was much better than our first day because we all learned a lot yesterday. This course was challenging because right after the finish there was a hill climb for the KOM and this made the course so challenging and to make it more, right after that there was a nasty cross-wind and no matter where you are, you would get guttered and have no where to go. Just like the first race we had the same guys on the front, except this time Peter was on the front in the beginning and I was right behind him. Joel hung out in the group again and made it to the line with the group. On the last lap, on the climb, I got dropped, but once I got back to the cars I started moving back up, but still didn’t catch the group, but I was in the first group after the field to come in. Despite a few crashes o the last lap, we only had one guy crash, but still finished the race and still got the same time as the group because of the 3 km rule. By the end of the second day, we still have three guys in contention for the yellow jersey for the last day!
On the last day, the course had a lot of turns and that made the pace slow down. In the beginning of the race, we had Anders and Lawson in a break for the whole race except the last lap and Lawson was done for the day, but for Anders, he was still in contention for the yellow jersey and was still able to pull off a 23rd place. Joel was consistent and was able to get through all the crashes on the last lap and finish in the group. Alex tried to make things happen, but he almost got caught with another team something that he did during the race, luckily our coach, Tim was right there to back him up. For Peter and me, we were at the front the whole race until the last lap. During the last lap with 2km to go, all of a sudden the fast pace to the line stopped and I had the guy on my left sliding over and I started moving over and the next second I am in the air and I flipped and landed on my helmet and peter was right behind me and he was in the crash too. I was so frustrated after the race because I was sitting perfect for the sprint but I got over it and it is part of racing.
Today we went to a nearby track and had some fun on it and we also visited Brugge, which is an old famous place for visitors. This stage race taught us a lot of mental and physical things in races and we will share and use them with our team so we can a better team. Just so you guys know, this stage race was the one race that we can call ourselves as the National Team which is really cool! 6 more days!

James