Belgium Adventure

I am in a very exciting time in my life right now. For two weeks, I get to stay in Belgium and do some of the biggest, most challenging races in the country. I am here racing with the U.S. National team and staying in the town of Izegem. Over the weekend, we did two one day races. The first one was a Kermesse, which is a typical type of Belgian race. It is basically like a circuit race. The whole race was about 60 miles in length and about 90 juniors started. The whole team did well. Matt Lipscomb got an excellent result taking second place, narrowly missing the win. The other guys all finished highly too. For me, I tried going with a risky attack about a mile away from the finish. Unfortunately it did not work and we got caught going up the final climb. The team morale was very high after the race and we were pretty pumped to race the next day.

On Sunday, we had a really big race called GP Bati-Metallo. From what I hear, this is one of the biggest one day races in Belgium with all the best teams and riders going to it. Before the race it was a really cool experience going up to the team presentation and having our team announced. It felt like we were about to be in a pro race. Shortly after that, the race began with about 190 starters. After a short neutral zone, the group just went into an all-out sprint as most races like that do. We went all out for about 20 or so minutes and it settled down a bit. I just sat comfortably in the field for a while and then crashed, but got right back in. After the crash I realized that I should have been closer to the front. It was a pretty good learning experience. When I got back up and got it, I rode closer to the front. Then, the real bad luck came about 1: 40 into the race, when the top bolt on my front bottle cage came loose. It fell down and got stuck in the way of my cranks. This made it so I was unable to pedal and I had to drop back and get a spare bike. By time I got on the spare, the caravan had already passed and that was the end of my race. I was not the only one on my team who had bad luck. Tyler Williams had a flat early on and Matt crashed and got a spare bike but got back into the group. Our other teammate Colby had a very bad accident. He hit a pole and broke his finger and fractured his wrist. Scott, Gregory, and Matt all did well though and finished in good positions. Just finishing that race was an accomplishment. About half the people who started did not finish. Although the team had bad luck, it is a race I will not soon forget.

The next big event for us is the Ster Van Zuid Limburg, a four day stage race here in Belgium. It starts off with a time trial, which I am really looking forward to. There are three road stages after that. After the race ends, I am going home the next day. I will miss it here in Belgium and I hope to go back later in the year.

Kyle Torres