Well things have been a bit up and down the past week. I came off last Wednesday a bit tired from racing but had a couple days of recovery and it was back into action of Saturday at the Memorial Aimé Van den Broecke in Wetteren. Wetteren is a just outside of Gent so the race only took about 15 minutes to get to as I’m living in Evergem.
On that note, I don’t think I have described where I am living at all. Evergem (pronounced Ever – him), I don’t know if there was any need for those italics, is just north of Gent and situated squarely in the northern portion of East Flanders. It is a typical northern European town with cobbles in the main square and a large church. There are also several cafés but the weather isn’t exactly idle for lounging around outside and sipping an espresso. All the famous cobbled bergs in Belgium are in the Vlaams Ardennes in West Flanders. So for longer rides I always head out that direction to get some hillier terrain. Around Evergem, though, it is very flat and windy. Typically I ride up towards Holland where it is very quiet and there are hardly any cars. The wind is really incredible though. It is always windy in Belgium but this past week has been characterized by this unrelenting rain and wind with gusts upwards of 70mph. Crazy!
Where I’m actually living is called Elsloschuukeren. It is a restaurant and café owned by a family who are devote cycling fans. Thomas Vaitkus and a handful of others have passed through here in years past while on their way to illustrious professional careers. So behind the restaurant/café are these sort of barracks. It is basically a big building made of cinderblocks that has been further divided into ten or so rooms. My living accommodations consist of a small bedroom, three cinderblock walls and one with the door and a little window, along with a small bathroom. The cinderblocks have been cleverly disguised with light blue paint so the prison/barracks feel is diluted by the overwhelming sensation that I should be expecting a newborn boy at any minute.
So who are in these other nine rooms? Not cyclists but about a dozen East European workers. A real hard lot. Dinner is served to us all in the restaurant. It is always a variation of the same thing every evening. Soup, vegetables (usually carrots, cabbage, and beets), potatoes, and some goulash-y type stuff. Anyway, sitting around the table and surveying these guys is like eating a meal with a dozen Andrei Tchmils or that crazy Russian cyclist in the Kevin Costner cycling movie. Except for this one guy, he is the Eastern European Freddie Mercury. The mustache is spot on and everything. I want to try and get a photo but I’m nervous about any potential repercussions.
OK that’s Evergem. Back to the racing. So I raced in Wetteren on Saturday. Missed the first move and was pissed. We were on some little road and I was too far back when the break went away. It was really just stupidity and not paying enough attention. I tried to bridge across solo, got about halfway, but it was a losing battle when it was ten Euros versus myself. So I relaxed for the next 90km or so and with around 20km to go I launched a solid attack that split the field. Ten guys got away with me and I couldn’t have been happier. It looked like this was going to stick. Sure, I wasn’t vying for the win but at least I would be just outside of the top ten. I would be happy with that result. Then the inevitable happened. We were around six kilometers from the finish and everybody decided that they were going to sit on. I wasn’t too worried at first and thought we had enough time on the field to screw around a bit. I looked back again though and there was the pack practically on top of us. So a quick change of plans. Pounded a gel and some water and tried to recover as much as possible for the sprint. The onslaught of attacks came as we got closer and closer to the finish but there was a monster tailwind coming into the finish. Between that and a dead straight road for the last kilometer, nobody was going to ride away. The sprint started at about 250 meters and I whacked it into the eleven and gave whatever was left in the tank. It turned out to be half decent as well. I finished tenth in the bunch sprint and finished 20th for the day. Not half bad.
Things have been pretty relax since then. I’ve had a little bit of a cold so trying to get healthy and rest up for the big race on Sunday, Omloop van het Waasland. It has a 1.2 UCI ranking and is supposed to be really tough. 190km and some serious cobbles. Between the distance, cobbles, and inclement weather predicted for the weekend, it should make for an interesting race!
David