The Season Begins

Saturday – Beverbeek Classic

So the season began with the Beverbeek Classic up in the very northeastern corner of Belgium. It was a notoriously difficult UCI race (a 1.2 classement) with dead flat and open roads but super high winds, gusts of around 40mph, and a couple hard sections of cobbles. The preparation for the race had been perfect. I had a few good hard training days the prior week. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday had each been six hours with Monday having 3x1hour of tempo, Tuesday 2×1 hour of tempo, and Wednesday was 1×1 hour of tempo. After the few days of hard training, I packed up my stuff on Thursday and headed over to my teammate’s house for a couple days before the race on Saturday.

Friday was just an easier one hour spin that ended up at one of Yawadoo’s team masseurs. Stevie Christaens, my teammate, and I each got an hour massage to flush out the week’s training and get the legs topped off for Saturday.

Anyway, Saturday morning we hopped onto the team bus and drove the 2 hours to the race. The team was supposed to be compromised of six riders but due to sickness we were suddenly down to four guys. Peter Bauwens, the team director, was more than a little stressed about entering the first big race of the season with such a small squad.

The race was typical Belgian conditions. It had poured rain the night before so the roads were still wet in places and the wind was ridiculous! I have honestly never raced in a competition with such strong winds. The race is even notorious in Belgium for being windy. In addition, it was in the low 40’s at the start and still raw from all the rain the night before.

Sitting on the start line, I was anxious to get things going and excited to test the legs. It was a deep field with the Rabobank CT, Topsport Vlaanderen, Jong Vlaanderen, the Quick Step feeder team, and a whole slew of other hitters. And like any good race it was berserk from the start. It was right into the gutter and echelon after echelon. I probably spent the first half hour barely on the road or riding in the dirt. At least I was big enough that I could muscle my way around a little bit. All the teams were hoping to really string it out and get a break up the road right away. And with the wind it didn’t take too long to happen. After about 40 minutes or so a group of twelve (or so) ended up riding off the front. Yawadoo was able to get one of our guys up there so we were content to sit back and let things settle down.

After the lull, though, things picked up pretty quickly. The course was 110km loop followed by 8 laps of an 8.5km circuit. Some teams had missed out on the move and wanted to shut it down. They weren’t making up much time on the break but were destroying the peloton. I had gone back to the team car when everything went down and found myself in the third and last group on the road. And if I wasn’t in enough pain, we took a right turn into the woods and came onto this monstrous section of cobbles. Riders were really starting to hurt, a handful dumped it on slick cobbles, and I could see the second group right up the road. With the trees, we were sheltered from the wind so I figured what the hell and just whacked it into the eleven and just went for it. A couple riders got onto my wheel, one from Quick Step development and another from Josan (a Belgian Continental Team), and I rode across to the second group. By the time I got there I was practically bleeding out of my eyes but had made it across just before the wind really picked up again.

So it was back into the gutter and more endless suffering. At least that is what I was expecting until a rider in the echelon dumped it in front of me. A handful of guys got tangled up, including myself, and that was that. I got up but my rear derailleur was pretty mangled. I had landed on the top of the heap and came away unscathed but when I went to try stomp on the pedals the rear derailleur wouldn’t engage. It was skipping in every single gear except the eleven. I tried muscling that around for awhile but with the wind it completely destroyed me. So I finished up the big loop, rolled back to the team bus, showered, and watched the finale of Het Volk!

As a team, though, we had a pretty successful day placing our rider in the top twenty and showing ourselves at the front all day along. This was our first race as a team this season and considering a lot of teams have been down in France racing it wasn’t a bad start at all. I think with a couple more races we’ll all be ready to give the podium a solid shot – I hope!

It was definitely not how I was hoping to start my season. The form was good and I had prepared well but there are some elements that are out of one’s control. These things happen and, as my director said, there are plenty more races this season. I have a few days until I head down to the Ardennes for the GP Le Fayt on Wednesday and get right back into the thick of the action. Hopefully, things will be a little more positive there.

Hope everyone’s first weekend back was successful!

David

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