Belgium 2005, entry 4

Usually the day after a race my mind contains two topics of thought: the things I did good in the race and the things I did bad in the race. Today, the day after the Oostrozebeke Kermis, I can only think of one thing: How did I lose to an obese man on a bicycle? Yeah, I did some things good yesterday and some things bad, but how did a man, who could easily lose 40 pounds, beat me? Well, the answer is quite simple but I'm still frustrated by it. He was smarter than me. There, I said it. He was smarter than me. Yesterday I learned another important lesson of racing in Belgium. Let me break it down for you.

I saw this guy early in the race and really didn't care to much about him. He probably won't even finish, I thought to myself. He ended up making the first split which I didn't know at the time. He eventually was dropped from the lead group and as my group approached him, I though he was out of the race. When he joined our group I figured that we would drop him too. Wrong again. He sat on the back of our 12 man group for about 45 minutes. At this point I thought that he was barely hanging on and paid no attention to him. When the official called one lap to go for our group he was the least of my worries. As we continued on our final lap, I saw out of the corner of my eye this large man passing me on the far left. I picked up my speed but couldn't close the gap. Where was he getting this strength? Then it dawned on me: he had out smarted everyone there. One other guy went with him and they quickly opened a gap of around 200 meters. No one really wanted to chase, and my jaw was basically on my top tube (partly because of exhaustion, but more because of astonishment). We finished the lap and I sprinted for a top 20. My best race yet, even though I didn't finish the full distance. The moral of the story: don't judge a book by its cover, something I should have learned in kindergarten. More specifically: don't judge a Belgian by his looks, he may just be a sneaky fat man who can kick some young American's ass! -VR