Home and Healthy

I'm back in Michigan, feeling healthy, and looking forward to racing out the final weeks of the season. On the schedule is Tour Via Italia Criterium, Cadieux Criterium, Priority Cycling Classic, and Tour de Leelanau. That should take me to mid-September and possibly a little time off the bike. Thanks for following my season. I'll try to keep the blog updated with info on my off season and the plan for next year.

It's that time of year

The Cycling Center is clearing out. Only 8 North Americans remain and 4 are leaving next week... including myself. It's a strange time and I have to say it's not my favorite. All the big races are over and the season has begun to wind down. The plan was to do one last kermis this weekend but I may take my final weekend in Belgium off racing. There's a little bug going around and I would rather travel healthy and rested than tired and sick. Plus, I've had over 10 race days in the last month! Rest is good.

So I get home on Tuesday. I may race the Rockford Criterium on the 25th and I plan on racing Labor Day Weekend too. It's been a good seaon here in Belgium. I've reached a new level in my racing this year and the improvement is clearly visable. On many occasions I was close to good results, but some bad luck got in the way. It will come, as Bernard says.

Getting Wet in Antwerp

It's a weird feeling to be done with a stage race. It''s nice to be able to rest but at the same time it's a bit depressing. There is a major drop off in stimulus. No schedule to keep, no carbo-loading, no eat-sleep-race cycle. Yet my body is still raging, expecting another day of racing. I'll give it what it wants and go for a ride in a few hours.

The Tour of Antwerp was wet. The first day (prologue and road stage) it rained from sun up until sun down and was cold. It was a miserable and epic day on the bike. The CC team had good prologues and finished in the front of the peloton in the afternoon. Besides some minor crashes everyone escaped to race another day. Friday morning was a short race of only 90km, completed in less than 2 hours. That's over 27 mph. Despite a hairy run in to the finish Allen cracked the top 30 and Aaron and I were just behind him. The afternoon brought a Team Time Trial of 23km. We had high expectations for this and were a bit disappointed with our 15th place. Right smack dab in the middle of 30 teams. The times were close but we made a few too many mistakes. Team time trialling is definately a skill where practice pays, and our 3 days of practice may not have been enough. It was a good learning experience. Saturday was the crazy day. I was the only rider in the peloton to get soaked and it wasn't raining. On a narrow farm road I crashed into the grass to avoid a pile-up. My momentum sent me rolling into a ditch filled with nasty muddy water. Of course the pile-up caused a major split and I spent the next 130km chasing and rotating with other riders to minimize the time loss. It was a very frustrating day because the crash was near the front and I had the legs to do so much more than pull a chase group around for 3 hours. The result at the end of the day did not reflect my good form or aggressive racing but instead it reflected my bad luck. Sunday was the beast of 190km. I was worried when I had trouble getting out of bed due to exhaustion and my sore right side on which I crashed. I thought it might be a day of merely surviving. Once we got rolling, though, I was shocked to discover how great my legs felt. A small early break escaped and the peloton chased at a fairly steady tempo. I tried to be conservative and paient. The 2 local laps with cobbles would decide the race. 30 km from the local laps...Rain. Those cobbles would be like riding on ice. I raced at the front the entire day and tried my hardest to stay there for the laps... for my own safety and for a good result. There were some nasty and spectacular crashed, some of which I could only hear. They all motivated me to move up even more. In the end I placed 38th, not great but nothing to be ashamed of. I raced hard every day, gave everything I had to give, and unfortunately had some bad luck. I did better than last year and I am nowhere near as wasted as I was at the end. Time to recover, race a kermis, and head back to the old US of A.

Tour of Antwerp, August 9-12

Four days of racing with 2 double days. It all begins tomorrow with a 4km prologue and an afternoon road stage. On Friday, we have a morning road stage and an afternoon team time trial. I'm looking forward to the TTT. It's not often you get the chance do do one and we have a team full of good time trialists. Hopefully we can get a good result. Saturday and Sunday are both road races and I think one of those days is on a hilly course which is not even in the province of Antwerp. The Tour of Antwerp will likely be my last big race in Belgium this year. I leave on the 21st, so after Antwerp I'll recover and do a kermis or two before packing it up. I'm looking forward to the next 4 days and believe a good result is entirely possible. I've done this race before so I know some of the courses and I know what to expect. My bike is clean and my form is good... now all that's left to do is race.

The New Steed

Nate Fields, the CC mechanic, is the one who built up my beauty of a bike. He spends countless hours in the garage building and maintaining wheels, TT bikes, and spare bikes. Plus he's always willing to help you out with your own equiptment. I fully trust Nate with my equiptment and being the picky guy that I am, that's saying something. He knows his stuff and is awesome at what he does. I've received some lightning fast wheel-changes from him in races. Nate Fields is the man. Thanks for building my bike.