I Can Go Faster?

Today was pretty cool. Jeremy has a friend on the Australian Olympic track cycling team, Mark Jameson. They're training here in Gent in preparation for Beijing. If you're not familiar with track cycling, they're probably the best team in the world, at least in endurance events. The track they're training at is only about 3 miles from the farm. We got out a little earlier than usual to check out their training. Here's a video:

The velodrome is also named for Eddy Merckx, the best cyclist of all time. This is me out front:

After we got home from the track, we had to get ready for the race. It was by the sea and we expected wind. We got it. The field was the biggest I've been in so far, just short of one hundred riders (or drivers if you're Belgian). The course had a bunch of road furniture (that's road signs, curbs that jut out, etc). It had a headwind on the homestretch and a tailwind on the backstretch. I felt pretty good but it was hard getting to the front 1) because the field was huge and stretched well off into the distance and 2) we were going FAST.

I managed to put in a couple of attacks with other people. We were really flying, I didn't stay off the front very long. I decided to sit in and save it for the end. But the pace just kept ramping up and I was burning matches just to hang in. There were points I was spinning my 53x11 (that's the biggest gear I have) on flat roads. My max speed was a bit over 39mph and again, that was on a flat road with a tailwind and mad men on the front.

The race got dicey at the end. People were flying all over the place to line up for the sprint. There was no breakaway up the road, which is unusual. Earlier in the race we caught a big break. It was surprising because it was a good group going fast, but we were flying chasing them. People were crashing, jumping over road furniture. I moved up as much as I could, which wasn't very much. I got 55th and out of the money for the first time here. We averaged over 28mph for over two and a half hours. That's pretty good for a 75 mile race.

He will go to the ends of Belgium for us. I did get pretty frustrated with Staf today, the guy that runs the whole program. He starting yelling at me because he didn't like the way I was doing something. It was off the bike and for everyone, not just me. I told him to stop yelling at us all the time. And he stopped. He's quite directive in his style. I'm starting to take a shine to Eddy, our driver/soigneur/feeder. He stopped busting my chops and I'm trying to learn from him.

I'm pretty happy that I'm getting more comfortable racing here. I'm going to start pushing more for better results and it looks like I'll have plenty of more opportunities before I go home.