It was a cool Sunday morning, approximately 18 degrees with light winds. We arrived at the race approx 1.5hrs before he start where we discovered Punchy Blake’s kit and my kit would not make it to the start and so out of the woodwork came a sweaty zebra kit, not cleaned from the day before.
The race began fast, I found myself teleported straight to the back before finding my way to the front on a wider section of road. Between about km 4 and km 8 I was trying to get into the early move. I found myself in the top 10 wheels going into the narrower sections of road before being chopped straight into Southland-esk ditch with a pond at the bottom. After spending a brief few moments of shame deep in a Belgium crevice, I clambered out to discover a front wheel puncture. I got a speedy wheel change and spent the next 10km chasing.
After getting back in I began to work my way back up towards the front. There was a sketchy as tight right hand bend before the first cobble section. Having a narrower, alloy front wheel I seemed to have lost the majority of my braking power and ended up rear ending a Wanty Group rider, sending me over the bars and helmet first into a no parking sign. I squarely hit the bullseye of the sign.
After my second lie down, I briefly felt quite disorientated but quickly came right and began my second tt effort of the day. I chased for about 15-20km this time, in and out of the convoy. I made it back to the pelo and chilled at the back before realising we were about to hit the Muur van Geraardsbergen.
We hit the Muur and I felt lit as, so I rode through what felt like half the pelo and just missed the front split over the top but we caught them on the descent. Still feeling lit as, I went with a few attacks but nothing stuck. A few KM later the pelo was largely back together and found myself teleported to the back again.
We hit the town circuits and quickly discovered a combination of lack of cobbled experience and way too much tire pressure meant I would be quickly ejected. I lasted 2 laps of the finishing circuit before being dispatched from the maintenance group and calling it a day.
If it wasn’t for those cobbles I would’ve got round because I felt real good but just felt like I lacked technical experience and couldn’t throw down on the cobbles like the other guys could.
