Race Aalst

Much much better race result today at Aalst but more of that later, first I need to catch up with yesterday when I seem to have had a mental abberration and missed my blog entry!

My only excuse was I got a bit out of synch with some shopping and other essential housekeeping stuff.

I did a 2 hour endurance ride in the morning mostly sat in the middle of my endurance range but added a few hills surges just to keep the race 'systems' awake and because I felt todays race may have some hills in it. A few things struck me when I was out, not literaly you understand, but to highlight the respect that cyclists generally get on the roads here, there were 5 seperate motorists that had edged across the bike path ready to do a turn or whatever, they all gave way and reversed back out of my path. I'm guessing that law says I have right of way, but would a motorist get out of your way like that in Australia? I think not!

Discovered another little problem while I was being domestic in the afternoon. I have usually got my petrol at the little gas station in the village where I stay, it used to be one of the few where someone came out and pumped gas for you. Not anymore like all the other garages I have seen, they've gone fully automated, which means no body manning the place and a definite understanding of cryptic Flemish to work the various options!

Fortunately a young chap who spoke pretty good English came to my rescue, after two women I first asked for help gave me some funny looks and a blast of Flemish. However the bl.... machine wouldn't take my credit card, most shops don't either, they only accept Belgian credit or debit cards, a real pain in the bottom. There was a machine that took cash notes, which I had, but I couldn't have negotiated the machine and the pump without the help of my new Belgian friend. The difficulty is that all banks won't give me cash and again the one that I had been using in the village is gone. Actually with the fallout in European banking its distinctly possible that the whole bank has gone!

Anway to catch up with today, the race was at Aalst which is only 5 minutes away, I thought of riding there and back which would have been no problem, just like the old days in fact, but it was drizzling here in the morning so I opted to go in the car. It didn't rain in the race.

The course was entirely in the town which in my experience is relatively rare, so no narrow concrete farm roads at all.

The course started more or less straight for about 750 metres, then a sweeping down hill left into a 90 degree right hander, 200m then a 90 degree left hander, then a wide straight for about 2km which was straight into the wind and for me the hardest part of the course, then a 90 degree left hander, 200m and a 150 degree right hander, this was a real close your eyes and commit job, 100m then a 90 degree left immediately into a 90 degree right hander that basically bought you onto the home straight which climbed at maybe 3% up through the finish. The problem here was all though it was 'straight' it was littered with wiggly bits, street furniture, taffic calming 'humps' and was one lane wide. I didn't really consider it a sprint for me, I'm much better when they're straight and fast, I can usually find a few extra KPH of a fast start, I'm not good at 'punchy' sprints.

So we were off, 39 starters I think I heard and the race caller was giving me, or at least Roy Rodez, a bit of a build up. This was a very very hard race, there were some very strong guys who were using the headwind straight to try and smash the race and another lot trying to kick out of the series of corners leading to the home straight. I tried to be a bit conservative for the first half of the race and got really involved in the second half of the race since I wasn't thinking it was going to be a sprint finish.

I lost count of the number breakaway attempts I tried or actually succeeded in getting into only for it to come together again, usually minus one or two rider, Coming round tto the bell on the headwind straight the whole race was in ones and two's along that straight, it was fantastic racing, nobody could sit on. This was repeated on the last lap and three guys were dangling off the front maybe 10/12 chasing, unfortunately they held on, just, cos the rest of us were fighting tooth and nail through every corner.

Through the 150 degree corner I think Casey Stoner would have been proud with how far I managed to lean the bike over (and gain3 places), however the infighting got a little more literal shortly after as riders were bouncing off each all over the place as the sprint kicked off in earnest at 500m to go. Now the thing is that I never actually sprinted, I couldn't get through so I was sitting back going fast with load left in the tank, with 50m to go there was a gap on the right and I was through, if it had been 60m I would have won the sprint, but in any case there were 3 away, however I said I would need a few races to pick up, so far I've been right so I hope theres more to come.