Definitely have sore legs today so my ride was very cruisy, 2 hours along the canal, more or less dead flat, just spinning the legs. I'm going to race at Mendonk tomorrow afternoon and thats a course that definitely has narrow farm roads on it with lots of corners, so plenty of sprinting out of corners tomorrow. If I remember correctly the local farm traffic had made deep drop offs on either side of the road at all the corners, fine if you're in a tractor but very definitely 'exciting' if you get it a little wrong on a bike.
I was thinking about yesterdays race again and I wish I was better with words to more adequately describe how it really is, if you haven't been in a Belgian race its almost impossible to imagine how different it is from an oz (vets) race. Attacks go then riders will jump across one at a time til the front group is formed then its up to the riders in the bunch to jump across themselves, preferably hitching a ride on somebody elses wheel, there is no chance that the bunch will work together to pull back a break. If you are crossing a gap and have somebody on your wheel, then if you pull over to invite a turn this will illicit an immediate attack, if you don't pull over then as soon as you start to slow the rider sitting on your wheel will attack anyway.
Even in the break its all about continually 'testing' the others, there is a sort of cooperation buts its normal to jump through when you hit the front, none of the slick short turns of a Oz handicap, here the turns are long and hard and only when the rider at the front starts to falter is he relieved by the next rider charging through, got to love it, real racing.
Thats why I was getting quite into in the last couple of laps when the the whole race was attacking everbody, so to speak. It is a style of racing that ensures that only the strongest are there at the finish. I'm not sure too many of my normal peer group would enjoy, at least until they got the hang of it. It is why that a small country like Belgium punches above its weight in world terms.
The other thing I was thinking about yesterday, while I was watching the next race, the team strips are fantastic, really colourful, loads of advertising, they all look just like the pro's. Mind you I did spot one team that had 'camo' shorts as part of their colour scheme, different it definitely was maybe not quite as tasteful as some of the others though.
I waited to collect my prize money, I don't always, we're not racing for sheep stations, but with the VWF (yesterdays race) I pay 2 euros deposit on the number, so I had 12/15 Euro's coming. I like signing on with the VWF, the ladies speak English and are very organised. The race HQ was the ubiquitous village bar, with the bar at the front and I guess a function room at the back connected by a corridor say a metre and a half wide, the mens urinals were situated here, no screens just two urinals fixed to the wall, so you had to pee here with men, women and children brushing past you.
So I'm now lying on the bed watching GC favourites crashing out of the tour, I hope Cadel satys upright.
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