l'avant l'avant L'AVANT!

Every time I lament about how the course wasn't selective enough, did not have enough hills, enough wind, enough turns, enough attacks, it always comes back to bite me in the ass. I've only done that twice and it's probably the last time I will offer suggestions, no matter how personal they are, on how to "make the race more selective".

Last week, I was a bit exasperated because the races were all flat and the winner was, for the most part, determined by tactics and luck.

Today, the only "tactic" or goal one needed was to be at the front.

l"avant. "Stay at the front", my team director told me.
"The first 30 kilometers will be very fast and hard and if you are not in the first 50, it will be very difficult".

I heeded his words but still found out what the last 150 places feels like.

Today was my second Interclub; a race for only teams. These are a bit different than kermesses in that all of the riders belong to a team. Each team brings 6 six riders and the races are around 160KM. Today, there were 35 teams.

Basically, this was one of the hardest and fastest races I have ever done. Quickstep decided to bring their development squad and the German National team made the trek across the border. It was going to be fast!

The day started out ominously. As I waited for the gun to go off, I took a quick look at my stem and noticed a fine crack right down the middle-almost 1/2 inch long. Great. Of course, a crack or break or some other problem has to occur right before the race.  The last thing I needed to think about was my carbon stem breaking into two going 35 miles an hour. I pushed the notion as far back into my mind as possible; it was nothing I could do at the moment so really, no point of worrying about it. Any thought or regard to a rupture quickly exited my train of thought about 20 seconds after the gun went off.

Luc, our team manager, told us it was very important to be at the front in the race and line up at the front before the start. We made a point to be at the front when we rolled to the start. By the time the gun actually went off, we were about 35 riders back.

The gun went off and it was balls to the wall. The speed was fast, but the accelerations out of turns and corners were brutal. Imagine 200+ riders burrowing down a two lane road at 50km/hr, slowing to a crawl in a turn, and then violently stomping on the pedals and attacking out of each turn. Add in crosswind, road obstacles, gutters and crashes and some Tom Boonen and Stijn Devolder protégé and you have yourself an Interclub!

Throughout the race all I was thinking about was "get to the front".

I wasn't even in the same time zone as the front.

Ironically, I saw about 4 out of the 5 other riders from my team all around the same part of the pelaton as me. We would try and pull each other up, jump on trains of other riders moving up, but somehow we all ended up around the same spot, in the back.

Which is never good. Especially when that two land road shrinks to the size of a canal trail. That's what happened each lap and with about 6 to go, a major crash occurred in that exact spot. I got caught behind it and was brought to a stop. A stop long enough that I was able to see all the riders on the ground; one guy was face down on the pavement, knocked out cold.

After navigating my way through the carnage, it was balls to the wall again. But it was too late. After trying to make our way back through the cars for ten minutes, and 100 km,  the race was over.

We started the race with 6 riders. None of us made it to the end.

I think this was actually a bit harder than Namur. It was flat, full out from the beginning, and never let up. I think only around 30 riders actually finished the race.

The main factor I need to concentrate on and improve is getting comfortable riding with such large fields and such small roads. The speed is high and the room is little. When something happens, you have only a split second to react, be it a crash, turn,  or obstacle in the road. Today for example, we were hauling ass down a nice smooth road when suddenly everyone slammed on their breaks. The problem? A 1 inch crack running down the middle of the road. Hit that and it's game over.

Sometimes I wondered, "How the F#&#& are riders off the front right now?".

In other times, the pelaton would balloon up, as if slowing down. Yet, in our single file line, less than 50 meters behind the "ballooned" pelaton, it was flat out-on the rivet-agony. It seemed so close; the riders that were spread out across the road looked like they were soft pedaling. But, here we were, going full gas and still not getting closer to that balloon.

Eventually, we would make it back up to the group, only more tired than before.

I think I still need to get more experience riding in such large groups, at such high speeds, on such small and compact roads. It's a bit of a shell shock coming from the States with nice smooth and wide boulevards to riding down a piece of "road" no wider than your Honda Civic. Add in speed, crosswinds and "road furniture" and you have yourself the violent nature of bike racing in Belgium. I've been here for almost 2 months and every day I am still learning about the chaotic and beastly character of the pelaton.  However, race by race, ride by ride, pedal by pedal, I will become more comfortable with the positioning and rhythm of the race and will soon find myself riding in L'avant.