A storm rolled through overnight and black clouds still hung in the air by morning. We took the safe option and decided against battling the weather outside. Glenn was still at Michael's late into the night so also opted to keep out of the storm and stay the night on the couch. We all rendezvoused downstairs at about midday after bumming around the house most of the morning. The race this afternoon was in Booischot-Pijpelheide which is only a 5min drive from our first race some 14 days ago. With a start time of 4.00pm we were able to leave just after 2pm, detour past the Colruyt and still arrive with plenty of time. I was unsure about whether I'd make it to the line today with my leg still very swollen and the bruising yet to come to the surface despite lots of TLC.
It was obvious as soon as we arrived that a lot of bike riders had decided to give today a miss with the weather not improving in the slightest and the course looking quite sketchy. The finishing straight was the same as the race Glenn and I did last year but the course was slightly different. 25 laps of a 4.5km circuit is normally a pretty good combination but in the wet weather and several off camber corners made the course quite dangerous. The guys started to get their bikes out and went to collect their numbers while I made the decision not to race and instead try and be better for our next race (either Thursday or Friday) or at the worst Montenaken on Sunday. At the inschrijven only 60 riders had decided to pin a number on compared to the usual 90+ we'd been accustomed to in the nicer weather. We let one of the kiwi's borrow our car and got the 2 boys ready to race. They stayed under the cover for as long as possible but eventually rolled off to the start line. Wim arrived just before they left and wished them luck then joined us as we hid in the car out of the rain.
As expected the race was very aggressive as many rider's wanted to escape the peleton and avoid the hazards of riding in a big group on a slippery course. It is much easier to negotiate corners in a small bunch and bad weather generally favors the break away. To make the course just that much harder the wind was howling the entire race. The block tail wind made good viewing for the spectators lining the finishing straight (bit of rain couldn't scare off the die hard cycling fans) but I'm told as soon as they took a left hand corner at the end of the straight they went through purgatory battling head/cross winds all the way around the circuit. Brad rode well featuring in several early moves off the front, but the peleton wouldn't give up so easily and reeled each attempt back within a few laps. An optimistic attack by two riders put a decent time advantage into the peleton as they eased off the pressure for a few laps. Finally 6-7 riders broke away from the main field and began to chase down the 2 leaders. Brad unfortunately missed the move and joined Matt in the back half of the field trying to shelter away from the harsh weather.
The 30 second lead the 2 riders held over the chase group crumbed in less than a lap and suddenly they formed a single group and flew down the finishing straight. Every few laps or so an attack would launch out of the peleton but the break was already established and there wasn't enough fire power left to peg it back. Both Matt and Brad joined us shortly after at the car looking like 2 exhausted bike rider's having come off a very demanding week on the bike. Eventually the race officials decided that the peleton would not be able to close in on the break away and gave them the bell the next time they came through to the finish. A young Omega Pharma-Lotto-Davo rider seemed to be the only one with good legs as he attacked the lead group riding solo, settling into a tempo and managing to hold off the group scrambling to bring him back. Somehow he rode into the finishing straight on the final lap with his hands in the air at least half a minute ahead of the next group to the applause of those brave enough to line the barriers. The usual 'Belgian Sprint' followed for the minor placings which was an ugly slog for the line with each rider looking more exhausted than the next.
We packed the car up and Wim took me over to the race ambulance to get some more dressings for the wound on my hand. Slowly it had started to heal but the awkward position made it difficult to avoid bumping it especially when holding the handlebars. After chatting with Wim for awhile we made our way back to Mol and Chef Matty Irvine cooked up some veges for everyone. Following dinner we had a meeting where Glenn informed us that on Thursday we would be meeting with the Director Sportif of a Belgian team (a DS is like the director/manager of a cycling team) to discuss the 2012 season. The team has a very promising looking calender and with the progress we made yesterday in securing accommodation things are looking to shape up for next year.
Tomorrow we are most likely going to meet our own team owner Tony Anderson who has arrived in Belgium with a whole fleet of WA Masters (30+ year old riders) who are scheduled to race in the Masters World Championships on Sunday in Liege. The 'older' boys are planning to ride a few laps of the course in the morning however the drive down to the Ardennes is a few hours depending on traffic so we will have to wait for a call in the morning to see if the weather will hold up. At this stage we came to the conclusion that we will swap the race in Saint-Gillis-Waas on Thursday for Assebroek in Friday. Assebroek is in the beautiful town of Brugge so we thought we'd kill two birds with one stone and check out the amazing sights before racing in the afternoon. Hopefully the boys will have recharged their batteries and my wounds begin to mend so we can put on a good show on Friday afternoon.
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