My First Real Team Race

Puurs - just outside Antwerpen, Belgium

So Sunday rolls around and I’m scheduled to meet the other riders at 08:00 for the drive to Antwerpen and the race. I get there just on time (in typical fashion it was in sheer panic though – I was running on fumes in my gas tank until I found a gas station with 24h pumps, which are according to Murphy’s Law virtually impossible to find when you really need them).

We toss our gear in the team van and the bikes on the team car and head off. I wasn’t sure what the day would bring, but I only had a few goals for this race – none too lofty:
- work on leg speed
- get comfy in the peloton, especially working on staying out of the wind and getting to the front
- learn about riding as a supported rider
- finishing the race (at 160km with 160 starters this was going to be big!)

So we arrive in town and we all wander into this little café where our directeur sportif Wim (who, by the way, is exactly as I’d picture him) says is the registration location. Huh – 09:15 and they’re drinking beer, smoking, and pounding coffee….and yup – in the back room is the race committee! So we sit down and drink coffee and enjoy the 2nd hand smoke for an hour while things get straightened out. Then it was time to start things up :o)

So when we get back to the vehicles the team mechanic already had the bikes out and was checking gears, putting on numbers, and upping tire pressure (130psi, or 8 bars). Great – I’ve never had a mechanic before, but I like it! So off to the change rooms we go at the sports center, where the 5 of us (only 5 riders in this race for our team) got warm-up massages from our 2 soigneurs (yup – soigneurs!!!). Then back to the bikes where Wim gave us the radios and our pep talk before the race.

It actually turns out the other 4 riders were younger (20-23) and were here only for getting experience riding such a race, so that’s why they had me along too – to get experience in a no-pressure race.

The Course:
It was the Klein Brabant Classic of 160km from the town of Puurs, consisting of 1 round of 60km, 1 round of 40km, and 8 rounds of 8km (those strong in math with notice that’s 164km….which also doesn't match the total km's at the end of the race.....but who am I to complain!). The finishing 8 rounds had a hill (an overpass actually, but with the headwinds it felt pretty big!!), a feed zone (more to come later), and a 1km long cobblestone section…..sweeeeet

The Start:
Getting there early really has it’s advantages, as we were able to sign in (yup – they had a sign in table!), check out the start area, the rollout zone, the 12 motorcycle cops, the caravan (yup – full on caravan!), the media vehicles, the helicopter, and just enjoy the moments before we started hammering each other. The start went great as we were lucky/early enough to line up at the front, so for the first 20km we had Jan van Arkel guys in the top 20…..which would change!

The Race:
Flat Flat Flat. Wow was this course flat, with lots of sharp corners and headwind/crosswind sections. It was like a criterium! And over the first 2 hours it really showed as we averaged 44kph, even with the wind. Wow – these guys were F A S T!!! Then we started slowing down a bit as the front guys started getting tired, but by this point I was well into my lesson for the day: don’t be in the last 2/3 of the peloton. Ever again. Ever. No matter what you do you’ll be spending more energy than the guys at the front, so whatever it takes don’t be in the back, especially on a course with lots of turns. Does the term accordion mean anything to you? Maybe you get the idea, as 160 guys accordion through the turns, with the ones at the front going a steady pace and the ones at the back having to HAMMER out of every corner just to catch up.

So I was pretty dead by the time we started the finishing laps, but luckily there was a feed zone. We had 3 people handing out mussette bags and bottles, but it took 2 tries before I could grab anything. You ever tried grabbing a waterbottle at 40kph? There’s a technique to it – trust me, I know it now. You don’t just stick your hand out and grab it, you’ve got to put your hand FORWARD and snap it backwards over your shoulder as the bottle carrier whips past, and if you’ve closed your hand at the right time you just might be lucky enough……and the same goes for the mussette bags.

Probably the funniest thing was me opening the mussette bag and ending up with a small can of Coke in my hand about 1km from the cobblestones and the question in my head “do I drink this before or after the cobbles?” Think about that for a sec – if I save it until after the cobbles it’ll explode when I open it, right? Right. If I drink it BEFORE the cobbles it’ll explode in my stomach, right? Right. So I quickly downed ½ of it and threw the rest away – and I think it was a good call!

Oh yeah – the radios. I learned that you shouldn’t set the volume too high – I couldn’t tell if my guys were speaking Dutch or English – it was total gibberish!! But eventually I learned the leading group of 12 had 1.5 minutes on the peloton, so the race was pretty much for 13th place.

On and on we hammered, and I was still having a great day just cornering, working on not cramping any more than I was, practicing feeding, and trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and what I’d do next time. Eventually after 4 hours and 170km of racing (= 42.5kph average….yowzah!) we rolled across the finish. Me with the main bunch in 90th place out of 120 finishers, and one of my teammates in a small break got 20th place. One other guy finished with me and the other 2 dropped out earlier.

Not bad, not bad – but I learned a few things:
- eating/drinking is an art that MUST be perfected at all costs
- riding at the back of the peloton will no longer be tolerated (I won’t allow it!!!!)
- I can hammer and corner with these guys, now I’ve just got to do it

Even the US U23 team was there and they didn’t fare much better than me – they finished with the group right along side me, so that made me feel pretty good :o)

But unfortunately I got a bit of a chill after the race and now I’ve got a cold, so hopefully it won’t keep me out of the saddle too long as there’s a big race coming this Saturday. Wish me luck!!!