Well what an interesting day, the race was at Hengstdijk in Holland, so it meant a bit of an earlier start for me but it was still only just under the hour for me to get to the race all on good roads so it wasn't a problem. The drive there was done in misty sort of conditions the sort of a start where you might expect the sun to burn off the mist and for a nice sunny day to follow.
Wrong! Having signed on the weather got progressively worse as I got my stuff together, starting with almost continuous claps of thunder moving overhead follwed by torrential rain and then the lightening started in the immediate vicinity as well. Oh joy! Well I was ready and already wet so I went to the start, Belgians or the extra Dutch boys in the race don't blanche at a bit of rain so I wasn't going to either, although I must admit it wouldn't have taken much to get me to change my mind! It was so dark and the rain was absoluteley torrential at our appointed start time of 10.30 that we really needed lights!
So there we are ready to go when there is a mighty flash and enormous bang of thunder right over our heads, all the women and lot of the men ran screaming for cover, the officials calling for a 30 minute delay to the start as they disappeared, given we were already wet we weren't too impressed. At least in races in Holland they tend to have decent race HQ's, this was a family camping park so had load of room undercover for us to sit in the dry and warm until the officials were prepared to brave the elements. By the time we started 30 minutes late the rain was still torrential but most of the thunder and lightening had moved away, just the occaisional clap as went round the first lap. Nobody had warmed up so we had the civilised situation of no atacks for the first half lap when the racing got underway.
I don't think I can describe the course too well, the roads were mostly very narrow, it wa difficult to sit on a wheel given the spray so you couldn't really see too much, there were quite a number of slow corners that everybody was giving a lot of respect too, indeed we lost quite a few riders on the first lap once we got up to racing speed, they were losing contact on the corners and its really hard to come back if you do that a couple of times.
Right from the start I was a bit wary on the corners but holding my place well enough, carbon rims even with Swisstop yellows are a bit suspect in torrential rain, I've ridden that combination quite happily in wet conditions but nothing like today.
There were primes on the line each of the first few laps for the first two across the line, coming through the last little village before turning onto the home straight which was cobbled and like ice, one of the stronger riders attacked and I thought to myself he's not just going for the prime here so having got off the cobbles I went after him, picking up a few Euro's in the process. Well for the next half lap he was 50m in front of me and what was a shrinking bunch was about 50m behind me. It seemed to me that I was bringing him back on the straights and getting further from the bunch but I was losing so much in the corners to both. At the time I was thinking I just had too much air in my front tire since that was the one that was constantly slipping away from me making cornering a nervous past time. After half a lap out there I thought this is silly, we're not getting away and if they are serious the numbers will eventually count. Wrong again, I didn't sit up but knocked it off a couple of clicks and what was left of the bunch duly came up to me and went charging through only to sit up shortly after. Our man sat out about 100/150m in front for two laps with no concerted chase, very occasionally 3 or 4 guys would roll it through but its just not the way they race here so our man pulled ahead in the last lap.
I continued to have front end problems, with the front wheel doing its best to slip away from me on most of the corners, a front wheel slipping and sliding certainly keeps you interested that's for sure. Anyway coming around for the sprint that should have been perfect for me didn't turn out that way, coming through cobbled village I had to give up position to keep the bike upright, there was a really nasty right hander that cost me position and the cobbles were so slick coming of that corner I wasn't confident about getting out of the saddle. I managed to get on the tail of the group going for the sprint coming out onto the main road, I closed up on what I thought were the main protaganists but found when I jumped around them that there were still two guys in front, I just didn't have enough road left so third in the sprint it was, not a disaster but I was hoping for better.
Now for my excuses, what I though was an over inflated front tyre turned out to be a slow puncture, obviously the tyre was moving enough on the rim to make me feel unstable when I was laying the bike over. I am also embarrassed to say that when I went to put the bike back in the car the back brakes were very firmly rubbing on the rim, presumably I had knocked it when I cleaned it the day before. In my defence it was raining so hard that having got the bike out of the car all I did was pump the tyres up, I would normally check those little things but opted for the dry in stead!
I've washed my clothes three times and I still don't think they are clean, even with my bar of SARD Wonder Soap, the socks went straight in the bin, so I have wet clothes everywhere now. The bike was actually a bit easier, Jurgen bought me out a bucket of soapy water and container of some 'magic' mixture one of the Italian teams that stayed here left for him. I think it was petrol and industrial detergent, cleaned the bke up a treat, not sure its done my hands any good though.
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