Day 27 Last day, last race

I did it!

Two hands in the air, a bouquet and another Ronde miss. I should soon have the pictures to show my victory salute . (OK Harry?)

Got to rush now to pull my bike apart, pack it all up and be ready to leave the hotel at 5am!!!!

Oh it was last years World Champion I beat in the sprint.

Soon be home. But I'm thinking about next year maybe if there were a few guys that wanted to make the trip?

Day 26 Family Day

Wouldn't you believe it, today has been brilliant. Sunny warm, 25c with a relatively light wind, why couldn't that have been yesterday?

I relented yesterday evening, when the sun had already returned, and cleaned my bike which was just as well because even though I had 'over oiled' the drive chain before the race and it had rained so hard it was washed clean! By the time I went back to the bike the chain was already beginning to show rust!

I did 90 minutes on the bike this morning, more out of habit at the start, I must admit that somewhere around the ride I think I must have got a bit angry and for about 30 minutes really really pushed on quite hard. I did feel a bit better afterwards I think I just had to much too much energy left and then when I was riding along the quiet stretch of lane alongside the motorway I did a sprint, not really sure why but I did, then cruised back to the hotel.

When I downloaded my data I discovered that I had upped my threshold power, admittedly by only 3 watts but still an improvement and I had improved my peak power (sprint) by a massive 60 watts, the best power output I've ever done. Now if I wasn't sick before, you can imagine how that made me feel. But there's more, I rather foolishly looked at the result today and there was one chap 21 seconds (I think) off the front then a bunch sprint, of the guys in the top 6 I recognised 3 names of chaps that I have finished in front of in the last month!!!!!

Never mind I had a really nice dinner with my family last night and a great day today before delivering them to Brussels Midi railway station to allow them to catch the Eurostar train back to London.

I still I haven't decided whether to race or not tomorrow, I need to see how the weather goes and get myself psyched up for it. On the positive side it would be a shame to waste the 'form' I have cos I know it will evaporate all to quickly; on the negative side the race is about 45 minutes drive, doesn't start until 5.30pm and I need to leave for Amsterdam Schiphol airport at 5am on the following morning having dissembled and packed my bike and other stuff.

So we'll see about that, I'm just ready to go home now, to see my lovely wife and my three 'pups'.

Day 25 World Championships

There is no other way to describe today other than a big anticlimax!!!!!

It was pouring with rain all last night and continued throughout the morning, the course was fast with no really difficult corners but loads of standing water, the amount of spray the biggest problem. An ever so slight downhill straight run through the finish which meandered slightly, left and then right until the last 150m, so important to be at the front with the movement in the road.

I gave the finish a 'dry run' (that's a joke by the way, it was p...... down) at 3 to go by jumping it up at about a kilometer to go and winding it out, we weren't sprinting of course but I had the line into lots of little groups and crossed the finish line 20 lengths clear so I was very happy with were I was, feeling great and a with a plan to execute.

Coming round to 2 to go I punctured!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So having started the build up for this race in October last year, training like a lunatic, eating the right stuff, hardly drinking, cutting back on my racing etc etc etc. Feeling like I was floating on the day. I punctured.

At least I will be able to have a nice dinner out with my family this evening and probably an extra glass of red wine or two.

I'm trying to convince myself that I've had some great results on the trip and it was only one race but I'm not really succeeding at the moment, I could race tomorrow and Tuesday, at the moment I'm not that fussed about more races and tomorrow I'll spend with my family and think about the race on Tuesday after that.

Day 24 Pre race day

Just 2 hours today at endurance pace with 3 x 3 minute threshold intervals and a couple of full on sprints to get my body used to racing levels for tomorrow.

I must admit in the first interval I got a bit 'gung ho' and completed it an average power of nearly 60 watts over my threshold and felt like I had loads to spare. I tried to limit my effort to threshold power in the second and was still 30 watts over, on the third I felt like I was really soft pedalling and got the power output to just 10 watts over my threshold.

A bit further up the road on a quiet lane alongside the main west / east freeway I did my two sprints and was really pleased with the second in particular, 1100+ watts, not great by Tom Boonen standards of course but I was pretty pleased, best I've done this year, So I know I'm as ready as I can be, I'm in great condition so I know I can do a good ride tomorrow and if I don't, there at least aren't any excuses.

My plan is to race like I did on Wednesday, get to the front early and stay there and hope that the continued action at the sharp end of the race reduces the bunch to something manageable just like Wednesday when we got down to a dozen and then see how the straight sprint works out for me at the end.

Cleaned my bike, yet again, this afternoon, cleaned the chain right back to metal, pulled the cassette apart and did the same with that, set up my new wheels, a couple of small adjustments and done. A quick test ride up and down the hill alongside the hotel and the bikes done. All I need to do at the race is oil the chain and I'm ready to race.

The weather forecast has changed to rain, shouldn't be a problem just changes the tyre pressure is all, I think the circuit should be safe enough. Rain just reinforces my plan to be at the front really its always safer at the front.

The women's GP was going on as I finished my bike and at least in the early laps the Australian girls were very prominent at the front or off the front, but I opted for a nap rather than walk around to the finish to see how it turns out.

So dinner, then pack my bag for tomorrow, the an early night, I want to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the morning, well I want to be there on time at least!

Day 24 Another rest day

Another easy day, 2 hours easy endurance ride which was very pleasant today, although I did find myself pushing on a a few times and had to rein myself in, save it all for Sunday!

I cleaned my bike again this afternoon, I'm still getting stuff off of it from the wet race earlier in the week, there are times I think a white bike wasn't the best idea I ever had.

In the afternoon, my daughter Sharon, my granddaughter Katie and my grandson Matt turned up for the weekend which is great. Mind you having got up at 4:00am to get the Eurostar train from London to Brussels they were pretty wasted and needed a 'nap' in the afternoon, but they were back to normal for dinner and some serious catching up.

Final 'pre race' day tomorrow, some sort threshold intervals and a couple of full on sprints, then it will be cleaning my bike again, setting up with my new wheels and then more rest.

There is a big international women's race in the village tomorrow which I will watch from the steps of the hotel in the sunshine (I hope).

Day 23 Rest day

A rest and recovery day and boy do my legs need to recover, three hard races in 5 days is pushing it a bit for me. I kept getting cramps in my legs last night so that kept me awake!

Since I had no specific plans for the day I took my time going for breakfast, I might get up a bit earlier tomorrow, the breakfast buffet looked like a plague of locusts had swept through! It wasn't locusts but a group of cyclo tourists on an organised tour of the area, apparently its hugely popular with mostly older Germans, and they take a long leisurely day to ride about 50km around the many marked scenic bike trails.

Jurgen told me that one of these riders had consumed 4 litres of beer and 3 Leffe's the previous evening after dinner, Leffe is a premium Belgian beer at 7%, pretty strong stuff! So you can see that they aren't a particularly athletic group.

I decided my legs were so sore this morning that I would go for a one hour very easy ride to spin out some of the rubbish from my legs. I was going to take a complete day off but I think my body copes better with recovery rides rather than days off.

When I was riding today I got quite cross with myself about the finish yesterday, the more I think about it, that was a definite win opportunity and they don't come along that often. Morale of that story is that you are never as tired as you think you are when it comes to a sprint!

A bike clean (yet again) this afternoon, an early dinner and early to bed for me tonight.

Day 22 Last Preparation Race

Today's race was on a much more Ray friendly course, not dead flat but no more than rolling, definitely big ring all the way.

To cut to the chase, I went from completely stuffed over the last couple of laps through 'I'm going to win this' with 300m to go to getting savagely chopped approaching the last corner, through to third at the line!

I had a plan, which was to race as hard as I could and not really worry about the result, I wanted this last race before the championship to be as hard as I could make it. I think it was the biggest age group field I have raced in, it had one world champion, 2 Belgian champions? and one European champion. None of these gentleman featured in the finish.

Unfortunately we had a minutes silence on the line for a rider who died in his sleep last night, aged 61, he had raced with us on Monday!

The course laid out with a short 250m finishing straight (with 'street furniture' that made passing a real challenge), left up a hill and along a straight to a left turn with a traffic 'calmer' to negotiate mid turn, straight into a repeat 100m later, then a long fast straight about 3km long with the middle km being a not too lumpy cobbled run before getting into narrow uphill section until a fast left turn which took us down through a built up area, with two lefts and a right turn in quick succession followed by two rights and a left out onto a main road with some bad concrete gaps that had the bunch snaking right and left, a fast left across 50/60m of bad bad cobbles onto a fast down hill with a right then a left, 300m of uphill, sharp narrow right hander into the finish straight, about 8 and a bit k.

We did the first 500m reasonably sedately but as soon as we hit the long straight it was on for young and old, or in our case, old and old! Having started at the back I had used the modest early pace to move nearer the front which was just as well because there were gaps opening immediately. For the next four laps it was attack after attack, I made sure that if I wasn't in the break attempt that I was with the next group trying to get across, I know I put myself deep into the red often, my downloaded data says I got my heart rate consistently 3/4 beats above what I thought was my max!

The organisation threw a 'primie' up at four laps to go that got some action on the front from 3 guys that had been hiding out at the back, having stretched the bunch out, 3/4 of us counter attacked and went clear that drive lasted almost 2 full laps, a few riders had clawed their way across, 2/3 at a time, but we just kept battering away. At two laps to go there was a bit of a lull and I looked around for the first time and realised that there were only 12 riders actually 'in' the race now, which was good but I'd spent a lot of 'pennies'. I managed to get off the front for a while on my own on the fast run through the built up area, well it was either gently downhill or flat and mostly out of the wind, I'm good at those bits!

We were all back together, well the 12 of us, for the bell, then it got a bit odd for a couple of k with some chatting going on before one of the riders sidled over to me to tell me what had been discussed. In tribute to the rider that had died they were going to 'give' the win to his best friend and team mate who was with us in the dozen riders. I couldn't really argue with that and if I'm honest I was feeling really stuffed and figured I wasn't going to feature in the tricky sprint anyway, I'm more of a straight line sprinter, I don't generate the power to get out of slow corners and up to sprint speed quickly. So for a couple of K we cruised along although there was more 'chat' going on, I assumed that they were working out how to deliver the win, I thought we would need to let the chosen rider go quite soon so the rest of us could fight out the placing and not catch him in the process.

However it turned out differently, the chap had decided he didn't want the win and we were racing again, they did have the decency to let me know before we started jumping around again. Coming along the main road section I was trying so hard I was definitely moving into nauseous territory, left across the cobbled section, for some reason I was fast across those, down the fast downhill with a right and left and onto the last 300m up hill into the last turn. I seemed to go from 'stuffed' to moving past everybody without really hurting myself, so then I committed to getting into that last corner first, however with only two riders left to pass, as I moved to pass them they came left on me forcing me into an erratic line on the inside for the corner. Of course I was going to get around it slower than most on that line, even worse by moving to defend against me they gave two other riders a fast run around the outside.

So I beat the two who had blocked me, sheer bloody mindedness I think, the two with the fast line where away and gone. Initially I was a bit p....off but then I decided I should never have been that far back at the start of the final hill, if I had been nearer the front it would have been me first into the corner and .......

I'm sorely tempted to race again on Friday but I feel I should resist and give myself the best chance on Sunday, on the other hand Sunday is going to be a bit of a lottery and can you imagine a full field sprint of circa 120 charging down the finish straight? That will get the adrenalin going for sure, not a place for the faint hearted but I doubt whether it will come to that.

Tomorrow will be an easy day, spend some time getting my bike in the best order I can, another recovery day on Friday, I'll do my pre race day intervals on Saturday then the big one on Sunday. I definitely feel I'm a chance if I can ride to my capabilities on Sunday but I I've still got to put myself in the right places at the right time. I'm not going to lose sleep over it and I've already had a great trip and got some good results, so I'm content however my last two races pan out.