Yesterday was a long day on the bike. Tony and I rode to the race in Maasmunster and back, getting lost going both to and from Gent. With the 120 kilometer race, it ended up being a 130 mile day for me.
My placing in the race didn’t reflect how I felt or rode, which seems to keep on happening. I got 29th, but attacked, bridged, held the top 20 position (which is just as hard as attacking ), but it didn’t work out for me in the end. With three laps to go, I bridged to the lead breakaway of six. I went right past them and took a strong pull for 20 seconds. I was excited, thinking this was the final break that would stick. But after we all rotated once, those idiots stopped working. I had taken two pulls in a row and those lazy bastards just sat on. So I sat up and we got caught right before the hill. I had to rest going up the hill, which meant I lost positions. And it turned out that that was the only time in the entire race where I actually needed to be up front, and I wasn’t. The top of the field split off as 13 guys went up the road. There was no catching them. Two laps latter, when we came to the finsh (I wasn’t sure exactly where it was), I was an idiot and waited too long to move to the front. I got boxed in and couldn’t move, so I ended up mid pack of what was left of the field, which wasn’t much.
Tony had his best race yet; check out his blog to hear about it.
After the race, we both ate a brotwurst and headed back to Gent in a fierce headwind. We got home at 8:30 and went off to the pizza street, which is where we always eat. I was wrong, we haven’t been eating Belgian pizzas or Indian pizzas. They are Turkish pizzas. I saw a map of Turkey on the wall of one of these pizza joints. And although they are called “pizza” on the menu, they don’t resemble what we would call a pizza. There is no cheese, they have a paper thin crust, and a small amount of egg, meat, and or vegetables on the top. They each come with a big salad too, so we pile that ontop of the pizzas and role the slices up like a taco. Instead of black pepper, they have a spicy dry red pepper in dishes. Tony can’t eat it but I pour spoonfulls on my pizzas. It tastes great but my digestive system would beg to differ. Damn it now Im hungry.
We’ll be sleeping on the streets tonight because the hostil is full and all the hotels around here cost 100 euros a night. I have a good spot in mind. Underneath one of the sidewalk construction sights just under the scaffalding. There is plastic wrapped around the scaffalding too, which would make a waterproof tent-type shelter from the rain. Race tomorrow and race the day after.
KENNETT PETERSON 