happy new year one and all. i learned last night that belgians take their new year's fireworks pretty seriously! i heard a solid 10 minute stream of blast going off after midnight.
new years day is also the traditional day for the grote prijs sven nys. a race in sven nys home town on his home training course. we were greeted by thick fog, 3 degrees C, and a bit of drizzle. 2 laps of training on the course and i was covered in mud. gregory and chris would have their work cut out for them today.
being part of the gva series, all the top guys were present but the amount of riders was a bit lower around 48. road start straight into a steep muddy gutter, barriers, a flyover, uphill slog w/ steps. a series of descents and uphills before another uphill slog to a set of 20 stairs...then a sketchy steep drop to sharp up, followed by another crazy descent. can you follow that? yeah, me neither. my race was so so. it was more of a good hard ride, but i never really had the snap i needed. brian and i pretty much rode the whole race together. he'd drop me on the climbs and i'd catch back up on the downhills. the highlight was going past lars boom near the end of lap one. i guess this is why. i've gotta say, my alloy hed tubulars are killin it for me over here! the stopping power with them is amazing.
tomorrow is the last day of the trip and were finishing it off with the fidea classic at tervuren. one last chance to pop a good one for everyone back home! photo cred tom robertson.
METAL!
Posted by: djonnymac | 01/02/2011 at 08:16 PM