Ride your BIKE!!!

Yesterday was a kermis in Beernem, the next town over. I was pretty excited for this race. It suited me pretty well, not to many hard accelerations and fast. 7 of us left the CC a little over an hour before the race. It took all of 20 minutes between leaving the CC to us all being inscribed. Then we rode over the Blanca's car and changed and headed out on the course. Since the whole Landis thing a lot of Belgians have come up to me and have said "dutch dutch Landis dutch dutch?" No this is kind of hard to deal with. I can't just nod and agree cause they might be asking me if I think doping is cool, and to that I can not reply. But they also might just be saying "Landis is the man!" but how can I tell. So I have gotten pretty used to just shrugging and saying "Spect u ingles?" (not sure on the spelling there). So the race. It started fast, like usual. I was feeling good and actually doing a good job of moving up and staying away from the back. But with 130 guys there I always seemed to be moving up but never got to the very front. But much better. So about an hour into the race, we're bombing along one of the canals and BOOM!!! Bikes and people everywhere! I shot to the left and managed to miss falling over but had to take a foot out and wait to go around the bodies and bike. I finally made it through and started chasing. I caught on to the tail end of the group but guys were popping infront of me every few seconds. I closed the gaps about 5 times but couldn't do it the 6th. It's hard to go around people when you are already in your 12 going as hard as you can and can feel the lactic acid in your toes from peddling so hard. So, that ended my day. I was so mad, still am. Argh!!! (like a pirate). That was that! I have a few more races here before I leave on the 18th. I hope I can get one more good result, I can feel it coming.

Alvin