Seven days, a prologue, and seven road stages telling over 1100km. It was a 7km hit out on the Monday afternoon, we rode the course in the morning and it looked like it was going to be a good race course. It had a few corners and round-a-bouts to get round but nothing to serious until the road got wet, I had some track tyres on so it made it a bit sketchy so my time wasn’t on the ball. Even though I didn't manage to crack the top 10, I still got to bust out the New Zealand Champions skinsuit

The next morning was the first road stage of 195km. It was the start of the scrapping for wheels and gutter riding for the week. Everyday was like it even when the break up the road had a few minutes, you were still scrapping for position in the peleton. During this race there was something always going on, if you weren’t fighting for position it was raining or someone had just crashed so the peleton settled down a bit or you had to be lapping it out on the front so you didn’t get dropped in the cross wind or you were watching the gutter to make sure there was still road in front of you so you weren’t riding in the gravel or you had a flat tyre and were getting a wheel change, it was a busy race to be racing.

Most of the stages finished in bunch sprints and the team had a go in most of them. On the longest stage of the tour 210km I got in the move and managed to finish 8th. There was a group of 18 riders in the break and with 80km to go three Russians and a Latvian got away and managed to ride to the finish taking the top spots, then it was myself in a group of four with the rest of the break coming in just behind us, I’m not to sure how the front group did it but it was a good effort on their behalf to hold off the remainder of the break.

The tour covered heaps of ground and I stayed in some neat wee towns. One of the towns was on the coast and it had heaps of old buildings still standing from the war, it was cool to see some different things.

The last day of the tour was only 150km which I was stoked about but I still had to get over a 13% climb. When my legs didn’t want to climb the stairs back up to my room after breakfast that morning I thought I was going to be in for a hard day, lucky for me the first hour was mostly downhill and my legs started to feel a bit better and I just got over the climb with the front riders. My teammate was in the break that day and he was unlucky with how the race turned out. He was up the road most of the day only to get caught with 1200meters to go.

I arrived back at the apartment at 11 after 5hrs of driving, and it was safe to say that I’m rather wrecked and am not going to be doing too much over the next few days. The tour ended ok, the team got a few top tens in the stages and I managed an 17th overall after missing a few moves throughout the week and 6th on the young rider classification. Out of the 120 riders that started this tour only 58 finished and I think only 2 or 3 teams finished with 6 riders.

It was another freezing day in good all belg, the team went to kit up in the changing rooms but there was no room so we went back to the camper van and got into the kit there. The team swany was laughing at me when I was putting on layer after layer of kit again, while the others were just running the usually.

I saw another New Zealander at the race and had a wee chat to him and found out that he’s sick but can't explain it to his French director so he just keeps on doing races. Not to sure how that will go for him.

The race started off like every other race at this time of the year, with crashes. Dudes were crashing all over the show. Some guys take some massive risks just to move up 2 or maybe 3 spots in the peleton. After about an hour of dodging crashes the break formed in a cross wind section going over the top of a hill. I managed to make it across with 2 of my teammates. The break had about 18 guys in it and that was the wining break to be in. It split with about 40k to go and me and 4 others went up the road and got a minute on the chasing group. With 2 of the 4 local laps completed, 3 other riders came across with one of them being my teammate. The attacks started to happen and my teammate and another got away, so I was just following the attacks. With 1k to go I attacked and got away but one guy just got on my wheel and he pumped me in the sprint so I finished 4th with my teammate 2nd.

During the week I managed to catch up with Tim Gudsell and Craig Geater who are working with pro tour teams this year. They had a race in Roeselare so I went down and had a yarn with them and a quite beer. It was good times catching up with them and talking a bit of kiwi smack to each other.

This race should be renamed omloop van het wetland. The whole race was wet, from the start to the finish. It was a magic day of racing in belg. It was 190km with 3 big laps of 27k then 9 small laps of 12km. Every lap had multiple amounts of cobble sections and multiple amounts of crashes. On the first cobble section just after 3km I punctured my front wheel and had to experience the first big lap chasing to get back into the front group after the peleton was split into different groups from crashes and cross wind. I got back into the front group and sat last wheel for the rest of the big laps. Riders were still crashing in some weird places but mostly on the cobbles.

Once we got onto the small laps I managed to move up to the front of the peleton but that made no difference and dudes were still crashing. With 3 laps to go I got into a break that looked good but it only stayed away for half a lap before Topsport Vlaanderen brought it back together. A few more attacks went but everything came back together so it was down to a mass sprint in the wet with a round-about to negotiate just before the kilometer to go sign, then some traffic islands and a speed hump with 200 meters to go. So I let the sprinters go at it and finished in the middle of the peleton in one piece and having dodged all the crashes which I was stoked about.

It was a magic wee hit out before getting into a 7 day tour next week, just need to clean all the crap out of my eyes first, then get some new brake pads.