having to kick myself in the head at 6a.m to get off to the race was not exactly the easiest thing for me to do. We had to do the drive down to the race the morning of and we arrived a good 2 hrs before the start. Being the last race of the season I wanted to try and sneak another win in before I run a muck with the end of season break.

I surprised myself a bit and got into the move which stayed away and then split up going into the last 30k. I put in the odd attack put the other 5 riders under a bit of pressure but nothing stuck and it came down to a sprint and to my amazement I wasn't 6th out of 6 but 5th.

We started the second day with a time trial which was little, I pulled out a time good enough to take the leaders jersey by a few second. The afternoon stage got under way and the wind kicked up so the peloton was split and guy where getting shell, the team was strong and we 5 in the front, a few attacks threatened my lead but the team pulled it back and I managed to get a few more seconds over the other riders which was hot going into the last day.

The sun was out and the last 160k of the race was in front of us to complete, the wind was still blowing and some how I was in the front group with no team mates…..with 50k to go a group came across which had one of my team mates in it, the attacks where going and I was covering the dangerous move’s a group got away and gained a few minutes, in that group was a GC threat and for the last 40k myself and my team mate chased the group of 10 riders to only loses the leaders jersey by 22seconds. Even though other teams where losing out as well no other team want to help and chase, after fisting myself for 40k to only loses by a small margin it was a bit of a disappointing.

Just before the last stage. Team mate was leading the young rider and i was leading the tour

Omloop van de Grensstreek was held a few days ago and I posted my 4th win of the season by crossing the line solo and wining my 35 seconds after an attack with 6 kilometers to go. The parcours covered some of belgiums most famous territory, by looping round the battle fields of world war one then climbing the famous kemmelburg, which is the climb that had the massive crash on in Gent - Wevelgem and Jimmy Casper got personal with the cobbles a few years back.

Once again the peleton was greeted with rain which made a few riders crash and climbing the cobbles rather tricky, as we where heading back to the finishing laps the wining move of 9 riders got away and with some encouraging words from my team mate and myself the break stayed clear of the peleton. On the finishing circuits not to much happened I put in a attack on lap 2 but that came back so I think everyone wanted it to come down to a sprint finish apart from me, a few other riders started to put in a few attack but it all came back and then with 6 kilometers I got a away and rode in to win the race.

My team mates rode great and we where amongst every move on the road, we rode at the head of the peleton and stayed out of trouble at the most dangerous times and got through the race with out falling.  

VICTORY 2 for the season came a few days ago in the last stage of the tour of Namur. After spending the first 3 days riding the front defending the yellow jersey I got a chance to go for a stage and I pulled it off. The stage was 140km in nice hot weather, the break of seven riders got clear and with 20 kilometers to go two riders and myself got away over a climb and stayed away to fight it out for the stage victory. It came down to a sprint and with 300meters to go a rider jumped and took the other rider to wide going into the last corner, I got round the corner better then what the other two did and gassed them to the finishing line to take my second victory of the season.

The tour de la province Luxembourg kicked off with team presentation. Beveren 2000 had seven riders on the start line but as is always some riders take a bit longer to get ready so only six made it to the presentation on time








Rolling off the start line with 200 riders in what I thought was going to be a sun soaked day in Belgium seemed to be a wee treat, but this was not to be. The cheeky people which organized the tour had use climbing for the first 20km, even if most of it was just false flats the legs didn’t like it at all.

Beveren 2000 once again was represented in the front group with four rides, we hit the finishing circuits and I had a few attacks. I got away just before a filthy climb with a few others riders, the group split again on the last lap and I sprinted in the remaining riders for 4th place.

The second day was absolutely horrible, we started in the rain, we finished in the rain, we got out feed bags in the rain, we went round the corners in the rain, and we……got very wet. Until the finishing circuits everything was rather claim. We had a kilometer hill to climb to the finish and we rode it three times, the first time over the climb I attacked and got away another ride came with me and we healed the peleton to a 20-30 second gap for the last 40km. With 3km to go I attacked the other rider and got a gap he came back at the bottom of the climb so I pumped him in the most awkward sprint finish and won.

It’s been a long time coming but final to win a race even though it’s a stage was good. I was only 20 odd seconds off the lead and sitting 2nd overall. I was now thinking about trying to win the tour out right. This was not to be, I had a major melt down on the bike during the next day and rolled in 7minutes down. It was one of the most frustrating times this year. The last day was under way and with the dismal performance yesterday I was out on the attack, a few times I managed to get away and every time it got brought back by the a few teams and a few riders in the breaks not wanting to work, the move went and I was not in the break but two riders from Beveren 2000 where so it was feet up and roll with the peleton, we hit the finishing circuits and the break came back but there was still 2 rides up the front and one was from Beveren 2000 so following wheels was all we did. A small group jumped away with a kilometer to go and people tried to get up to it I waited for a bit then hit out just catching the back of the group on the line and finishing 5th on the stage and my team mate won the stage.

It was a good tour for myself and the team, we where place in every stage and won 2 of the 4 stages so it was good

There is also a sweet wee video of the tour, I seem to star in it

Well it has been a wee while since I last filed a posting…….not such a good idea cause now I’ve got to remember what I’ve been up to. I attempted to race in two kermises which was rather a shock to the system, I managed to finish them, but going full out for 120km was different to what I was used to.

Once the kermises were out of the road, I headed to the Ardennes to get in some climbing before a three day tour which was in the same area. It was the first time I had headed across to the Ardennes and I stayed with another New Zealander for a few days. The roads are so different compared to Flanders. No concrete slabs and you're not passing through a village every 2km. The climbs are not too bad either. The longest climb I rode was a bit over 20mins, which is not bad for Belg. I also rode cole la redoute a few times which is ridden in Liège – Bastogne – Liège. After I spent four days in the Ardennes I returned back to Roeselare for a few days of recovery before heading back down for the race Triptique Ardennes. The race kicked off on the Friday with a road stage, then one stage on Saturday, and a split day on Sunday with a time trial in the morning. Every road stage had at least 10 climbs in it and most of the climbs had hill points up for grabs. This made some of the climbs a tad faster then normal. The first day was all go from the start with the stage kicking into a climb after 3 or so kilometers. After that climb I never saw the front again until I found out that the team had no riders in the front break so we rode hard for 5km and the 1:30min gap was closed. Everybody from the team made it to the finish in the front group and we tried to get a lead out going but it came to nothing. The second stage was only 120km but extremely hard and no matter where you rode in the peleton it was just as tuff. I was struck with some unfortunate luck and punctured at the bottom of a 15% climb. Once I got a the wheel I continued on my way but only to realize I was dead last on the road and the peleton had split up into zillions of groups. I managed to ride up through the groups to the third group over the following 30km and finished with a few of my teammates. While I had been riding back up to the third group my team mate was on the attack and finished solo to put him into the lead by 50sec. Sunday started with an early awakening as we had to make it to the start of the time trial for a 9 o’clock start. The course was rather miserable with a 2km climb after 500 meters. The guys in the team went well with four in the top ten. In the afternoon I was on tempo duty which was a hoot. I rode the front for 70 or so kilometers until we got the break back to a 10sec gap on this dirty wee hill then I got piped. It was only 40km to the finish and there were plenty of guys to sit on to the finish. Well that is what I thought...Even though the group was well behind the leaders for some reason they thought that they would be able to ride back across and the little buggers were putting in some attacks up the climbs. This didn’t sit too well with me so a few riders copped an ear-full then I just sat up and rode to the finish line. I strolled in 10mins down but my team mates had won everything, the director was happy and so was the team. After I got back to from the race I had a mate from school come over for a few days and we kicked round Roeselare. I wasted some days of training so I've decide to have my mid season break now and I’ll get back on my bike next week and start to build towards the second half of the season. Hopefully some magic results will follow. The pictures are of a ride I did in the Ardennes which passed some of the old Second World War sites and I kept seeing these yellow flowers and wasn't too sure what they are and I still don’t know what they are but I look mint in them….

Tour de Bretagne another seven day tour. It started on the Friday and finished on the Thursday and I was glad that it did. The first two stages were rather enjoyable, apart from being on the rivet a few times. It was nice and sunny and they finished in bunch sprints. The next five days were quite difficult. Every stage finished with local laps around the finishing town so the local French cycling enthusiast could come out and clap on the riders as they passed by in the normally wet conditions. 

As the race developed and days went by, a long break was eventually going to happen and on the fourth day it happened. Myself and my teammate made the group and the break took 26 minutes and that was the start of the general classification getting sorted out. The top 30 riders were all within 30 seconds of each other and the following day Benoît Poilvet managed to ride to the finish line solo and get 1:20 minute up on the other riders. With everybody still so close on the general classification the time trial was going to sort out the final positions. I was feeling pretty confident in my ability to post a good time in the time trial which was the second to last stage and hopefully get into the top five. But this was not to happen. I had a bit of a shocker and didn’t perform. I managed just to get into tenth and was 24 seconds off being in the top five. Going into the last stage I was hoping that I might be able to get away in a break but the leading two teams kept everything together until the seven uncomfortable finishing laps. The lap was a 6 kilometer circuit with a 2 kilometer climb in it with a kilometer of it being cobbled. Every lap I thought that I had good bunch position but that was never the case and I found myself chasing to get back up to the front most laps. There was only a small group left with one lap to go and Beveren had five riders in it. My teammate got a gap going into the cobble section and managed to finish 2nd with the three other riders finishing well up there and I finished just off the back of the front group and managed to keep my tenth place overall. During the week of racing we managed to pull top fives in most stages and sometimes multiple riders in the top 10. The team was strong and it seemed we were only getting better as the week went on. The guys helped me out when needed which was great, hopefully the result in the next tour can be slightly better.

Having spent Monday through to Wednesday in my pit then Thursday and Friday doing easy rides my expectations for this race weren't very high. I have been a bit ill after the tour of normandie and it took me a few days to go and see the doc and sort myself out. We turned up to the start of the race in the silver kiwi and promptly sorted some seats to enjoy the sun which gracefully appeared while I was pulling on some kit. With the sun out and about this made for a joyous time. This was the first race where I didn't need to pull on excess amounts of clothing, this sunny weather made for ferrous racing.

The race was under way and it was going smoothly. There was a wee breeze which became a nuisance for some riders so I made sure I stayed round the front of the peleton. After about 25km the road turned and it was basically a cross wind so my team mates and I hit the front and rode away from the peleton. We had five of the twelve or so riders in the break and the peleton never caught us. We negotiated three of the flanders hills, one being the Oude Kwaremont, which is a cobble stone climb and is rather unpleasant when your not a hundy. Three riders jumped away with 10k to go, one being in beveren 2000 so we were hoping for the best and keeping tempo so that we wouldn’t lose too much time, I came in 10th, thirty seconds down on the leader.

Sunday started out with the expected rain but once it came to start the time trail it had cleared and the sun started to poke its head out. It was a rather unpleasant eight kilometers with some wind and concrete slabed roads to get round in a fast time, I got round the course but the time was not so fast, finishing in 13th some seventeen seconds back but moving up to 7th on the general classification. We started the last stage with the leader jersey, the poker dot jersey, and four riders in the top ten. We tried to let a break go up the road but everybody wanted to be in that break so the peleton stayed together for a while. Once the break was away we rode tempo into the base of the five climbs, two being cobbled. Eventually the break came back and the peleton halved in size due to unforgiving cobbled climbs, the team rode the front for twenty kilometers until we reached the finishing circuit. We covered the odd attack and kept each other out of trouble. It came down to a sprint with one rider up the road. We won the tour and I placed 7th, the other two riders finished in the top five making this a good tour for beveren 2000.

After spending most of the week off my bike, I managed to get myself through the tour ok apart from my legs feeling like lumps of concrete most of the time, I’m glad it’s finished.

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.