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.