24.8.07

All or nuthin'

Spencer Beamer and I trucked on over to a kermesse near Antwerp yesterday. 120km of narrow roads, a steady shallow 2km hill, and some Belgian smoke all over the sidelines--the usual.

This was an old man "elite" kermesse. Before the start, another English speaking Belgian talked with me about the race. He said "I start racing last year, but I was already 40 years old!" Yeah, he had flowing grey locks all over his head. Old man power.

Fast forward 110km of pain and it's the last lap, and both Spencer and I are in the lead group of 35-ish riders. I'm feeling spunky, so I went with a last lap attack at 3km to go and went solo from there. I just kept the gas on, donned the Flandis superfast aero tuck, and gav'er. Unfortunately I was caught, and blotched yet another field sprint. Shucks. At least I got my money back. But at least I had the legs to give it a go for the win. It feels good to be racing for a win again.

Saturday and Sunday are two big U23 kermesses in Kortrijk. It's a really cool town with some castles, cobbles, and babes. Should be a blast.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Did you do a Kermasse today? How'd it go?