Today myself and the team headed to a 180km Dutch Classic in terrible conditions. It was more like a 180km CycloCross event.
Today i suffered the most I have ever suffered in my life. I was cramping with 20km to go.
Interesting course comprising of 5 x laps of a 25km ronde and 5 x laps of an 8km ronde. The remaining 15km was made up by going between the 2 Ronde. The 'Groot Ronde' or Large Round had 2 climbs each lap totalling 10 climbs each with points for the KOM prize. The Team Manager warned that the climbs will be hard but the 7km between the climbs will be the hardest. I have never heard such a spot one description. At the top of the first climb the road was exposed to all the elements including the famous cross wind. This was a very tough part of the lap and was single file (about 400mts front to back) each and every lap.
Weather: heavy, heavy rain. Starters: 32 teams of 6 riders. 192 in total. Distance: 180km. Time: 4hrs 30mins.
0-40km - you know what happens by now. 192 riders all wanting to get into 2mtr wide paths and corners that dont fit that many riders. Very nervous start in the heaviest rain i've seen here. Crashes like they were going out of fashion.
40-90km - rested in the areas I could and continued to fight for position. Felt great up the climbs, for me thats good. Dug deep on the exposed top section of the lap.
90km - made a tactical error and was too far back and found myself in an echelon that was slowly losing touch with the main peloton. I was having nothing of this and chased too hard for too long with 3 others and finally got back on.
100-125km - nothing changed this lap, tough climb and even tougher 7km after the climb.
125-140km - fairly tame transition between the 2 ronde.
The 'kleine ronde' or small round was a fully exposed lap with only 2km of it offering what could loosely be called cover from the cross winds.
140-160km - suffered, suffered and suffered again in the single file exposed ronde of fun! About half of the 100+ DNF riders were shelled in this 20km period of pain.
160km - started cramping in my hamstrings. All I could hear was Kirrily's voice in back of my head saying "Its only your brain telling you that you have overused your muscles. You can push through the pain without doing damage" I WAS NOT pulling out of or getting shelled from this race. It was my last Classic here so will stop at nothing.
175km - after 4hrs20mins and 175km of suffering I was caught up in a crash AGAIN. 6 guys coming down and splitting the peloton. I was AGAIN very lucky. Locking up in the wet and hitting a guy shoulder to shoulder at 40km/h shooting me into another guy on the other side. This 2nd rider saved me from hitting the deck because I unclipped just in time and landed on him. All I ended up with was a bruise on the right arm and graze on left leg.
180km - Anyway, after putting my rear wheel back in straight (and thanking my lucky stars) I set chase with other effected riders and were stoked to finish but did have a time gap to the winner. (about 50sec I think, I will have to look it up)
Happy to not be one of the 100+ DNF again even if I was a time gap down.
Last Classic of my stint and they saved the best to last. When I say best I am talking about crashes. I saw some very interesting ones today but none as good as the dude who hit a muddy ditch on the side of the road then did a full forward flip into a barbed-wire fence. (He was fine and saw the funny side once he checked all his limbs)
Have a Criterium tomorrow afternoon but will make that decision when it gets closer. Just started to hail so that may effect my decision.
