Guido Reybrouck UCI 1.1

Sunday 19th March was going to be my second UCI 1.1 race for the Backstedt Hotchilee Team, this week with the team being myself, Dan Coombe, Charley Calvert, Matt Burke, Joe West and Ben Moody, in the Guido Reybrouck.

On Saturday we all traveled down to the tunnel and then down to Damme, in West Flanders where the race was going to be on the Sunday, and after about 45 minutes of trying to find a way around all the road closures that seemed to be all over the town, we finally found where the course was and after a quick change we all started riding round the course, but because it was a 93km loop we could only ride some of it, and so after 1hr15 we got back to the vans and got changed before heading off to find our accommodation for the night, which turned out to be a Youth Hostel about 15 minutes from Damme, we then headed to the town hall where we were provided with dinner, before heading back, doing some foam roller and going to bed.

Sunday morning came around and we had a pretty chilled morning with nothing much to do apart from eat breakfast before having too leave at 11, we got to the race start and parked up, got our numbers and transponders, pinning ourselves up before having the team podium presentation at about 1 O'clock. After that all that was left was final preparations and to get ourselves to the start line in time for the gear check.

Then ensued one of the most hectic race starts I've ever been in, with people nearly crashing into each other constantly as the neutralising car was going very slowly at the head of affairs. The worst bit of the neutral section was the left hand turn onto a very narrow bridge which caused at least half of the peloton to the have to stop and unclip so they didn't fall off, after the bridge we were heading down a very straight road for what felt like years, made multiple times worse due to the horrendous cross head wind we had to battle with causing the whole peloton to be split to absolute shreds in a matter of minutes, I had unfortunately not been able to position myself very well before the bridge which meant once the group started splitting up I was stuck in the third group on the road, and by the end of the first road we were probably about a minute or so behind the head group on the road, and I was sure that that was going to be the end of my race and I would stand no chance of getting back into contention of any sorts. We then hit the first cobbled section with people puncturing left right and centre from all of the holes and massive cobbles, thankfully I survived without trouble! After what was about 15 minutes of solid chasing, the group I was in managed to claw our way back onto the first group, and soon after most of the rest of the riders were back in the peloton.

Until this point in the race I had been feeling pretty awful, but soon after this point once the race had calmed down a bit I started to feel a little better which was a huge relief. The next hour or so of racing was quite tame with a few attacks going up the road but none of them sticking and all being brought back, the cobbles were starting to take their toll with some of the sections being 2km in length and we were all starting to feel them. By this point, Charley had been involved in a crash which caused him to have to try and chase back on but he never made it back on, Joe and Ben had struggled to hold the wheels in the brutal winds and in the end it turned out slightly too much for them which was gutting.

After about 2 hours of racing the big attacks started coming, and soon after the break that would eventually contest the win went up the road, which included Jacob Vaughan (eventual winner) and Tom Pidcock of Britain in, and it was soon after this that I realised the group I was in wasn't going to chase them down and if I wanted an chance at all to podium I'd have to attack, and so I tried attacking multiple times, a few times with Dan but each time the peloton was having none of it and kept bringing us back, Eventually one of Dan's attacks managed to stick and he got away with a few other riders and get a huge lead on the main peloton, and with just over 6km left to race I stuck in all I had left in an attack off the group in the cobbled section and just didn't look behind me, all I could focus on was trying to catch the breakaway group ahead of me on the road, so I just got into a Time Trial and kept drilling it, keeping half an eye behind me to ensure I wasn't going to be caught, but within the final 3km there was another bunch behind me closing in on me in the headwind section, so I laid all I had out on the road and made sure they weren't going to catch me, and it paid off, with me finishing solo and coming in 19th out of 198 starters which I was very pleased with considering the class of riders racing and the crazy conditions with all the wind which I've never had to deal with before, many lessons have been learnt and hopefully the next race I can improve!

Huge thanks to Magnus Backstedt and Darren Moody for getting us there!