E3 Harelbeke Junioren UCI 1.1

April 23rd would be the biggest and potentially toughest UCI 1.1 for Team Backstedt Hotchillee which this weekend was consisting of myself, Dan Coombe, Matt Burke and Joe West, with two guests being Harry Hardcastle and Alex Ridehalgh. After leaving on Saturday Morning to drive down to Belgium, we arrived at the bottom of the Oude Kwaremont, where we all got dressed, and went for our pre-race ride and recce of the final 40km of the race. This included the Oude Kwaremont, along with two other short but steep 'bergs'. Towards the end of the ride though, I started to feel some discomfort in my left knee which was quite disconcerting as I've never had any problems with them before, so I ensured I did a lot of stretching that evening to try and alleviate any pain. We then went for tea which was given in the hostel we were staying in, and we re given chicken, mashed potato and vegetables which was a really good pre-race meal. Then after a bit of chatting we were off the bed.

Sunday morning we woke up and went down for breakfast at about 8 O'clock, which the options were; museli, bread, ham and cheese which was nice. Then we left the hostel to go over to where the race HQ was in Harelbeke, by about 10 O'clock in order to collect our numbers, transponders and frame numbers before getting changed and having our team podium presentation, then it was time to go through gear check and then line up ready to race. Then 2 O'clock came around and we were off. 3km of neutralised section later and the race proper had begun, with riders stringing the whole peloton out from the gun across the whole of the road.

In Belgium most of the roads there are made up from multiple concrete slabs which are laid down, resulting in a crack which runs down the centre of every road and it's one of the most dangerous bits about Belgian racing as they tend to be just the right width to allow a road bike tyre to get stuck inside of them, and as they're deep enough to catch you then once someone's wheel goes down into one of those cracks, you can be fairly sure there's no recovering from it. This is the exact scenario that occurred about 20km into my race with a Belgian coming to grief right next to me, resulting in him coming down and being next to me, I was caught up in it, riding into him, which resulted in me flipping over the handlebars, and in the process managing to catch my index and middle finger on my right hand in my spokes. Then it was time to hit the floor, and my head decided to do that first, followed shortly by my shoulder which took the next impact. Straight away all that went through my head was to get back up and just get back in the race. As soon as I stood up though I knew I had some big cuts, with blood instantly running down my face, but I grabbed my bottle which was on the floor next to me and I jumped straight back on and carried on.

As soon as I was back on the bike, I knew I had a huge adrenaline rush as I couldn't feel any pain over my body, so all I could think of was getting back onto the front peloton and trying to recover in order to still do well. I just pushed so much harder than I normally would be able to due to the adrenaline rush, so I was riding past riders constantly, and all the while I had a lot of blood dripping from my eye, which had been cut open with the impact of my glasses hitting the floor and being forced into my eye. Thankfully my parents had recently gotten me a pair of real Oakley glasses for my birthday and I usually wear fake Oakleys from China, but if I had been wearing them in this crash I have no doubt I would not be able to see out of my right eye, so thank you to Oakley for making great products. So after getting towards the front of the group that had been stuck behind my crash, I couldn't feel any pain in my legs but I was breathing heavily letting me know the extent of the adrenaline rush I was experiencing.

The next hour or so of racing is a blur in my mind, with all I really remember being us catching the front group, then reaching the start of the 'berg' climbs, the first of which being the Knokteberg, followed shortly by the Hotonderberg. After three more of these short but steep bergs, we reached the pinnacle climb of the race in the Paterberg, a beast of a climb, being only 900m long, but all being cobbled and with a maximum gradient of 20%. This climb caused a lot of chaos, especially at the back of the race where I had been sat with most riders attempting to ride up the smooth gutter, but as it was so steep there were multiple people who dropped chains, snapped chains, or simply just fell off, and so I decided to just bear the cobbles and ride up the middle of the road and take the cobbles in order to try and get up in a reasonable time. Near the top of the climb I saw Dan and he had been forced to start running up as people had crashed in front of him, so I tried to help him out but that didn't work very well. So thankfully we were then over the top and onto the descent the other side, I had made it to the top with a small bunch including Brit Charles Page and Tomos Owens, and we kept pushing on to try and catch the group infront of us, but by this point, my knee which had been sore the day before had come back to cause me grief, so I couldn't put much power through my left knee without being in a lot of pain. The next climb we came to was the Oude Kwaremont which was by far the longest cobbled climb, being 2.2km long at an average gradient of 4.2%, so the group I was in kept driving up the hill, making sure we wouldn't lose too much time in the one hill. Over then top and there would only be too climbs left and one flat cobbled sector. We stayed as a group throughout these, picking up a few riders along the way, and by the time we were within 20km to go, there was a group of about 30/40 riders I was with, and soon after we gave up the chase to the leaders who were about three minutes ahead by this point, and so the rest of the race turned into more of a social, with me being able to catch up with Charles on a day that wasn't for either of us.

Then once we reached the town of Harelbeke, there was about 3km left of racing, and everyone started to pick up the pace a bit, as people were wanting to sprint from our group to get the best possible place they could. I knew I was in no fit state to contest a sprint so I just sat up and rolled in just off the back of the sprint. I'm glad I did however as infront of me, two riders obviously touched wheels and came down and that could well have been me which would not have been ideal. After finishing the 115km race it was straight off to the ambulance for me to get cleaned up and asses the damage, of which it turned out, there was quite a lot of. The worst by far was my fingers which had been sliced down the middle of on both of them by my bladed spokes. Then my eye was just a case of clean it off and stick a dressing on it, and the same with my shoulder. It was then time to pack up the vans and head off to the closest Belgian hospital where Dad and I would spend the next roughly four hours, and I would receive a lot of cleaning to my wounds, and then six stitches in one of my fingers which was a fun experience. It turned out Tony Martin had been in the same hospital just a few weeks prior and been treated by the same nurse! Finally we could leave at about 10 O'clock, and after some delay at the tunnel, we arrived home at around 4 O'clock in the morning, which was not really ideal, but part of racing really. Then I found out the unfortunate news that I had managed to yet again crack my frame in this crash, along the top tube this time however, but life carries on! Now it is just time to rest up and recover before heading off to the Isle of Mann for the junior tour next weekend!

Unfortunately this race wasn't for any of the Backstedt Hotchillee riders, with our best place finisher being Harry in 36th, followed by Dan in 65th, then me being the last finisher rolling in 102nd, and then Matt, Joe and Alex all unfortunately DNF'd. This was disappointing for the whole team, having lost our top twenty streak, and especially as we had high hopes for this race, but we go into Isle of Mann hopeful and looking forward to racing! Thank you again to Darren and Magnus for getting us there, and to our parents for taking the time and effort to take us all the way there, we certainly couldn't do it without you all!