Well and Truely Flandered!

After not much sleep on Friday night it was still dark when I went down for breakfast at 6.30 on Saturday morning. I'd woken up every hour remembering Jimmy Casper crashing on the cobbles last year in the Gent-Wevelgem after a film I saw that day at the Flanders Museum. I'd been fairly OK up to then nerve wise.

There had been rain over night but it wasn't raining when we arrived at the Market Square in Brugge to get our numbers checked for the start. With various delays our 7.00am start became more like an 8.00am departure. I had one of the worst attacks of nerves I've ever had standing in the cold at the start and noticing that there were hardly any women at all doing the full distance event. Perhaps they knew something I didn't! Between the start line in Brugge and the finish line in Meerbeke lay 259 kilometres of some of the toughest roads of northern Belgium. In addition to this, we were required to negotiate seventeen of the regions toughest climbs, the hellingen that make the Tour of Flanders so special.

Trisportnews.com set off as a group and to be honest nothing much seemed to happen in the first 50km to the feed stop apart from a few showers and a touch of wheels that didn't seem to cause any harm. And I lost my check card while getting some food out my pocket which my team mate, Adam, somehow managed to miraculously retrieve from goodness knows how far back down the road. Nobody thought I would ever see it again, or Adam for that matter.

But by the second feed stop I was thoroughly soaked through and cold and it was this that killed off my chances of finishing. Even when it wasn't raining the surface water just kicked up from the back wheels. My head ached from the spray, my fingers were painful with cold and my feet were soaked through. Our group had split by now and I was with Chris and Steve as we crossed the border into Wallonia and hit the first climb, the Kluisberg, at 99km from the start. We actually cheered when we saw the sign for the climb. Flanders had really begun. 1250m of asphalt with an average gradient of 5.3% and a maximum gradient of 13%. A pussy cat. This is the first time it's been climbed from this side. It's usually much later in the race too. It's longer up this side and a much more even gradient. At the top of climb which wasn't difficult at all there was yet another feed stop.

This is where Chris and I lost Steve as he ploughed on and I stopped to wring the water out my gloves in Kluisbergen. At this point we were in a shop doorway shaking with the cold. It was scary to see Chris so cold and not being able to text Steve because his fingers didn't work. We decided to take a detour to find a cafe which had some bikes outside (people had already given up, a lot of them locals) to get some hot coffee and warm up a little. After the third checkpoint we came to climb 5, the cobbled Oude Kwaremont and this is where I gave up.

This stretch of cobbles seemed to go on forever at 2200m and an average gradient of 4%. My head felt like it was going to separate from my spinal cord. There were quite a few people lining the route but even this and the caricatures of the local favourites at the side of the road didn't make me want to carry on. The weather had broken my spirit and I hated the cobbles and just wanted to be out of it. It's not my ideal way to pack; no team car by the side of the road just a 60km ride back to Ninove for the car without a map. Another downpour, a stop for a puncture and some cyclo cross over a road that was being dug up added to our enjoyment on this last stretch. My cleat also got so full of mud that I couldn't clip in for the last 30km. We got back to the car at about 5.30 and went to the finish village to wait for our guys to come in. It was a long wait, with the final two rolling in when it was almost dark.

So after a couple of days of feeling disappointed, mixed with relief that it's all over after a long time in the pipeline it's a bit crap to be the only one who didn't finish. I sort of always thought I would. The funny thing is that the distance was never a problem. I did 200km in the end and I wasn't that tired. I wasn't prepared for the rain and the cold and had been lulled into a false sense of security after seeing Chris complete the event last year in the 20 degree sunshine. And the cobbles were just something else. I hated them and I think they hated me.

The worst part is that I will have to go back next year to put it to bed. But that's a long way off. I now have my racing season to concentrate on, which kicked off at Chertsey yesterday with a respectable 6th place in the women's race and 4 BC points. Next I have a 25 mile time trial at the end of the month and a full race programme for May, including a two day stage race in the Women's National Team Series for Surrey League and the Women's South East Regional Road Race Champs.