Bloody hell that was hard!

I raced with the VWF today in Appels which isn't very far at all from where I stay, the VWF races are in my opinion are always the hardest, better fields with much more depth. There was a race with the WAOD which turned out to a one hour race two age groups combined on a course that I've already mentioned I don't particularly like, so I made the right choice from that point of view.

The Appels race was a more 'proper' 60km affair over 8 laps, I think I've already said that the only other time I have raced this particular course I podiumed and was really close to the win.  So I turned up today thinking well I've had a couple of good races, not expecting a win or anything but thinking I should be able to acquit myself OK.

I was slightly surprised on the line, there were over 70 starters, I'm more used to 30-40, and this course has a good deal of narrow roads that make it all but impossible to move up in those sections. I started near the front, clipped in quickly and let down the finish straight, that was the only time I was at the front! By the time we had done half a lap I was thinking that I'll be lucky to get to half way, so fast and intense was the racing.  There were four corners that required a full on jump to get out of and hold the wheel, there was one corner I just kept getting wrong, the corner itself wasn't that bad but it was the broken nature of the apex and a dreaded gap in the concrete road coming out of it if you were millimetres off the optimum line, sods law said that I had to recover by a full on effort into the wind to recover the wheel in front.

By the time we got to the end of lap two I was still thinking that 4 laps would be good, but I had made the first selection of thirty or so, just by the skin of my teeth, second last wheel! I managed to move up a little in the fastest section of the course to get a slightly better position. By now I had reverted to the corner technique that worked so well the first couple of years I came to Belgium, take the outside line to carry more speed and change down two cogs, of course its an approach which leaves you a bit open to riders bombing inside, which they do a lot. But at least it preserved my strength a little better, I guess if I rode a full season, my strength would build, most of these guys don't seem to change down.

I reached the half distance board, four laps to go, then was just thinking one more lap, one more lap, we got to two go and I thought I can finish this, we got the "Laatste Ronde' call and it suddenly occurred to me that I might as well sprint, moved up, moved up, sitting perfectly, six wheels back (I came off the wheels late the last time here),absolutely nailed the corner I had been having trouble with (finally), then got bombed rather badly , maybe even dangerously on the last corner, lost the wheel in front, big effort, back on the wheel.  300 metres out I'm following a wheel up the left hand gutter thinking this was great, then we were breaking hard, very hard. We had run into the slow moving bunch, or at least the non sprinting part of the bunch of the younger age race that  started in front of ours. By the time I cut right any chance of a good placing was gone but I did manage to sprint into the money just!