Death to CROSSWINDS.

I love the warm buzz I get from a bike race. The mix of endorphins, fatigue and increased blood flow throughout the body is most definitely my favorite feel-good cocktail. Crosswinds on the other hand lay in a category of hatred all it's own.

The Ardennes region of Belgium is an amazing place to race a bike. Not quite the mountains I thrive in but hilly nonetheless. The last three stages have been pretty wild averaging around 40+kph each. I've been jumping with all sorts of breakaway attempts but they've all been ill-timed with the actual move of the day going from a counter attack that I couldn't respond to because I was too blown from my own escape-attempts. I've been relegated to the peleton pretty much everyday. Yesterday was a double day with a 110k road stage in the a.m. and a 18k Time Trial in the p.m. Both were short and fast. The road stage was killer since we started at 9a.m. (12:30 normally) with cool mist as we flew through the narrow farm roads. The TT was actually kind of Bizarre since we raced across an old airport runway. It was super wide open and kind of surreal because of how wide and exposed it was. No planes around so I'm guessing it was closed for the race??

Today sucked thoroughly. I could tell this morning that my mind was wandering and my motivation waning from the race. This happens when you're not a factor in the GC and your hopes for a stage win are long gone after suffering in the pack for 3 days straight. So, when the first Crosswind section came @ about 10k into the 150k stage, I got dropped. As the caravan passed I was able to jump in and surf it with a few other unfortunate feather-weights all the way back to the pack. Not an easy task when you consider it's super fast motor-pacing with twenty different cars. In order to make it back you ride about two inches away from the car's rear bumper and hop from car to car until making the final leap to the back of the field. Highly stressful but a great rush! Anyway, I made it back on then got crushed in another nasty side wind section. I chased with a group of 15 or so for about 30 miles with the pack in sight but we never made it on. The green-flag car and the van with a broom tied to the back came by and that's all she wrote. Race over. I grabbed a musette from our feeder and proceeded to get lost trying to find the finish alone. L'epic!

Not quite sure what the travel plans are looking like at this moment but I may be heading back sometime next week since it doesn't look like the race schedule here in Europa is taking me to the mountains this trip. I'm psyched to experience WV in August. I plan on rockin' the Blackwater Bikes WV Championship race and then heading out to Wisconsin for Shequamegon in September.

-Nickska (that's what the Belgians call me)

Now to hang my computer out of the window to find a wi-fi signal to make this post...